Stocks rally on optimism over Iran war ceasefire, oil extends gains
Asian stocks were mostly up Friday tracking Wall Street gains while oil prices also rose on the fragile Iran war ceasefire and ahead of Iran-US peace talks in Pakistan.
Equity markets, which have been hammered since the war broke out on February 28, extended the week’s gains.
Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul, Shanghai and Taipei all rose at least one percent, while Singapore and Manila were also well up, though Sydney slipped.
The gains followed a second healthy run-up on Wall Street.
Indonesia urges ‘thorough’ probe on Lebanon peacekeeper deaths
Indonesia said Friday it had submitted a joint statement on peacekeeper security with dozens of allied nations to the United Nations after three of its blue helmets were killed in Lebanon.
In the joint statement, the countries urged the UN Security Council to conduct a thorough investigation into the incidents in southern Lebanon that killed three Indonesian peacekeepers and wounded several others, including from France, Ghana, Nepal, and Poland.
The Indonesian foreign ministry said 73 countries and UN observer nations supported the statement, delivered by Indonesia’s permanent representative to the UN, Umar Hadi, in New York.
Airline pilots fear retribution over refusing to fly in Middle East, aviators’ group says
Airline pilots who have safety concerns about flying in the Middle East during the Iran war have told a global aviators’ union group they fear blowback ranging from lost pay to being fired if they refuse assignments, the union leader said.
Pilots from Lebanon to India have voiced “widespread” concerns they could face sanctions if they do not fly in often unpredictable conditions where airspace can close with little notice due to missile or drone strikes, according to Ron Hay, president of the International Federation of Air Line Pilot’ Associations.
“There is an underlying fear of retribution,” Hay told Reuters. His comments come as some Middle Eastern carriers continue to restore flights even as the US-Iran two-week ceasefire faces challenges from continued attacks.
He declined to name the airlines involved but said these were examples of how not to run a positive safety culture.
China allows state refiners to tap commercial oil reserves
The Chinese government has given state refiners the green light to tap commercial oil reserves as the Iran war drags on, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Refiners including Sinopec and China National Petroleum will be able to tap commercial inventories held at processing plants or in storage facilities, the report added.
Air raid alerts sound across Israel after rocket fire from Lebanon
Air raid alerts rang out across Israel early Friday, including in the commercial hub of Tel Aviv and in the southern coastal city of Ashdod following rocket fire from Lebanon.
Continued fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah is testing a fragile truce reached between the United States and Iran.
Israel and Hezbollah exchanged fire repeatedly on Thursday.
The Israeli army’s Home Front Command issued alerts for several areas following Friday’s rocket fire, including the Tel Aviv area and southern communities far from the Lebanon border.
There were no immediate reports of casualties, but Israeli media reported that air-defence systems had intercepted at least one incoming rocket.
China factory-gate prices rise in reaction to Iran war
China’s factory-gate prices rose for the first time in 3-1/2 years in March, official data showed, in an early sign that the Middle East conflict is feeding cost pressures into the world’s second-largest economy.
Economists warned that a move to inflation driven by higher costs rather than stronger demand could complicate policy decisions, crimping growth and limiting scope for stimulus.
The producer price index (PPI) increased 0.5% from a year earlier, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Friday, ending a 41-month streak of declines. The reading outpaced an estimated 0.4% gain in a Reuters poll.
Producer prices surged in energy-intensive industries, with the non-ferrous metal mining and beneficiation sector recording a 36.4% jump last month and the non-ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing sector posting a 22.4% rise, as higher oil prices pushed up factory-gate costs.
Nikkei set for biggest weekly gain in eight months on earnings optimism
Japan’s Nikkei share average surged on Friday and was on track for its sharpest weekly gain in eight months, as optimism over corporate earnings and technology investment outweighed concerns about a fragile ceasefire in the Middle East.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index rose 1.65% to 56,817.54, poised for a 6.8% weekly jump that would be its best since mid-August. The broader Topix edged up just 0.05% to 3,743.17.
Trump lashes out at conservative commentators over criticism of Iran war
US President Donald Trump on Thursday angrily lashed out at multiple well-known conservative commentators who have criticised his war against Iran, slamming his onetime allies as attention-seeking “NUT JOBS.”
“They’re stupid people, they know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it, too!” Trump wrote in a nearly 500-word social media diatribe.
In the president’s crosshairs were Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly – two former Fox News hosts turned independent podcasters – as well as Candace Owens and Alex Jones, also podcasters and prominent conspiracy theorists.
All four have vocally criticised Trump over the war, slamming him for abandoning his anti-war campaign promises and – to varying degrees – accusing him of bowing to pressure from Israel to launch the conflict.
Khamenei says Iran does not want war but will defend its rights
Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei said in his latest written message the Islamic republic did not want war with the United States and Israel, but would protect its rights as a nation, state television reported Thursday.
“We did not seek war and we do not want it,” he said in the message read out on state TV, weeks after his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed on February 28, the first day of the war.
“But we will not renounce our legitimate rights under any circumstances, and in this respect, we consider the entire resistance front as a whole,” he added, in an apparent reference to Lebanon where Israel is fighting with Tehran’s ally Hezbollah.
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