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  Bangkok / AFP Thai prosecutors have charged a string of tour operators with ripping off Chinese tourists, police said on Thursday, as the kingdom cracks down on scams targeting their most lucrative visitors. China sends more people to Thailand than any other nation and tourism remains one of the few bright spots in the kingdom’s otherwise bleak economy. But complaints ...

  Istanbul / AFP The Turkish central bank on Thursday announced it was hiking its main interest rate by 50 basis points, in a bid to counter a drastic fall in the value of the lira. The monetary policy committee of the bank said the one-week repurchasing rate was being lifted to 8.0 percent from 7.5 percent, the first rate hike ...

  Beijing / AFP Coca-Cola workers in three Chinese cities have gone on strike after the US soft drinks giant announced it was selling its bottling interests in the country. Strikes and other labour protests have surged in recent years in China, where growth is slowing and parts of the economy are moribund. The beverage giant announced last week it was ...

  Mumbai / AFP The dollar hit a record high against the Indian rupee on Thursday as the US unit rockets against other global currencies on expectations of a rise in US interest rates. Trump’s victory last week lit a fire under the greenback as investors bet his big-spending tax-cutting plans will fan inflation and force the Federal Reserve to ramp ...

  New Delhi / AFP India’s former prime minister said Thursday the government’s shock move to withdraw all high-value notes from circulation would slow growth in the world’s fastest expanding major economy, calling it “legalised plunder”. Manmohan Singh, whose economic reforms are credited with rescuing the country from the brink of bankruptcy in the early 1990s, said the two-week-old scheme had ...

  Geneva / AFP The head of the World Trade Organization said on Thursday he had received no indication the United States would move to leave the WTO under Donald Trump’s administration. “I haven’t had any indication from anybody that that could be the case,” WTO chief Roberto Azevedo told reporters. During his campaign, in which he repeatedly attacked global ...

  Frankfurt am Main / AFP Global markets face rising instability due to political uncertainty after the election of Donald Trump and with polls next year in key European countries, the European Central Bank warned on Thursday. “Risks of global asset market corrections have intensified, partially due to political uncertainty and expected US policy changes,” the ECB said in its ...

  Athens / AFP Strikes hit Greece on Thursday against a new round of tax hikes and labour changes considered by the government under the country’s EU rescue deal. Civil servants, teachers, sailors and hospital doctors walked off the job to protest the new austerity measures currently negotiated with the country’s creditors. Some 6,500 people demonstrated in Athens in support ...

  Berlin / AFP The German economy has shrugged off the shock election of Donald Trump as US president, with business confidence holding at a two-year high and consumption expected to rise in December. “The economic upturn in Germany remains intact. The German economy seems to be unfazed by the election of Donald Trump as US President,” said the Munich-based ...

  London / AFP Official forecasts that Brexit will blow a £59-billion hole in the British government’s budget drew fire from eurosceptics on Thursday, and even finance minister Philip Hammond said there was a “high degree of uncertainty” about the numbers. Former cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith said the predictions from the government’s budget watchdog, the independent Office for Budget ...