Seoul / AFP South Korean firms which once operated factories in a now-shuttered joint economic zone in North Korea pleaded on Monday for urgent help from Seoul, saying they had lost more than $663 million. The South on February 10 announced the pullout from the Seoul-funded Kaesong industrial complex in protest at North Korea’s latest nuclear and long-range missile tests. ...

BEIJING / AP China’s premier told visiting U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew on Monday his government is pressing ahead with painful reforms to shrink bloated coal and steel industries that are a drag on its slowing economy and ruled out devaluing its currency as a short-cut to boosting exports. Premier Li Keqiang’s comments to Lew on Monday were in line ...

New Delhi / Bloomberg India will make a one-time offer to Vodafone Group Plc and Cairn Energy Plc to settle long-running disputes with the country’s tax authorities. “I propose a one-time scheme of dispute resolution for them,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in Parliament on Monday. “They can settle the case by paying only the tax arrears, in which case ...