By Lucy Craymer WELLINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned of China’s “problematic behaviour” during a visit to the Pacific island nation of Tonga on Wednesday, citing Beijing’s militarisation of the South China Sea and what he called economic coercion. China’s growing presence in the region, which saw it sign a security pact…
(Reuters) -Jack Ma-backed Ant Group is planning a restructuring that will break off some non-core operations of its China financial-related business, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. The Alibaba Group affiliate is looking at excluding its blockchain, database management services and international businesses from a main entity that will be…
By Joyce Lee and Heekyong Yang SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea’s SK Hynix said on Wednesday the memory chip market was beginning to recover from a deep downturn amid robust artificial intelligence demand that helped it narrow its second-quarter operating loss from the prior quarter’s record. In particular, memory chip demand from corporate buyers stocking AI…
By Leika Kihara and Andrea Shalal TOKYO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Bank of Japan should start preparing for future monetary tightening by moving away from its yield control policy, the International Monetary Fund’s chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said on Tuesday. The remarks came ahead of the BOJ’s closely-watched meeting on Friday, where the board will release fresh…
(Reuters) – Myanmar’s military government may move ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi from prison to house arrest in the capital, Naypyitaw, two media outlets reported on Wednesday. The 78-year-old Nobel laureate has been in detention since her arrest in early 2021 when the military overthrew her elected government in a coup and unleashed a…
By Julia Harte and Nate Raymond (Reuters) -The U.S. Department of Education is investigating whether Harvard racially discriminates by favoring applicants with ties to donors and alumni in its admissions process, according to a letter from the agency. The department’s Office for Civil Rights opened the probe following a complaint filed earlier this month by…
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea will loosen loan regulations for homeowners having difficulty repaying “jeonse” deposits to tenants, for a year starting on Thursday, the financial regulator said. Jeonse refers to South Korea’s unique house renting scheme in which tenants put up a deposit typically worth as much as 70% of the home’s value, then…
By Chen Aizhu, Emily Chow and Andrew Hayley SINGAPORE/BEIJING (Reuters) – Policy reform in China will boost profit for city-gas distributors by letting them raise prices for residential sales above costs, after years of selling piped gas to households at a loss, according to utility officials and analysts. The scheme, which allows retail residential tariffs…
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Both Democratic and Republican senators expressed alarm on Tuesday about the potential for a malevolent use of artificial intelligence, focusing on the possibility of AI being used to create a biological attack. In a hearing before a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dario Amodei, chief executive of the AI company Anthropic,…
BEIJING (Reuters) -China’s securities regulator promised to deepen reforms in its capital markets and open them up further in the second half of this year, as part of moves to implement policy support pledged by top leaders of the country. The Politburo, a top decision-making body of the ruling Communist Party, promised on Monday to…
