New Zealand prime minister-designate Jacinda Ardern said on Tuesday her new Labour-led government planned to review and reform the central bank act. Labour has already said it wants to add employment to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s mandate, alongside inflation, to give it a dual target. New Zealand First, the junior partner in the […]
Read moreOne of the world’s most secretive states is going green — for national security reasons. Pyongyang may be interested in developing algae as “a strategic resource,” according to a recent note on 38 North, a website focused on North Korea that’s part of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Algae, plantlike organisms that […]
Read moreU.S. stocks lost steam while the dollar edged down from three-month highs ahead of Asia’s Tuesday trading day. Stocks on Wall Street closed lower on Monday as the most packed week of earnings season kicked off, with a fall in shares of General Electric weighing on sentiment. The Dow Jones industrial average shed 0.23 percent, […]
Read moreChina’s exports to North Korea jumped an annual 20.9 percent in the first three quarters of 2017, customs data showed. From January to September, Asia’s largest economy exported $2.55 billion in value to the pariah state, the data showed, according to Reuters. Imports from North Korea during that nine-month period actually fell 16.7 percent, according […]
Read moreChina’s escalating property prices have long been a concern for Beijing as it balances growth targets with social stability. Now, economic signals are giving the go-ahead to authorities for sustained efforts to cool off the real estate market. On Monday, China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported average new home prices in the country’s 70 major […]
Read moreJapanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won a key parliamentary election despite broad unpopularity among voters. But the electoral triumph isn’t expected to boost his ratings. A lack of a strong opposition helped his ruling coalition government, led by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, retain its super majority in the lower house of parliament on Sunday. […]
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Governments are working to slow the movement of Chinese money into Australian assets. Australia has lowered incentives for foreign buyers, and the state of New South Wales doubled taxes on foreign buyers to 8 percent of the purchase price. For its part, China’s government has recently implemented restrictions on the outflow of cash from the […]
Read moreThe dollar spiked to three-month highs against the yen and futures indicated a higher open for the benchmark Nikkei 225 index following a snap election in Japan on Sunday. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling coalition secured a two-thirds “super majority” after winning 312 out of 465 seats available at Sunday’s election, Reuters said, citing […]
Read moreTens of thousands of people across Japan were advised to evacuate, hundreds of flights were cancelled and train services were disrupted on Sunday as a typhoon roared toward the coast, bringing heavy rain and strong winds on a national election day. Typhoon Lan, classified as an intense Category 4 storm by the Tropical Storm Risk […]
Read moreHeavy rain and powerful winds are expected to lash large areas of Japan on Sunday as a strong typhoon sweeps ashore, possibly hindering voter turnout in a national election. Typhoon Lan was classified as an intense Category 4 storm on Saturday, with winds of up to 250 km/h (156 mph), according to the Tropical Storm […]
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