Day: June 19, 2025

How a widow-maker bank trade is twisting the knife

Media Library

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Betting against Australia’s Big Four banks has long been a source of painful losses in Asian investing circles. Now Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the largest of those outperformers, is rubbing salt in the wound. A seemingly inexplicable rally has pushed it to an eye-popping four times book value — almost twice as much as JPMorgan or its local rivals. ’Strewth, indeed. CBA’s 19 per cent gains this year have opened…

China’s C929 widebody jet to make maiden commercial flight by 2035: source

Media Library

The company developing China’s first home-grown widebody passenger jet – the C929 – is aiming to see it make its maiden commercial flight by 2035, foreign partners have been told at this week’s Paris Air Show, according to a person familiar with the discussion. Advertisement The time frame, although longer than previous estimates, was in line with the “long-haul” one that Boeing and Airbus used when developing their first widebodies and reflected Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China’s (Comac) “prudence” and emphasis on safety, the person, who requested anonymity, added. Comac…

China builds portable neutron gun powered by hydrogen-lithium nuclear reaction

Media Library

Researchers from China’s northwestern military-industrial hub have achieved controlled nuclear reactions between hydrogen and lithium in a compact device for the first time. Advertisement The feat marks a significant breakthrough in neutron generation technology with implications for scientific, industrial and defence applications. Unlike previous designs requiring massive accelerators, this powerful but portable particle gun harnesses a novel electromagnetic technique to smash hydrogen protons into lithium atoms to achieve nuclear fusion with unprecedented efficiency, producing a nail-size beam with 10 billion fast neutrons generated per second. Each neutron packs 3 million…

New Zealand freezes Cook Islands funding over closer China ties

Media Library

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. New Zealand has suspended funding to the Cook Islands over the Pacific archipelago’s deepening relationship with China and demanded greater efforts by its historic ally to rebuild trust. The move by Winston Peters, New Zealand’s foreign minister, marked the latest instance of what analysts have called Wellington’s more assertive approach to smaller Pacific island nations in response to China’s growing diplomatic and economic influence in the region. That push had…

Israel ‘ready to keep talking to China’ despite criticism of Iran air strikes

Media Library

Israel wants to “continue talking” to China despite its repeated condemnations of the recent attacks on Iran, its ambassador to Beijing has said. Advertisement Eli Belotserkovsky did not rule out the possibility of China acting as a mediator but in an interview with the SCMP on Wednesday he said the country’s biggest concern was its military operation. Asked about Beijing’s position, Belotserkovsky said Israel’s relations with China were “very important”, and that the two sides had open channels of communication. “We will continue talking to China as [part of] an…

Former Hong Kong exchange CEO Charles Li aims to list start-up

Media Library

Charles Li Xiaojia, the former CEO of Hong Kong’s stock-exchange operator, aims to return to the bourse he once ran – as the head of a listed company. Advertisement Micro Connect International Finance Company, an investment company set up in May, applied on Wednesday to list under the exchange’s Chapter 21 listing rule, which is tailored for investment companies to raise funds from institutional investors. Li, 64, stepped down as CEO of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) in 2021 after a decade at the helm. “It is nice to…