Sydney / AFP Australia’s central bank on Tuesday held interest rates at a record low of 1.50 percent and indicated what analysts called a “wait and see” approach to future monetary policy easing despite a run of soft inflation figures. The country is transitioning away from a resources investment boom that has helped the economy mark a quarter of …

  London / AFP Bank of England (BOE) governor Mark Carney put an end to speculation over his future by announcing he would extend his contract for one year to 2019 to help secure an “orderly transition” to Brexit. The Canadian will not take up his option to leave in 2018, but at the same time has declined to serve …

  AFP Standard Chartered Plc reported third-quarter profit that fell short of analyst estimates as revenue declined at all four of its divisions. Adjusted pretax profit was $458 million compared with a loss of $139 million a year earlier, the London-based lender said in a statement on Tuesday. That missed the $520 million average estimate of six analysts surveyed by …

  Bloomberg Barclays Plc’s decision to cut 25 percent of its London office space highlights the growing risk that tenants will be in short supply for developers of buildings being constructed. The lender is seeking to sublease offices in the Canary Wharf financial district to the UK government, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. They asked not …

  Bloomberg Indonesia’s central bank Governor Agus Martowardojo was questioned by the nation’s anti-corruption agency as a witness in a probe relating to a government contract that was awarded during his time as finance minister. Martowardojo appeared at the offices of the agency known as KPK on Tuesday, Andiwiana Septonarwanto, deputy director of communications at Bank Indonesia, said in a …

  Washington / AFP After a seemingly endless barrage of cyberattacks, debate is heating up on hitting back at hackers where it hurts. Amid calls for ways to punish and deter hackers without sparking a so-called “cyber war,” a panel of experts assembled by the George Washington University Center for Cyber and Homeland Security said in a report that US …

  Relaxnews The 2016 edition of the SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) show, the highly-anticipated automotive trade and specialty products event, open its doors on Tuesday in Las Vegas, and once again, it will showcase how to take vehicles from the ordinary to the extraordinary. In another collaboration with Hyundai, ARK Performance went through its parts bin to come up …

  San Francisco / AFP The tablet market shrank in the recently-ended quarter, as shipments of bargain-priced computers with detachable screens hit a record high, according to market analysis firm International Data Corporation. Tablet makers shipped 43 million units in the quarter, down 14.7 percent from the number shipped in the same period a year earlier, according to an IDC …

  Bloomberg Microsoft Corp. is offering up a new server design that it hopes will influence the rest of the data-center industry, a move that keeps pressure on hardware vendors like Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. to lower the price of cloud infrastructure. An earlier design by Microsoft now accounts for 90 percent of the company’s data center server purchases, underscoring …

  Emirates Business BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s biggest miner, is hot for electric vehicles. The Melbourne-based resources giant, which mines metals and coal used for both steelmaking and fueling power plants, is increasingly optimistic that there’ll be a surge in demand for some of its products as consumers opt for electric vehicles, or EVs, and other renewable energy technologies. …