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The yen rallied on Friday against a basket of major rivals, extending the gains for the third straight session against the dollar and hitting a week on haven demand after Israel launched air strikes against Iran.   The Bank of Japan is convening next week to discuss latest economic policies, with a less than 50% chance of a 0.25% rate hike.   The Price   The USD/JPY price fell 0.5% today to 142.79 yen per dollar, a week low, with a session-high at 143.52.   The yen rose 0.75% on Thursday against the dollar, marking the second profit in a…

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) is expected to hold the key policy rate at 11% in its upcoming meeting scheduled for Monday, market analysts noted. “While domestic macroeconomic indicators have improved significantly, particularly inflation and the external account, we believe, the central bank is likely to adopt a wait-and-see approach in light of emerging global risks and domestic policy adjustments,” Arif Habib Limited (AHL) said in its report. The MPC of the central bank will meet on June 16 to decide on the policy rate, the central bank announced on Thursday. The SBP…

A senior Philippine military official has revealed a soon-to-be-deployed strategy that would involve an army contingent to support law enforcement units on occupied islands in the South China Sea.Observers said the strategy would align with Manila’s policy shift from an internal to external defence posture aimed at protecting the country’s territorial waters. One expert, however, warned that it could lead to more aggressive moves by the Chinese navy and coastguard if Beijing were to view Manila’s plan as an escalation.The Philippine army’s chief, Lieutenant General Roy Galido, on Tuesday told reporters that his troops were now capable of rapid deployment…

The Ministry of Energy (Petroleum Division) has proposed amendments to the Petroleum Products (Petroleum Levy) Ordinance, 1961, to introduce new levies on fuel, specifically Carbon Levy and Petroleum Levy (PL) on furnace oil, petrol, and diesel. As per the summary prepared by the ministry for the consideration of the cabinet, under the ongoing International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme for Resilience and Sustainability Financing (RSF), the government has agreed for imposition of Carbon Levy on petrol, diesel and furnace oil along with imposition of Petroleum Levy (PL) on furnace oil. “This will include supplementary carbon levy levied through the PDL on…

The largest digital asset slid as much as 3 per cent on Friday morning in Singapore to dip below US$103,000 before paring losses, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.Second-ranked token ether had at one point shed about 7.6 per cent of its value.The sell-off came after explosions were heard in Tehran, according to local media.Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said he was declaring a special state of emergency due to Israel’s “pre-emptive strike against Iran”. Israel is anticipating a retaliatory drone and missile attack, Katz said.“Cryptocurrency is reacting negatively to news of Israel strikes in Iran, in line with major…

Israel’s attacks against Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities and assassinations of several of the regime’s leadership figures could pile pressure on Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei to drop his long-standing ideological opposition to Tehran’s construction of nuclear weapons.To arrive at that seminal moment, Tehran must first decide whether to carefully calibrate its response to the hundreds of Israeli attacks conducted overnight so as to avoid direct military intervention by the United States, according to analysts.Iran did so during its exchange of air attacks with Israel in April and October last year.But Middle East experts said Israel’s killing of Tehran’s two top military…

LONDON (AP) — Two burglars who plotted the heist of a $6.4 million golden toilet, a fully-functional 18-carat piece of contemporary art that was ripped from the plumbing of an English mansion, were sentenced Friday to more than two years in a British prison.The satirical commentary on consumer culture, titled “America,” by Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan, had only been on display for a couple days when five burglars swiped it from Blenheim Palace — the country mansion where British wartime leader Winston Churchill was born — in September 2019. The purloined potty was never recovered and was believed to…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Last year, Reform UK came up with a cunning wheeze to scrap the Bank of England’s ability to pay interest on reserves, saving £35bn. Readers may recall our big explainer on central bank reserve frameworks that kicked the tyres of the idea.Over in America they do everything bigger. Four minutes and 47 seconds into this CNBC interview, Texas senator Ted Cruz drops his bomb:The Federal Reserve pays banks interest on reserves. For most of the history of the Fed they never did…

Huawei Technologies is expected to ship no more than 200,000 of its advanced artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductors this year, according to a senior Trump administration official overseeing US export controls, who estimated that “most or all of” those chips would be supplied to enterprises within China.That figure would pale in comparison to the more than 1 million China-specific H20 graphics processing units (GPUs) produced by Nvidia in the last nine months of 2024, according to a January report from US research firm SemiAnalysis. Washington in April added the H20 to tightened tech export restrictions on China.At a House Foreign Affairs…

Chinese scientists have achieved a breakthrough in the commercial extraction of the critical metal rubidium directly from salt lake brine, potentially slashing dependence on imports – mostly from Canada – that now supply two-thirds of China’s needs.This industrial-scale method produces ultra-pure rubidium chloride from ultra-low concentrations, offering a new domestic source for this strategically vital material.The Qinghai Institute of Salt Lakes (ISL) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) announced on Wednesday that researchers had produced 99.9 per cent pure rubidium chloride from potassium chloride material containing just 0.001 per cent rubidium.Rubidium, a strategically vital metal for emerging industries, is…