China’s foreign exchange reserves fell to their lowest level since 2011 in October. As we report in our round-up of market-moving stories from Chinese-language sources, the US$45.727 billion drop was the fourth consecutive monthly decline and took China’s overseas-currency warchest to US$3.121 trillion.
British banker Rurik Jutting was found guilty on Tuesday of the horrifying murder of two Indonesian women at his upscale Hong Kong apartment. He was handed a life sentence in a case the judge said was “sickening in the extreme”. The jury at Hong Kong’s High Court returned a unanimous guilty verdict.
George Clooney is taking on major Chinese economic interests in Hollywood in his battle for human rights and government kleptocracy in the failed state of South Sudan. The actor said he would not pull any punches highlighting misdeeds by China’s state owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) despite the billions of dollars invested in Hollywood studios, films and movie theaters by China’s wealthiest businessman, Wanda Group Chairman Wang Jianlin.
A musket that belonged to the Qing dynasty’s Qianglong emperor is among a raft of intriguing lots up for auction at Sotheby’s on Wednesday as part of this year’s Asian Art in London series of events. It is expected to fetch well over £1 million, evidence of how the market for imperial Chinese artefacts has changed greatly over the last 10-15 years.
The Indian Congress party’s vice president, Rahul Gandhi – a scion of the powerful Nehru-Gandhi family – has said the country’s democracy is going through one of its darkest hours. He believes the federal government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is obsessed with power and wants to silence its critics.