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Bloomberg North Koreans and outside observers expecting leader Kim Jong Un to make his traditional address on New Year’s morning instead were handed a new script that enhanced his unpredictable image. North Korea opened 2020 by issuing a “Report on the Fifth Plenary Meeting of the Seventh Central Committee of the Workers,” an almost 4,400-word text that outlined what Kim ...

Bloomberg Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari reaffirmed he will leave office in 2023, addressing concerns he wants to change the constitution to seek a third term. Buhari, 77, won a second four-year mandate in March, the last he’s permitted under the constitution of Africa’s largest oil producer. With speculation already mounting over who the ruling All Progressives Council and opposition People’s ...

Bloomberg Australia scrambled military helicopters and ships on Wednesday to help thousands of people cut off by wildfires raging across the southeast as the death toll from the national crisis continued to climb. Some 4,000 holiday-makers and locals remain stranded in the remote township of Mallacoota in Victoria state after a bushfire tore through the community, forcing people to shelter ...

Bloomberg The Federal Reserve may have succeeded in thwarting major year-end turmoil in funding markets, but 2020 is likely to bring a whole new set of concerns. The US central bank has been injecting liquidity into markets through repurchase-agreement operations since mid-September in a bid to keep control of short-end rates. Earlier this month the Fed ramped up its offerings ...

Bloomberg European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde’s promise to learn German has prompted some suggestions on what her first important word should be — including from a German colleague. In response to an informal Twitter poll, incoming Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel suggested Lagarde should start with “Vertrauen,” or “trust.” Schnabel didn’t elaborate on her word choice in the ...

Bloomberg The Taiwan dollar strengthened past 30 versus the greenback for the first time in 18 months. The currency rose as much as 0.6% to 29.965 per dollar on and closed at 30.106 in Taipei. The Taiwan dollar has climbed about 3.4% in the second half as the best performer among the world’s major currencies. Taiwan’s financial markets were expected ...

Bloomberg China’s central bank said it’ll keep monetary policy flexible and work to lower funding costs for businesses as the economy still faces strong headwinds. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) will work to ensure the transmission of monetary policy and use market-focused reform mechanisms to lower the real interest rate for loans, according to a quarterly report. It will ...

Bloomberg The battered euro is finishing the year strongly and setting up the case for better performance next year. The common currency rose to its strongest level versus the dollar since August and cross-currency basis swaps — a measure of demand for funding purposes — climbed to the highest on record, Bloomberg Generic Prices show. While both moves mirrored a ...

Bloomberg China’s central bank will increase the supply of cheap funding to banks by cutting the amount of cash they need to hold as reserves, a move aimed at putting a floor under economic growth in 2020. The required reserve ratio for commercial lenders will be lowered by 50 basis points from Jan. 6, unleashing about 800 billion yuan ($115 ...

Bloomberg Japan is expected to speak with Lebanon through diplomatic channels about Carlos Ghosn fleeing Tokyo for the Middle East country, according to a senior Japanese government official. The comment on Wednesday would mark some of the earliest indications about how Tokyo plans to respond after the former head of Nissan Motor Co and Renault SA snuck out Japan where ...