- First Mover Asia: Bitcoin Maintains $30K as Prospective Issuers Refile ETF Applications CoinDesk
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Tag Archives: asia
First Mover Asia: Bitcoin Remains Resilient Near $26.5K, Despite Ongoing Binance, Coinbase Fallout – CoinDesk
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Microsoft cuts production of Surface accessories amid PC slump – Nikkei Asia
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First Mover Asia: Bitcoin Is Ready for a Consolidation Phase – CoinDesk
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First Mover Asia: Bitcoin Flirts With $23.4K as Fed’s Powell Repeats Comment About Waning Inflation; Market Weighs DCG-Genesis Deal With Creditors – CoinDesk
- First Mover Asia: Bitcoin Flirts With $23.4K as Fed’s Powell Repeats Comment About Waning Inflation; Market Weighs DCG-Genesis Deal With Creditors CoinDesk
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Putin evokes Stalingrad to predict victory over ‘new Nazism’ in Ukraine
VOLGOGRAD, Russia, Feb 2 (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin evoked the spirit of the Soviet army that defeated Nazi German forces at Stalingrad 80 years ago to declare on Thursday that Russia would defeat a Ukraine supposedly in the grip of a new incarnation of Nazism.
In a fiery speech in Volgograd, known as Stalingrad until 1961, Putin lambasted Germany for helping to arm Ukraine and said, not for the first time, that he was ready to draw on Russia’s entire arsenal, which includes nuclear weapons.
“Unfortunately we see that the ideology of Nazism in its modern form and manifestation again directly threatens the security of our country,” Putin told an audience of army officers and members of local patriotic and youth groups.
“Again and again we have to repel the aggression of the collective West. It’s incredible but it’s a fact: we are again being threatened with German Leopard tanks with crosses on them.”
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Russian officials have been drawing parallels with the struggle against the Nazis ever since Russian forces entered Ukraine almost a year ago.
Ukraine – which was part of the Soviet Union and itself suffered devastation at the hands of Hitler’s forces – rejects those parallels as spurious pretexts for a war of imperial conquest.
Stalingrad was the bloodiest battle of World War Two, when the Soviet Red Army, at a cost of over 1 million casualties, broke the back of German invasion forces in 1942-3.
Putin evoked what he said was the spirit of the defenders of Stalingrad to explain why he thought Russia would prevail in Ukraine, saying the World War Two battle had become a symbol of “the indestructible nature of our people”.
“Those who draw European countries, including Germany, into a new war with Russia, and … expect to win a victory over Russia on the battlefield, apparently don’t understand that a modern war with Russia will be quite different for them,” he added.
“We don’t send our tanks to their borders but we have the means to respond, and it won’t end with the use of armoured vehicles, everyone must understand that.”
VICTORY PARADE
As Putin finished speaking, the audience gave him a standing ovation.
Putin had earlier laid flowers at the grave of the Soviet marshal who oversaw the defence of Stalingrad and visited the city’s main memorial complex, where he held a minute’s silence in honour of those who died during the battle.
Thousands of people lined Volgograd’s streets to watch a victory parade as planes flew overhead and modern and World War Two-era tanks and armoured vehicles rolled past.
Some of the modern vehicles had the letter ‘V’ painted on them, a symbol used by Russia’s forces in Ukraine.
Irina Zolotoreva, a 61-year-old who said her relatives had fought at Stalingrad, saw a parallel with Ukraine.
“Our country is fighting for justice, for freedom. We got victory in 1942 and that’s an example for today’s generation. I think we’ll win again now whatever happens.”
The focal point for the commemorations was the Mamayev Kurgan memorial complex, on a hill overlooking the River Volga dominated by a hulking statue called The Motherland Calls – of a woman brandishing a giant sword.
The five-month-long battle reduced the city that bore Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s name to rubble, while claiming an estimated 2 million dead and wounded on both sides.
A new bust of Stalin was erected in Volgograd on Wednesday along with two others, of Soviet marshals Georgy Zhukov and Alexander Vasilyevsky.
Despite Stalin’s record of presiding over a famine that killed millions and political repression that killed hundreds of thousands, Russian politicians and school textbooks have in recent years stressed his role as a successful wartime leader who turned the Soviet Union into a superpower.
Reporting by Tatiana Gomozova
Writing by Andrew Osborn
Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Kevin Liffey
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Adani’s market losses top $100 billion as shelved share sale spooks investors
NEW DELHI/MUMBAI, Feb 2 (Reuters) – India’s Adani group shares sank on Thursday after it abandoned its flagship company’s $2.5 billion stock offering, swelling the conglomerate’s market losses to more than $100 billion and sparking worries about the potential systemic impact.
The withdrawal of Adani Enterprises’ (ADEL.NS) share sale caps a dramatic setback for Gautam Adani, the school dropout-turned-billionaire whose fortunes rose rapidly in recent years but dwindled over the past one week after a U.S.-based short-seller published a critical research report.
The events are an embarrassing turn for Adani who has forged partnerships with foreign giants such as France’s TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA) and investors such as Abu Dhabi’s International Holding Company as he pursues a global expansion of businesses that stretch from ports and mining to cement and power.
Adani late on Wednesday called off the share sale as a stocks rout sparked by short-seller Hindenburg’s criticisms intensified, despite the offer being fully subscribed on Tuesday.
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Adani Enterprises plunged nearly 20% on Thursday, trading at its lowest since March 2022. Other group companies were also under pressure – Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSE.NS) was down 5%, while Adani Total Gas (ADAG.NS), Adani Green Energy (ADNA.NS) and Adani Transmission (ADAI.NS) lost 10% each.
Since Hindenburg’s report was released on Jan. 24, group companies have lost nearly half their combined market value. Adani Enterprises – described as an incubator of Adani’s businesses – alone has lost $24 billion in market capitalisation.
Adani, 60, is also no longer Asia’s richest person, having slid in the rankings of the world’s wealthiest to 16th, as per Forbes’ list, from third last week.
“Unless Adani is able to regain the confidence of institutional investors, stocks will be in freefall,” said Avinash Gorakshakar, head of research at Mumbai-based Profitmart Securities.
Adani’s plummeting stocks have raised concerns about the likelihood of a wider impact on India’s financial system.
India’s central bank has asked local banks for details of their exposure to the Adani group of companies, government and banking sources told Reuters on Thursday. CLSA estimates that Indian banks were exposed to about 40% of the 2 trillion rupees ($24.53 billion) of Adani group’s debt in the fiscal year to March 2022. read more
Citigroup’s (C.N) wealth unit has stopped extending margin loans to its clients against securities of Adani group and decided to cut the loan-to-value ratio for credit against Adani securities to zero on Thursday, said a source.
“We see the market is losing confidence on how to gauge where the bottom can be and although there will be short-covering rebounds, we expect more fundamental downside risks given more private banks (are) likely to cut or reduce margin,” Monica Hsiao, Chief Investment Officer of Hong Kong-based credit fund Triada Capital, said.
In New Delhi, opposition lawmakers submitted notices in the Indian parliament, demanding discussion on the U.S. short-seller’s report. The Congress party demanded setting up a Joint Parliamentary Committee or a Supreme Court monitored investigation into the matter.
ADANI VS HINDENBURG
Hindenburg’s report last week alleged an improper use of offshore tax havens and stock manipulation by the Adani group. It also raised concerns about high debt and the valuations of seven listed Adani companies.
The Adani group has denied the accusations, saying the short-seller’s allegation of stock manipulation has “no basis” and stems from an ignorance of Indian law. The group has always made the necessary regulatory disclosures, it added.
Earlier this week, the Adani group said it had the complete support of investors, but investor confidence has tapered in recent days.
As shares plunged after the Hindenburg report publication, Adani managed to secure the share sale subscriptions on Tuesday even though the stock’s market price was below the issue’s offer price. But on Wednesday, stocks plunged again.
Maybank Securities and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, as well as India’s Life Insurance Corporation (LIFI.NS), had bid for the anchor portion of the issue. Those investments will now be returned by Adani.
In a late night announcement on Wednesday, the billionaire said he was withdrawing the share sale as the company’s “stock price has fluctuated over the course of the day. Given these extraordinary circumstances, the company’s board felt that going ahead with the issue will not be morally correct.”
Early on Thursday, Adani said in a video address the “interest of my investors is paramount and everything is secondary. Hence, to insulate the investors from potential losses we have withdrawn” the share sale.
Reporting by Chris Thomas, Nallur Sethuraman, Tanvi Madan, Ira Dugal, Aftab Ahmed, Sumeet Chatterjee, Anshuman Daga, Summer Zhen; Writing by Aditya Kalra; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Russian missile wrecks apartment block, killing 3, as EU leaders visit Kyiv
KYIV, Feb 2 (Reuters) – A Russian missile destroyed an apartment building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, killing at least three people, police said, as top European Union officials arrived in Kyiv for talks seen as key to Ukraine’s pivot towards the West.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed more anti-corruption measures as authorities continued raids ahead of Friday’s EU meeting, reflecting his determination to show that Kyiv can be a reliable steward of billions of dollars in aid.
“We are here together to show that the EU stands by Ukraine as firmly as ever. And to deepen further our support and cooperation,” the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, tweeted as she arrived in Kyiv by train on Thursday.
Ukraine sees the meeting as important to its hopes of joining the bloc, a process likely to take years.
In his evening video address, Zelenskiy also gave another bleak assessment of the battlefield situation as Russian forces continued to make incremental gains in the east of the country as the first anniversary of Moscow’s invasion looms on Feb. 24.
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In Kramatorsk, a Russian Iskander-K tactical missile struck at 9:45 p.m. (1945 GMT) on Wednesday, killing at least three people and injuring 20 others, police said.
“At least eight apartment buildings were damaged. One of them was completely destroyed,” police said in a Facebook post.
“People may remain under the rubble.”
Kramatorsk is about 55 km (34 miles) northwest of Bakhmut, currently the main focus of fighting in eastern Ukraine.
‘TOUGHER’ ON EASTERN FRONT
Russia, determined to make progress before Ukraine gets newly promised Western battle tanks and armoured vehicles, has picked up momentum on the battlefield and announced advances north and south of Bakhmut, which has suffered persistent Russian bombardment for months.
“Definite increase has been noted in the offensive operations of the occupiers on the front in the east of our country. The situation has become tougher,” Zelenskiy said in his evening video broadcast.
“The enemy is trying to achieve at least something now to show that Russia has some chances on the anniversary of the invasion,” he added.
Bakhmut and 10 towns and villages around it came under Russian fire, the Ukrainian military said late on Wednesday.
Avdiivka, another major Russian target, the nearby town of Maryinka and some neighbouring settlements were also hit, the military added.
Russian forces are pushing from both the north and south to encircle Bakhmut, using their superior troop numbers to try to cut it off from re-supply and force the Ukrainians out, Ukrainian military analyst Yevhen Dikiy said.
“This for us is the most difficult scenario,” Dikiy told Espreso TV.
“The enemy is able to use its sole resource, which it has in excess, its men,” he said, describing a landscape to the northeast of Bakhmut “literally covered with corpses”.
Ukraine and its Western allies say Moscow has taken huge losses around Bakhmut, sending in waves of poorly equipped troops, including thousands of convicts recruited from prisons as mercenaries.
A former commander of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group who fled to Norway in January told Reuters he wanted to apologise for fighting in Ukraine and was speaking out to bring perpetrators of atrocities to justice.
“First of all, repeatedly, and again, I would like to apologise,” Andrei Medvedev, 26, said.
ROCKETS
Ukraine has secured pledges of weapons from the West offering new capabilities – the latest expected this week to include rockets from the United States that would nearly double the range of Ukrainian forces.
“We’re focused on providing Ukraine the capability that it needs to be effective in its upcoming anticipated counter- offensive in the spring,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a visit to the Philippines on Thursday.
The new weapons would put all of Russia’s supply lines in eastern Ukraine, as well as parts of Crimea, within range of Ukrainian forces.
Moscow says such rockets will escalate the conflict but not change its course.
“The greater the range of the weapons supplied to the Kyiv regime the more we will have to push them back from territories which are part of our country,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russian state TV on Thursday. Moscow claims to have annexed four Ukrainian provinces last year, as well as Crimea which it seized in 2014.
Russian forces are probing areas of weakness in Ukraine’s defences on the western edges of Luhansk region, its governor Serhiy Gaidai told Ukrainian TV on Thursday.
“The amount of shelling has increased, the number of attacks in the direction of Svatove-Kreminna has increased… They are piling up our positions with bodies,” Gaidai said.
Reuters could not confirm the battlefield reports.
President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine last February in a “special military operation” to “disarm” its neighbour. He now casts the campaign as a fight to defend Russia against an aggressive West. Ukraine and the West call it an illegal war to expand Russian territory.
Reporting by Reuters bureaux
Writing by Himani Sarkar and Gareth Jones
Editing by Robert Birsel and Peter Graff
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Honda to start producing new hydrogen fuel cell system co-developed with GM
TOKYO, Feb 2 (Reuters) – Japan’s Honda Motor Co (7267.T) said it will start producing a new hydrogen fuel cell system jointly developed with General Motors Co (GM.N) this year and gradually step up sales this decade, in a bid to expand its hydrogen business.
Honda will target annual sales of around 2,000 units of the new system in the middle of this decade, the company said on Thursday, aiming to boost that to 60,000 units per year in 2030.
The Japanese carmaker is seeking to expand the use of its new system not only for its own fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs), but also commercial vehicles such as heavy trucks, as stationary power stations and in construction machinery.
Honda will start production of the hydrogen fuel cell system through its joint venture with GM this year, Honda senior managing executive director Shinji Aoyama told reporters during a company event in Tokyo.
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With the “next-generation” system, the company aims to more than double durability compared with its older fuel cell system and to bring costs down by two-thirds.
“While commercial vehicles are in use all over the world, they’ll likely see electrification just as with passenger cars,” said Tetsuya Hasebe, general manager of Honda’s hydrogen business development division.
That would likely lead to a divergence in trucks using batteries and those running on fuel cells, he added.
Reporting by Daniel Leussink; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and Jamie Freed
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Philippines grants U.S. greater access to bases amid China concerns
MANILA, Feb 2 (Reuters) – The Philippines has granted the United States expanded access to its military bases, their defence chiefs said on Thursday, amid mounting concern over China’s increasing assertiveness in the disputed South China Sea and tensions over self-ruled Taiwan.
Washington would be given access to four more locations under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Philippines’ Defense Secretary Carlito Galvez said in a joint news conference.
Austin, who was in the Philippines for talks as Washington seeks to extend its security options in the country as part of efforts to deter any move by China against self-ruled Taiwan, described Manila’s decision as a “big deal” as he and his counterpart reaffirmed their commitment to bolstering their countries’ alliance.
“Our alliance makes both of our democracies more secure and helps uphold a free and open Indo-Pacific,” said Austin, whose visit follows U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’s trip to the Philippines in November, which included a stop at Palawan in the South China Sea.
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“We discussed concrete actions to address destabilising activities in the waters surrounding the Philippines, including the West Philippine Sea, and we remain committed to strengthening our mutual capacities to resist armed attack,” Austin said.
“That’s just part of our efforts to modernize our alliance. And these efforts are especially important as People’s Republic of China continues to advance its illegitimate claims in the West Philippine Sea,” he added.
The additional locations under the EDCA bring to nine the number of military bases the United States would have access to, and Washington had announced it was allocating more than $82 million toward infrastructure investments at the existing sites.
The EDCA allows U.S. access to Philippine military bases for joint training, pre-positioning of equipment and the building of facilities such as runways, fuel storage and military housing, but not a permanent presence.
Austin and Galvez did not say where the new locations would be. The former Philippine military chief had said the United States had requested access to bases on the northern land mass of Luzon, the closest part of the Philippines to Taiwan, and on the island of Palawan, facing the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
There was no immediate comment from the Chinese Embassy in Manila.
Outside the military headquarters, dozens of protesters opposed to the United States maintaining a military presence in the country chanted anti-U.S. slogans and called for the EDCA to be scrapped.
Before meeting his counterpart, Austin met with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr at the presidential palace on Thursday, where he assured the Southeast Asian leader, “we stand ready to help you in any way we can”.
Ties between the United States and the Philippines, a former colony, were soured by predecessor Rodrigo Duterte’s overtures towards China, his famous anti-U.S. rhetoric and threats to downgrade their military ties.
But Marcos has met with U.S. President Joe Biden twice since his landslide victory in the elections last year and reiterated he cannot see a future for his country without its longtime treaty ally.
“I have always said, it seems to me, the future of the Philippines and for that matter the Asia Pacific will always have to involve the United States,” Marcos told Austin.
Reporting by Karen Lema
Editing by Ed Davies and Gerry Doyle
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.