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Silver recently recorded a new all-time high at $64 per ounce. While gold has continued to outperform the white metal as a store of value, Deutsche Welle examines why silver is once again gaining growing global importance.   What happened to silver prices in 2025?   Silver has experienced a powerful rally, with prices more than doubling from around $30 per ounce (€24.54) at the start of the year to a record high of $64.65 per ounce on December 12.   The metal was trading near $30 on COMEX, the commodities arm of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), in…

The Hong Kong stock exchange has proposed standardising board lot sizes, reducing the number of trading units from more than 40 to eight options in a bid to boost market efficiency and liquidity.Bourse operator Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) was proposing to limit the choices listed companies make regarding their trading unit size, or board lot, from one share to a maximum of 10,000 shares, according to a consultation paper published on Thursday. The options in between are: 50, 100, 500, 1,000, 2,000 and 5,000.Currently, 44 board lot units are used on the HKEX, leading to operational inefficiency, decreased…

The Hong Kong stock exchange has proposed standardising board lot sizes, reducing the number of trading units from more than 40 to eight options in a bid to boost market efficiency and liquidity.Bourse operator Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) was proposing to limit the choices listed companies make regarding their trading unit size, or board lot, from one share to a maximum of 10,000 shares, according to a consultation paper published on Thursday. The options in between are: 50, 100, 500, 1,000, 2,000 and 5,000.Currently, 44 board lot units are used on the HKEX, leading to operational inefficiency, decreased…

Belarus’ authoritarian president said Thursday that Russia had deployed its latest nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile system to the country, a move that comes as talks to end the war in Ukraine have entered a crucial phase. President Alexander Lukashenko said the Oreshnik, an intermediate range ballistic missile system, arrived in the country on Wednesday and is entering combat duty. He didn’t say how many missiles have been deployed or give any other details.Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that the Oreshnik will enter combat duty this month but didn’t give any other details. Putin made the statement at a meeting with…

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A core question for European Union leaders discussing whether to use frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine is whether the idea is legally sound. But even if they approve the plan, Russia has limited options for challenging it in court.The 27-nation bloc’s leaders are set to decide on whether to use tens of billions of euros in frozen Russian Central Bank assets to underwrite a loan to meet Ukraine’s military and financial needs over the next two years. The bulk of the assets are held in Belgium-based financial clearinghouse Euroclear.Belgium said Thursday that it wants…

“AI is being adopted at an unprecedented speed, and how to make better use of it has become a question all businesses have to answer well,” Tan Dai, president of ByteDance cloud unit Volcano Engine, said in Shanghai on Thursday.Doubao’s average daily token usage exceeded 50 trillion tokens this month, up from 4 trillion tokens in December 2024, according to Tan.Tokens are the basic units of data processed by AI models – comparable to a pixel in an image, a snippet of sound or a word in a sentence. One English word was worth 1.3 tokens, while a Chinese character…

A newly opened shopping centre in Malaysia has reversed an attempt to brand its indoor space as pet-friendly after an online backlash, a reaction that underscores the sensitivities around dogs in public spaces in the Muslim-majority country.Sunway Square Mall in Selangor, which opened on December 12, said on Thursday that pets are banned from its enclosed retail areas. Instead, pets are allowed at a designated outdoor zone and supervised routes through a car park in the mall’s basement.The move comes after photos and videos of a dog being wheeled through the mall in a trolley circulated online.The mall previously promoted…

The government on Thursday engaged with Ant Group, a global digital payment and financial tech firm based in Singapore and Easypaisa, Pakistan’s leading digital financial platform, to expand digital payments, financial inclusion, and technology-driven financial services in the country. Federal Minister for Finance Muhammad Aurangzeb today met a delegation at the Finance Division comprising Douglas Feagin, President Ant International and Senior Vice President, Ant Group; Irfan Wahab Khan, Chairman, Easypaisa Digital Bank; and Jahanzeb Khan, President and Chief Executive Officer, Easypaisa Digital Bank. The meeting focused on accelerating Pakistan’s transition towards a cashless and digitally enabled economy. Welcoming the delegation,…

Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif has approved a new halal meat export policy, directing relevant authorities to finalise a comprehensive three-year strategy within two weeks to significantly increase Pakistan’s share in the global market. Presiding over a high-level review meeting in the federal capital, the prime minister emphasised that a coordinated effort between federal ministries and provincial governments is essential to making Pakistan a major player in the international halal meat industry, the Prime Minister Office (PMO) said. The premier tasked a specialised committee to provide actionable proposals focused on improving production capacity, cold storage facilities, and overall logistics. Pakistani…

Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif has approved a new halal meat export policy, directing relevant authorities to finalise a comprehensive three-year strategy within two weeks to significantly increase Pakistan’s share in the global market. Presiding over a high-level review meeting in the federal capital, the prime minister emphasised that a coordinated effort between federal ministries and provincial governments is essential to making Pakistan a major player in the international halal meat industry, the Prime Minister Office (PMO) said. The premier tasked a specialised committee to provide actionable proposals focused on improving production capacity, cold storage facilities, and overall logistics. Pakistani…