World

Many governments in Asia remain ambivalent about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Japan, in contrast, has been full-throated in its support for the besieged country. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has applauded Tokyo, telling the Japan’s Parliament that “You were the first in Asia to put real pressure on Russia to restore peace.” Tokyo should use its influence and its political capital to persuade countries sitting on the fence to join it and support a global order that is under attack. There are multiple reasons that governments in Asia and elsewhere have refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. For some, there is anxiety about taking sides in a geopolitical contest between the West and Moscow (and China). There are doubts about the degree to which Western positions reflec...

Pods, operated by Carbfix, containing technology for storing carbon dioxide underground, in Hellisheidi, Iceland, on Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2021. Startups Climeworks AG and Carbfix are working together to store carbon dioxide removed from the air deep underground to reverse some of the damage CO2 emissions are doing to the planet. Photographer: Arnaldur Halldorsson/Bloomberg via Getty Images Online payments-technology provider Stripe is teaming up with several other companies, including Google parent Alphabet and Facebook parent Meta, to commit nearly $1 billion in spurring the carbon-capture market. On Tuesday the companies announced the creation of Frontier, which plans to purchase $925 million worth of permanent carbon removal from companies that are developing the technology over the next...

TOKYO :Japan's household spending rose for a second consecutive month year-on-year in February, helped by a flattering comparison with last year's sharp pandemic-induced slump but the consumer sector is now facing growing headwinds from soaring prices. Households cut spending from the previous month as pandemic curbs, rapid food and fuel price rises and the coronavirus kept wallets shut, casting a shadow over the world's third-largest economy. In a sign of trouble for consumer sentiment, real wage growth stagnated in February as global inflationary pressures weighed on household purchasing power. "Prices will outpace wage gains from now on, so consumption will be on a sluggish trend," said Takeshi Minami, chief economist at Norinchukin Research Institute. "While service spending is exp...

A former police officer who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was found guilty on all six charges at trial in a verdict reached Monday. Thomas Robertson, who was an officer in Rocky Mount, Virginia, when he entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, was arrested last January and soon after fired by the city. The outcome was another win for the Justice Department, which is overseeing an unprecedented investigation into the hundreds of people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6. Robertson was the second Jan. 6 defendant to take his case to a jury, after Guy Reffitt was convicted on all counts last month. In the Robertson case, jurors deliberated Friday afternoon and all day Monday before reaching a verdict just before 5:30 p.m. Jacob Fracker, a fellow police officer who Robertson called "son," testif...

HONG KONG :China is encouraging long-term investors to buy more equities and major shareholders of listed firms to increase their holdings when stocks slump, in a bid to stabilise a stock market rocked by a worsening COVID-19 outbreak. The government will also facilitate corporate financing in COVID-hit areas and urge state shareholders of listed firms to actively buy undervalued stocks, the country's securities watchdog said in a statement on its website late on Monday. China's benchmark CSI300 index fell 3.1per cent on Monday, the biggest drop in a month, as a lockdown in Shanghai and other parts of the country threatens economic growth. The market dipped further on Tuesday morning to a near four-week low, bringing this year's loss to 17per cent, as investors appeared unmoved by the a...

TOKYO :The Bank of Japan on Monday cut its assessment for most regional economies in the country and its governor warned of "very high uncertainty" over the fallout from the Ukraine crisis, underscoring heightening risks to the economic recovery. The downgrade highlights a growing concern among policymakers over the pain from rising commodity costs, and raises the chance that the central bank will cut its growth forecasts in fresh projections due this month. "There's very high uncertainty on how developments in Ukraine could affect Japan's economy and prices," BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda told a meeting of the bank's branch managers. A senior BOJ official also warned on Monday that excessive volatility in yen moves could hurt businesses, signalling the bank's alarm over the currency's s...

LVIV: US President Joe Biden said for the first time that Moscow's invasion of Ukraine amounts to genocide, as President Vladimir Putin said that Russia would "rhythmically and calmly" continue its operation and achieve its goals. "Yes, I called it genocide because it has become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of being able to be Ukrainian and the evidence is mounting," Biden told reporters as he prepared to board Air Force One on Tuesday (Apr 12). Biden has repeatedly called Putin a war criminal, but delivering a speech at an ethanol plant in Iowa earlier on Tuesday the US president escalated his rhetoric to accuse Russia of genocide. "We'll let the lawyers decide internationally whether or not it qualifies, but it sure seems that way to me." Russia ...

Growing calls for the European Union to ban Russian oil imports may be overlooking a crucial flaw in its strategy to punish Moscow: India. The South Asian nation is becoming a huge buyer of Russian oil, snapping up crude cargoes that are going unwanted by European importers. And with several European countries and oil majors self-sanctioning Russian purchases and starving themselves of fuel, India is already profiting from selling diesel onward to Europe. If Europe adopts official sanctions on Russian crude and fuel, prices will likely surge, and India could profit even more from refining Russian oil to fuels it then sells to Europe for more money. It’s a plot twist that reflects how complex it is for the EU to untangle itself from Russian energy imports. Though the bloc is making stren...

LONDON : Investors had hoped 2022 would be the year when the market recovery from COVID-19 finally got cemented and life started to feel a little more normal. Boy were they wrong. Russia's invasion of Ukraine combined with supercharged global inflation have ignited talk of new geopolitical and economic world orders, setting some staggering milestones in the process. A $10 trillion wipeout in world stocks followed by a $9 trillion recovery; a rout in bond markets; what is shaping up to be the strongest commodities rally since World War I; and the fastest rise in global interest rates in decades. Add to that the world's largest country being gouged out the global financial system, the biggest sovereign credit rating downgrade ever seen and pastings for Japan's yen and Chinese stocks and t...

Efforts by Chinese President Xi Jinping to regain the trust of international investors face serious hurdles. Xi’s government showed little regard for those same investors last year when it unleashed a series of crackdowns on the country’s most profitable companies — in a bid to curb "disorderly capital” and ensure the firms didn’t become more powerful than the Communist Party. The result was confusion and punishing losses for shareholders. Regulators have yet to follow through on promises made this month to ensure policies are more transparent and predictable. Wariness toward Chinese assets has only increased since Russia attacked Ukraine just weeks after a Beijing summit reinforced the close ties between Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Global investors feared the Biden adminis...