Seoul / AFP North Korea on Monday fired five short-range missiles into the sea off its east coast—the latest in a series of launches ordered by leader Kim Jong-un amid rising military tensions. They came just days after the North test-fired two medium-range missiles in what the UN Security Council described as an “unacceptable” violation of UN resolutions. Tensions have …

Jakarta / AFP A Chinese envoy called on Indonesia on Monday to release eight crew members of a Chinese fishing boat detained during a maritime confrontation, after he was summoned by furious Indonesian ministers. Jakarta says Indonesian vessels were on Saturday trying to detain a Chinese fishing boat operating illegally near Indonesia’s Natuna Islands in the South China Sea, when …

The Gambia, formerly one of a handful of countries that recognized Taiwan, has officially resumed diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese and Gambian foreign ministers, Wang Yi and Neneh MacDouall-Gaye, signed a joint communique officially resuming diplomatic ties on March 17 in Beijing. Part of the communique, as is standard procedure for Beijing, had Gambia officially …

Recently, McDonald’s decided to raise wages for many of its hourly restaurant workers. The rise is modest, from about $9 to about $10, but already the company’s executives claim that they are seeing improvements in service quality: “It has done what we expected it to — 90 day turnover rates are down, our survey scores are up—we have more staff …

ABU DHABI / EMIRATES BUSINESS The Emirates Securities Market Index has decreased by -0.03% to close at 4484.64 points. Accordingly the Market Capitalization has lost AED 202.89 million attaining AED 727.47 billion. A total of 0.75 Billion Shares were traded with a total value of AED 0.95 billion during the trading session of 21-03-2016 through 8672 transactions. The number of companies which …

BLOOMBERG Volatility across global financial markets is at a two-month low as signs central banks will keep borrowing costs lower for longer to settle investor nerves that frayed at the start of the year. European shares slipped on Monday after a measure of global stocks posted the strongest close since Jan. 1 last week following five weeks of gains. The …

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia is telling international banks to publicly disclose financial statements for the first time as the kingdom’s regulator seeks to boost transparency. The Capital Markets Authority (CMA) is requiring financial institutions it regulates to publish the information on their websites from April 1, an official at the Riyadh-based regulator said in an e-mailed response to questions, without giving …

Bloomberg Egypt’s central bank is weighing tougher regulations on foreign-exchange dealers, part of a broader effort to crack down on the black market and to end a hard currency shortage that’s impeding economic growth. The bank wants to reduce the number of foreign-exchange bureaus from more than 140 and introduce measures to improve transparency, said a person familiar with the …

BLOOMBERG The Philippines will hold accountable any bank or banker found responsible or remiss in their duties in the $81 million cyber heist of Bangladeshi foreign reserves that wound up in the Southeast Asian nation’s financial system, officials said. “You can be assured that banks that fail to perform their responsibilities will be held accountable,” Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Deputy …

Bloomberg The European Central Bank (ECB) began charging banks interest on deposits in June 2014 to encourage them to lend more to companies and consumers. It hasn’t worked. Deposits at the ECB by euro-area banks in excess of required reserves have jumped six-fold since the introduction of negative interest rates, while lending within the currency bloc has barely budged. Of …