Canada’s bank regulator, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, on Tuesday raised the capital requirement level for ‘systemically important’ banks in the country by 25 basis points, to 2%. Source: Reuters
Economics
- U.S. industrial production fell in April, dragged by a big drop in factory output as production of autos and auto parts continued to slide.
- The Federal Reserve says industrial output — reflecting total production at factories, utilities and mines — dropped 0.5% in April.
- Industrial production also fell 0.5% in February.
“The main installations have been completed, the shut-off valves have been installed, so we can assume that the project will be completed by the end of 2019,” said project spokesman Jens Müller. Source: The Local Deutschland
Russia’s state-owned gas giant Gazprom will start filling the Power of Siberia (Sila Sibiri) natural gas pipeline that connects Russia to China from September 1, Gazprom Transgaz Tomsk said in its corporate magazine on March 14, as cited by Prime. Source: Intellinews
Index provider MSCI Inc. said it would quadruple the contribution of mainland Chinese companies’ to its benchmarks, a move that makes shares in Shanghai and Shenzhen all but unignorable for many international investors. Source: MarketWatch
Japan’s industrial output contracted in November and partially reversed the previous month’s gain, while retail sales slowed sharply as increasing global risks drag on demand and threaten the country’s export-reliant economy. Source: Reuters
Earnings at China’s industrial firms in November dropped for the first time in nearly three years, as slackening external and domestic demand left businesses facing more strain in 2019 in a sign of rising risks to the world’s second-largest economy. Source: Reuters
- Relations between Ottawa and Beijing are at a turning point, according to former Canadian ambassador to China David Mulroney.
- ‘We are coming to the end of a long period during which China has been allowed to be a free rider,’ he says.
The U.S. Commerce Department said on Friday it was adding several Chinese companies and a government-owned institute involved in supercomputing with military applications to its national security “entity list” that bars them from buying U.S. parts and components without government approval. Source: Reuters
General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Chinese President Xi Jinping departed Friday for home after concluding a two-day state visit to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
China would like to offer as much help as possible to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to address its legitimate security and development concerns, President Xi said on Thursday. Source: China Daily
Italy’s active population is shrinking at a rate not seen since the days when World War One and a deadly pandemic were wiping out people by the thousands, the latest figures from the national statistics office show. Source: Italy
Russia is ready to help Iran with oil exports and its banking sector if the Instex European payment system is not launched, Interfax news agency cited Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Friday. Source: Reuters
This time last year the roughly half-a-million people who live in Cape Town were in a panic. Their city was three months away from becoming the first major metropolis to fully deplete its water sources, and as the saga unfolded, the whole world watched in earnest. Today, in Chennai – India’s sixth largest city – 4.6 million people have all but run out of water, and only now are we beginning to pay attention. Science: Alert
Three churches across east London were targeted in a series of arson attacks, according to church leaders. Archdeacon of West Ham, Elwin Cockett, said he was “shocked and saddened” by the vandalism and arson attacks at three churches yesterday (Wednesday, June 19) – St John’s church in Stratford, St Matthew’s in West Ham and Cann Hall Road Baptist Church in Leytonstone. Source: Guardian
At the end of an anti-drug operation police officers in a neighborhood of Bagnols-sur-Ceze (Gard), officials were violently attacked by about fifty individuals, including many young adolescents. Several police vehicles were heavily degraded. Source: Actu17
Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic said Thursday he was “99 per cent” sure a Paris summit aimed at reviving talks with Kosovo would be cancelled, as the former war foes remain stuck in an acrimonious diplomatic deadlock. Source Business Standarrt
General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Chinese President Xi Jinping sat down here Thursday for talks with Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
Xi is paying a two-day state visit to the neighboring country at the invitation of Kim, chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea and chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the DPRK. Source, People’s Daily
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte today slammed his Malaysian counterpart for creating “confusion” by criticising a decision to charge four people over the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.
Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had called the move by Dutch-led investigators to charge three Russians and a Ukrainian with murder for the 2014 disaster “ridiculous” and “politically motivated” against Moscow. Source Malay Mail
Turkey’s second drill ship Yavuz will operate in a borehole near Cyprus’ Karpas peninsula, to the northeast of the island, for around three months and reach a depth of 3,300 metres (3,609 yards), Energy Minister Fatih Donmez said on Thursday. Source: Ekathimerini
he Bundesbank president has in the past opposed the ECB’s bond purchasing programmes, which were implemented during the region’s financial crisis to alleviate strains on the economy and financial system. But he told German weekly Die Zeit on Wednesday that the programmes fell within the central bank’s mandate. Source: The Irish Time
Speaking to CNBC Wednesday, ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos added to Draghi’s comments and outlined some possible measures the central bank could implement. The ECB foresees “lingering softness” in the short term, in particular due to geopolitical factors and trade conflicts. The European Central Bank’s (ECB) vice president said another large bond-buying program could be an option if inflation in the region doesn’t reach its intended target. Source: CNBC
The US central bank has opened the door to an interest rate rise, in a shift in guidance that follows criticism by President Donald Trump. The Federal Reserve left rates on hold, but said uncertainties about the economic outlook could force its hand. According to the vote, one Fed policymaker advocated an immediate cut, something the president has called for. Source: BBC
The European Central Bank (ECB) chief Mario Draghi pledged to boost inflation if it continued to fall short of ECB’s intended targets, signaling a major policy reversal on Tuesday. Addressing an ECB forum in Portugal, Draghi said that “additional stimulus will be required” if inflation remained low. He also said that “further cuts in policy interest rates remain part of our tools.” Source: Deutsche Welle
Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said on Tuesday Rome would press ahead with a plan to settle overdue state payments by issuing mini-bills unless a better solution was put forward.
The mini-bills would be “a tool to pay state debts towards families and suppliers. If there is a smarter way of doing this someone should say so, otherwise we’ll stick to it,” Salvini said on the sidelines of a conference in Rome. Source: Reuters
Construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline has been completed for 58.7% of its total length, the Russian gas holding said on Monday. “Construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline continues. 1,441 km of the gas pipeline were laid on the bottom of the Baltic Sea by now – 58.7% of its total length,” Gazprom says. Source Tass.
Germany’s economy “should shrink slightly” in the second quarter of 2019, the country’s central bank Bundesbank said in its monthly report published here on Monday. “Special effects that contributed to a noticeable rise in gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter (of the current year) are either expiring or being reversed,” the report said. Source Xnhuanet
Deutsche Bank is planning to overhaul its trading operations by creating a so-called bad bank to hold tens of billions of euros of non-core assets, a source close to the matter said on Monday. Source: Reuters
The Japanese owner of a tanker attacked in the Gulf of Oman claimed Friday that it was struck by a flying projectile, contradicting reports by U.S. officials and the military on the source of the blast. Source: NBC
Reports from Russian media indicate that before the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum representatives from Huawei have met with the Minister of digital development and communications of Russia to discuss the possibility of using Aurora OS on future Huawei smartphones.
Aurora OS is a version of Sailfish OS in majority ownership by Russian state telecom Rostelecom and designated for the Russian market. Aurora OS is the only officially approved OS in Russia for use by government agencies and Russia plans to replace all other devices used by the state with 8 million Aurora-running smartphones in the future. Source: Nokiamob
