KABUL: Two earthquakes shook Afghanistan on Tuesday (Sep 6), with one killing six people in the northeast of the country, officials said. The temblor early in the morning in northeastern Kunar province also injured nine people, according to Mohammad Nassim Haqqani, spokesperson for Afghanistan’s disaster ministry. The United States GeologicalContinue Reading
BEIJING: China has logged its hottest August since records began, state media reported Tuesday (Sep 6), following an unusually intense summer heatwave that parched rivers, scorched crops and triggered isolated blackouts. Southern China last month sweltered under what experts said may have been one of the worst heatwaves in globalContinue Reading
Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base — a facility in the Gulf of Thailand — has in recent years been the subject of interest from major powers competing for influence in Southeast Asia. China’s efforts to access the base first surfaced in July 2019 after the Wall Street Journal reported an alleged agreement allowing the Chinese military to use […]
The post Breaking down Cambodia’s naval base controversy appeared first on Asia Times.
Are COVID-19 tests and quarantine still needed? Here’s a look at the requirements across key Asian destinations, including Japan and South Korea.Continue Reading
On September 5, 2022, members of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party chose the next prime minister. Liz Truss defeated her rival Rishi Sunak in a vote of 160,000 or so party members. For years, China was a near irrelevance in UK politics. That changed when a range of crises raised China’s profile in a highly […]
The post UK’s Truss likely to pick a fight with China appeared first on Asia Times.
SINGAPORE: Taiwan has removed Singapore, Malaysia and a host of other countries from an initial list of nations announced as eligible for visa-free entry starting next week. On Monday (Sep 5), a table published online by Taiwan’s Bureau of Consular Affairs showed that visitors from Singapore and Malaysia among other countries wereContinue Reading
TOKYO – If you want to know what losing control of a monster you created looks like, Japanese monetary authorities offer a dramatic example.
For roughly 25 years now, since at least 1997, a weaker exchange rate has been the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s top policy tool. Twelve governments later, though, the yen’s drop to 140 to the dollar – a 22% loss this year – is more of an economic liability than a benefit.
In years past, a sliding yen was a boon for exports. Now, the weakest exchange rate since the late 1990s has Japan importing inflation amid surging prices of oil and other key commodities.
The yen’s plummet speaks to two even bigger problems. One is how it might kick off new currency skirmishes in Asia. Two is the Frankenstein-like threat facing the Bank of Japan and Ministry of Finance as they endeavor to halt the yen’s plunge toward 150.
The post Frankenstein yen vs Godzilla dollar in a FX horror show appeared first on Asia Times.
TAIPEI: Taiwan’s government expressed its condolences to China on Tuesday (Sep 6) for an earthquake in Sichuan province and said it was ready to send rescuers, in a sign of goodwill to Beijing despite weeks of military tensions. China, which claims democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory despite the strongContinue Reading
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Continuous heavy rain is considered unusual in September and the increasingly unpredictable weather pattern has depleted crop yield by about 20 per cent to 30 per cent.Continue Reading