HANOI (AFP) – North Korea’s Foreign Minister kicked off an official visit to Vietnam on Friday (Nov 30) as the hermit nation seeks to learn lessons from the one-party state’s post-war economic reform that has transformed the communist nation into one of Asia’s fastest growing economies. Mr Ri Yong Ho is expected to meet leaders […]
HONG KONG (AFP) – Chinese social media giant Weibo is making a push into foreign markets and is considering launching new products in different languages, a senior executive told AFP, brushing off concerns over censorship and credibility. The Twitter-style platform has long been prominent in China, known for its heavy censorship and Great Firewall, but […]
BEIJING (Reuters) – China has extradited a corruption suspect for the first time from a European Union member state, the country’s top graft buster said on Friday (Nov 30), getting back from Bulgaria a former local official wanted for taking bribes. A key plank of President Xi Jinping’s sweeping anti-corruption campaign has been the drive […]
BEIJING (Reuters) – Growth in China’s vast manufacturing sector stalled for the first time in over two years in November as new orders shrank, adding pressure on Beijing ahead of high-stakes trade talks between presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump this weekend. The official Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), released on Friday, fell to 50 in […]
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese fund managers increased their overall exposure to stocks and trimmed their bond holdings in November, a Reuters poll showed, brushing off October’s equity slump. Respondents on average allocated 39.1 percent of their model portfolios to stocks in November, compared with 38.7 percent in October. While concerns such as the U.S.-China trade […]
TOKYO (Reuters) – No meeting has been set yet between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his French counterpart, a Japan’s government spokesman said, after media reported that President Emmanuel Macron had requested a meeting to discuss the Nissan-Renault alliance. Abe and Macron will both attend a G20 summit meeting in Buenos Aires starting on […]
Spiders are not noted for their maternal bonding, with some matricidal spiderlings even devouring their mothers shortly after hatching. But the ant-mimicking jumping spider is rewriting the natural history books after scientists discovered it produces milk and suckles its young for nearly 40 days. Much like baby mammals nursing at the teats of their mothers, […]
China has halted the work of the scientist who claims to have created the world’s first genetically edited babies, and says it will investigate. He Jiankui caused outrage earlier this week when he told a genome summit he had altered the genes of twin baby girls so they could not contract HIV. His statement has […]
Indonesian ride-hailing firm Gojek has launched a beta version of its app here. Beta is tech talk for prototype, which means changes and modifications may be in the offing. The app went live yesterday afternoon, and indications are that a full launch will be held early next year. During the beta phase, only rides beginning […]
Crowds of angry Hindu devotees have prevented women from entering one of Hinduism’s holiest temples despite a historic Supreme Court ruling. Crowds of agitated protesters in Kerala attacked female devotees, many of whom turned back as a result. Several people including an old woman were injured as crowds threw stones at vehicles and attacked police […]