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Luke Hunt / The Diplomat It’s hardly a secret that much of Southeast Asia is in drought, that Laos has bitterly upset its neighbours with its overly-ambitious dam construction plans, or that the once Western-backed Mekong River Commission (MRC) has been reduced to a shell of its former self. It’s a difficult situation, pushed along by a robust social debate ...

Dhaka / Bloomberg Bangladesh’s government lashed out at the central bank in a rare public split as tensions escalate after hackers stole about $101 million from its foreign reserves. Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith vowed to take action against Bangladesh Bank after it failed to inform the government immediately when the funds went missing from an account with the ...

Bangkok / DPA The National Health Security Office (NHSO) has planned a budget of 1.89 billion baht (US$53.78 million) for vaccination purposes in the coming fiscal year. If the budget gets the green light, hundreds of thousand girls will get human papillomavirus vaccines (HPV) to boost their protection against cervical cancer, one of the nation’s major killers. “We have planned ...

Bloomberg Back in 2010, when U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne was kicking off his fiscal squeeze, he rarely tired of saying how his “credible’’ plans gave the Bank of England flexibility on policy. Six years later and the story hasn’t changed much. Cornered by his own pledge to post surpluses from 2020, Osborne must keep tightening the purse ...

Bloomberg Industrial production in the euro area opened 2016 with its strongest monthly performance in more than six years, boosted by energy and capital goods. Output jumped 2.1 percent in January from December, helped by growth in Germany, France and Italy, the Eurostat statistics office in Luxembourg said on Monday. From a year earlier, production rose 2.8 percent, the biggest ...

Bloomberg Here’s a little known fact: Norwegian banks may soon need to contend with interest rates even deeper below zero. While the key policy rate is at 0.75 percent, the rate on excess reserves fell below zero in September and is now at minus 0.25 percent. With 18 out of 20 economists surveyed by Bloomberg predicting another cut in the ...

Brussels / AFP The EU said on Monday it was looking for support from the European Investment Bank at crisis talks in Brussels aimed at helping dairy and other farmers hit hard by plunging prices. Around 100 farmers protested as agriculture ministers gathered just six months after Brussels announced a €500-million emergency package to tackle a crisis partly blamed on ...

Bloomberg A British exit from the European Union may not be an immediate shock to London’s standing as a global financial hub. The City, after all, just got a vote of confidence from Europe’s biggest exchange operators, who are considering a 20 billion pound tie-up that would place its holding company in London. Deutsche Boerse AG and London Stock Exchange ...

Bloomberg Even in the mighty U.S. Treasury market, bond traders are taking their cues from central bankers in Europe and Japan. With Mario Draghi and Haruhiko Kuroda pressing ahead with their grand monetary experiments, negative yields in Germany and Japan are exerting greater and greater influence over U.S. Treasuries. Overnight trading of Treasury futures has exploded, reaching levels not seen ...

Bloomberg Gazit-Globe Ltd., which manages commercial real estate worth about $21 billion in more than 20 countries, is extending its Brazilian business even as the country suffers the worst recession in over a century and the streets swell with protesters clamoring for mass political change. The company will invest $1 billion this year to expand existing shopping centers in Sao ...