North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is likely hoping to gain certain concessions from the world’s largest economy when he sits down with President Donald Trump on June 12. While many in the international community praise the diplomatic breakthrough, which follows years of repeated missile launches and nuclear tests from the rogue state, a deep-rooted skepticism […]

Japan and the United States are working to hold their first bilateral trade talks under a new framework in July, Japan’s Foreign Ministry said, in a sign Washington may ratchet up pressure on Tokyo to open up its markets. U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed in April to set up […]

The Australian economy has gone without a recession for 26 straight years and is still going strong, but the same can’t be said about the performance of its currency. Official data on Wednesday pointed to Australia starting 2018 on a strong note: Its gross domestic product expanded by 3.1 percent year-over-year in the first quarter, […]

Japan’s economy contracted at an annualized rate of 0.6 percent in January-March, unchanged from a preliminary estimate issued last month, revised gross domestic product data from the Cabinet Office showed on Friday. The result compared with the median estimate of a 0.4 percent annualized contraction in a Reuters poll of economists. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, […]

Asian stocks appeared set to pull back on the last day of the trading week, with futures pointing to a lower open for markets in Japan and Australia after U.S. markets closed mixed. Nikkei futures traded in Chicago were lower by 0.43 percent compared to the index’s previous close. Australian SPI futures eased 0.13 percent […]

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani for the first time announced an unconditional ceasefire with the Taliban on Thursday, coinciding with the end of the Muslim fasting month, but excluded other militant groups such as Islamic State. The decision came after a meeting of Islamic clerics from across the country this week who declared a fatwa, or […]

Nearly 10 million Chinese students have been preparing for this Thursday and Friday since kindergarten. Gaokao, China’s university entrance exam, directly determines which universities students can go to. To some extent, it determines whether they will become blue-collar or white-collar workers later in their lives. “Even though delivery guys can make 8,000 yuan to 10,000 […]

Regulators need to do more to allow new technologies that could help in the fight againstmoney laundering, as financial institutions are struggling with ever-growing compliance costs, an Asia finance industry group said on Thursday. Banks have been slapped with vast sums for not preventing money being laundered through their accounts, and the call for action […]

Rescuers scoured a lava- and ash-ravaged landscape in Guatemala for a third straight day on Wednesday in search of survivors and victims of Fuego volcano’s calamitous eruption, which has killed at least 99 people. Volcan de Fuego, which means “Volcano of Fire,” exploded on Sunday in its most devastating eruption in more than four decades, […]

Chinese exchanges are wooing international commodities traders in a bid to overtake longstanding benchmark prices — many of which are set in Europe and the U.S. — reflecting ambitious plans by the world’s second-largest economy to expand its influence overseas. In the last few months, Chinese exchanges have opened up the trading of derivatives products […]