Asia Pacific

Australia’s Reserve Bank has given credit card companies the power to limit surcharges merchants charge customers for using the cards and which are thought to add up to about $1 billion a year.

Japan’s second-largest bank, Mizuho Bank, has been caught up in the litigation surrounding Mt. Gox and the alleged theft of half a billion dollars worth of customers’ Bitcoin digital currency.

China’s General Administration of Customs reported a $22.98 billion trade deficit in February, the first time imports have exceeded exports since April last year.

Several of SIngapore’s churches want to make the city an international missionary hub for evangelical Christianity, and their charismatic pastors have established followings in China, Taiwan, the United States, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan and India.

A drought in Southeast Asia has brought an early start to forest fires, principally in Indonesia, which for years have regularly covered much of the region with a choking blanket of smoke haze.

India has gained a reputation for being home to some of the world’s best-educated and most innovative young people. But if a new ranking of colleges and universities is to be believed, few of them can have been educated at home.

Chie Shinpo is set to become the first woman to head a Japanese bank when she takes over as president of Nomura Trust and Banking Co. on April 1.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced March 11 that negotiations have been concluded on a free trade agreement between Canada and South Korea.

In the last few years, Vietnam has invested millions of dollars to build and stock provincial-level vocational schools to provide the skilled labour the country needs to man its rapidly expanding economy.

Immigration has always been a difficult issue in Japan, which remains one of the world’s most racially homogeneous countries.