According to South Korea's Chosun Ilbo, U.S. recon satellites have photographed around 30 illegal transactions involving Chinese vessels selling oil to North Korea on the West Sea in October. The images allegedly showed large Chinese and North Korean ships transacting in oil in a part of the West Sea closer to China than South Korea. The satellite pictures even showed the names of the ships.
Despite the GOP's tax reform victory, over the past few weeks, Congress once again punted on a formal decision how to keep government funded and what to do with America's debt ceiling and as a result US legislators simply kicked the can on the agreement of raising the nation’s borrowing limit for another few months. However, with the Treasury expected to breach the ceiling as soon as late March, today's $45 billion 3-Month Bill auction was closely watched as it serves as a fresh gauge of investor anxiety about the ongoing impasse.
For the second day in a row, most Asian markets - at least the ones that are open - were dragged lower by tech stocks and Apple suppliers, with the MSCI Asia Pacific Index down 0.2% led by Samsung Electronics and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing in response to the previously noted report that Apple will slash Q1 sales forecasts for iPhone X sales by 40% from 50 million to 30 million. Most Asian equity benchmarks fell except those in China. European stocks were mixed in a quiet session while U.S.
Authore by Leonid Brershidky via Bloomberg.com,
During Russian President Vladimir Putin's annual press conference on Thursday, a friendly journalist asked Putin whether the escalating tension in relations with the U.S. and the crumbling of arms control treaties would draw Russia into an unsustainable arms race. "We will ensure our security without engaging in an arms race," the president replied, citing widely diverging dollar numbers for the U.S. and Russian defense budgets.