World

For the first time ever, farmers the world over — all at the same time — are testing the limits of how little chemical fertilizer they can apply without devastating their yields come harvest time. Early predictions are bleak. In Brazil, the world’s biggest soybean producer, a 20% cut in potash use could bring a 14% drop in yields, according to industry consultancy MB Agro. In Costa Rica, a coffee cooperative representing 1,200 small producers sees output falling as much as 15% next year if the farmers miss even one-third of normal application. In West Africa, falling fertilizer use will shrink this year’s rice and corn harvest by a third, according to the International Fertilizer Development Center, a food security non-profit group. “Probably farmers will grow enough to feed themselves. ...

The South China Sea region faces a heightened risk of conflict as it arms itself at an "alarming rate," an expert from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute told CNBC on Monday. It comes as worldwide military spending surpassed $2 trillion for the first time ever in 2021, he added. "The region is arming at an alarming rate. Countries are playing with each other in terms of action-reaction, where when one country increases [purchases], another country [also] increases, procuring more weapons," Nan Tian, a senior researcher in military expenditure at SIPRI, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia." Tian said China's increased military spending has created a "greater threat perception" in the neighborhood. This has "led to these neighboring countries such as Singapore, Japan, Australia an...

Right-wing former Finance Minister Rodrigo Chaves will take over as Costa Rica’s new president on May 8 after winning Sunday’s election, poised to oversee the challenge of reinvigorating the country’s battered economy. With 96% of the votes counted, Chaves held a close to 6 percentage point lead in provisional results over Jose Maria Figueres, the centrist former president, according to the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE). “I receive with the deepest humility this sacred decision of the Costa Rican people … This result for me is not a medal or a trophy, but an enormous responsibility,” the 60-year-old economist said to a crowd of supporters in the capital San Jose. Figueres congratulated Chaves and wished him well in his concession speech. “Costa Rica has voted and the people have spoken...

Google parent Alphabet on Tuesday (Apr 26) reported first-quarter revenue below expectations as YouTube sharply missed Wall Street targets and ad sales overall were pressured by the war in Ukraine and supply-chain and inflation concerns. The war in Ukraine that began during the quarter had an "outsized impact" on YouTube revenue because the company stopped ad sales in Russia and brand advertisers, particularly in Europe, pulled back on spending, Alphabet Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat told analysts. She also reported moderating growth in sales to direct-response advertisers on YouTube, and she added that cuts to app store fees to address competition concerns had wiped out gains in subscription revenue. The world's largest provider of search and video ads has been a big winner of the...

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's president lost his parliamentary majority on Tuesday (Apr 5) as former allies urged his resignation following days of street protests over the island nation's crippling economic crisis. Severe shortages of food, fuel and other essentials - along with record inflation and crippling power cuts - have inflicted widespread misery in the country's most painful downturn since independence from Britain in 1948. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's once-powerful ruling coalition is in turmoil after a string of defections, capped on Tuesday by the announcement of the new finance minister's resignation just one day after taking office. Public anger is at a fever pitch, with crowds attempting to storm the homes of several government figures since the weekend and large demonstrations...

“Expel the barbarians!” The cry rang out. Foreigners had “opened” the closed country, land of the gods. What had the shogun done about it? Nothing. Let the Japanese sword, instrument of Yamato-damashii (Japanese spirit) do its work, then. Saigo Takamori has been called the ‘last true samurai’ in Japanese history. | C. NAKAGAWA/PUBLIC DOMAIN Did not the shogun’s full title designate him “barbarian-subduing general”? Had not the incumbent’s remote ancestor, in the 1630s, closed the country to all foreigners, wrapping Japan in a splendid isolation worthy of its divine descent? If the shogun was impotent to fulfill his task, what was his claim to rule, in defiance of the divine emperor, who reigned but did not rule and called with rising stridency for “men of spirit” to rise to the nation’s ...

For all the furor about how Elon Musk might tilt U.S. political discourse after getting the keys to Twitter Inc., his biggest challenges may emerge across the Pacific. Asia, home to more than half the world’s population, is Twitter’s biggest growth opportunity and arguably a far thornier challenge. If the Tesla Inc. and SpaceX billionaire makes good on promises to scrap censorship, he’ll encounter a plethora of perplexing regulations — wielded by sometimes authoritarian governments and pushed to the limits by a horde of first-time internet users. The numbers alone suggest Musk’s biggest headaches lie abroad. Twitter’s monetizable daily active users numbered 179 million internationally — dwarfing the 38 million in the U.S. in 2021 — according to its latest annual report. As a public comp...

SEOUL: North Korea's isolated economy will not be insulated from global economic headwinds caused by the Ukraine war and the COVID-19 lockdowns in China, analysts said, with recently resumed border trade taking a hit and inflation exacerbating food shortages. Strict international sanctions ban or restrict wide categories of North Korean imports and exports, and the country locked down its border for years to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks. Natural disasters such as flooding have also taken a toll on harvests and damaged infrastructure. The trickle of trade and aid that resumed over the land border with China in January probably did not alleviate reported food shortages - and trade was suspended again last week as COVID-19 cases rose in China, analysts said. Satellite imagery shows goods sitt...

BEIJING : China's first-quarter retail sales lagged in key coastal economic regions with areas hit by COVID-19 outbreaks showing particular weakness, according to regional data, pointing to further sluggishness in consumption in the second quarter. China's two biggest provincial economies - Guangdong province in the south and Jiangsu province near Shanghai - posted retail sales growth of 1.7 per cent and 0.5 per cent, respectively, from a year earlier, according to recent data from local statistics bureaus, below nationwide retail sales growth of 3.3 per cent. Retail sales in Shanghai, China's most populous city, dropped 3.8 per cent as the metropolis battled its most serious COVID-19 outbreak. Cases of the Omicron variant began emerging in the financial powerhouse in March, and the impa...

WASHINGTON: The United States government is appealing a court ruling that controversially lifted a federal mask mandate on US public transport earlier this week, the Justice Department said Wednesday (Apr 20). After the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the country's top health body, assessed "that an order requiring masking in the transportation corridor remains necessary to protect the public health, the Department has filed a notice of appeal," spokesman Anthony Coley said. A US federal judge on Monday struck down the COVID-19 mask mandate, stating that it exceeded the CDC's statutory authority. Policymakers in Washington had decided just the prior week to extend it through May 3. Although the public has a "strong interest" in combating the spread of COVID-19, the mask ...