Beijing / AFP Thousands of miners in China’s coal-rich northeast have gone on strike over months of unpaid wages, amid fears of mass layoffs as the government seeks to restructure lumbering state-owned industries. Social unrest is anathema to China’s Communist leaders, making the threat of worker discontent a disincentive to the hard choices analysts see as necessary to reform the …

Tokyo / AFP The Australian dollar hit an eight-month high Monday as commodity-linked currencies got a boost on the back of a rise in global equity markets, with investors focusing on a string of central bank meetings. The Aussie currency bought 75.94 US cents in afternoon Tokyo trading, its highest level since July, while the New Zealand and Canadian dollars …

YOKOHAMA / AP Toyota Motor Corp. is responding to the main criticism of fuel cell cars, that making the hydrogen for the fuel is not clean, with plans to help make the hydrogen using wind power. Fuel cells are zero-emission, running on the power created when hydrogen combines with oxygen in the air to make water. But to have a …