Asian shares climb and oil prices gain after a report Israel may attack Iran's nuclear facilities
Shares rose in Asia on Wednesday while oil prices jumped more than 1% following a report that Israel may be planning an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.
U.S. futures were lower.
A CNN report cited unnamed intelligence officials saying Israel may be preparing for an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Oil prices tend to rise with conflicts that might disrupt oil supplies, and they jumped early Wednesday but lost some of those gains by midday.
U.S. benchmark crude oil gained 79 cents to $62.82 per barrel while Brent crude, the international standard, rose 77 cents to $66.15 per barrel.
In talks on the nuclear issue, Iranian officials have warned they could pursue a nuclear weapon with their stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to unleash airstrikes targeting Iran's program if a deal isn't reached.
In share trading, Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei 225 fell 0.6% to 37,313.62. Gains have been limited by the continued worries over higher tariffs Trump has imposed on many U.S. trading partners since taking office. Earlier this week, Japanese officials said they were insisting all of his higher tariffs on imports from Japan be removed as part of talks with Washington.
Japan's exports have slowed due to the tariffs, the government reported Wednesday. Exports to the U.S., Japan's largest single trading partner, fell almost 2% year-on-year in April and the annual rate of growth in its global exports slowed to 2% from 4% in March, preliminary customs data showed.
In a step that further weakened Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's faltering administration, the agriculture minister, Taku Eto, resigned after an outcry over comments he made about not having to buy rice, but getting it for free, at a time when shortfalls in supply have pushed prices of the staple grain sharply higher.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng picked up 0.4% to 23,785.58, while the Shanghai Composite index edged 0.2% higher to 3,387.00.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 surged 0.5% to 8,386.00, while the Kospi in South Korea climbed 0.9%, to 2,625.80.
Taiwan's Taiex advanced 1.3% and India's Sensex gained 0.7%.
The future for the S&P 500 was down 0.5% early Wednesday, while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.4%.
On Tuesday, the S&P 500 lost 0.4% for its first drop in seven days. The Dow fell 0.3% and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.4%.
Treasury yields and the value of the U.S. dollar held relatively stable following a brief jolt Monday morning after Moody's Ratings said the U.S. government no longer deserves a top-tier credit rating because of worries about its spiraling debt.
U.S. government debt could be set to get even bigger with Washington debating more cuts to taxes.
Stocks of companies in the travel industry led the way lower on doubts about how much U.S. households will be able to spend on summer vacations.
Airbnb dropped 3.3%, Norwegian Cruise Line fell 3.9% and United Airlines lost 2.9%. Viking Holdings fell 5% even though the company, which offers river cruises and other trips, reported stronger results than analysts expected for the latest quarter.
Home Depot slipped 0.6% after reporting a profit for the start of the year that came up just short of analysts' expectations, though its revenue topped forecasts. The home-improvement retailer also said it's sticking with its forecasts for profit and sales growth over the full year.
That's counter to a growing number of companies, which have recently said tariffs and uncertainty about the economy are making it difficult to guess what the upcoming year will bring.
Trump has delayed or rolled many of the stiff tariffs he has imposed as he tries to compel companies to move manufacturing to the United States. Investors are hopeful that Trump will eventually lower his tariffs after reaching trade deals with other countries, but that's not a certainty.
On the winning side of Wall Street was D-Wave Quantum, which jumped 25.9% after releasing its latest quantum computing system. The company says it can solve complex problems beyond the reach of classical computers.
Target and Home Depot rival Lowe's will report their latest results on Wednesday.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged up to 4.47% from 4.46% late Monday. The two-year yield, which more closely tracks expectations for action by the Federal Reserve, edged down to 3.96% from 3.97%.
In currency dealings, the U.S. dollar fell to 143.63 Japanese yen from 144.51 yen. The euro rose to $1.1344 from $1.1284.
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Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
The international community and Haiti's time of need
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Hospitals have also had to close, schools are barely hanging on and there is no such thing in Haiti as a social safety net. Furthermore, there have not been legitimate democratic elections held in Haiti for almost 10 years. And Haiti's current nine-person Transitional Presidential Council has been plagued by internecine politics, corruption and impotence. Equally troubling, the existing Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission, led by some 1,000 Kenyan police and security officers, has underperformed. To be fair, they have come under heavy gang attack, recently lost two of their members, and are badly outnumbered and outgunned. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has, moreover, only exacerbated the situation. It has largely ignored the Haitian crisis (shuffling it off to the Organization of American States), raised questions about future funding for the MSS operation and done very little to stop deadly weapons from Florida being smuggled into the country. In addition, Trump has clearly compounded the humanitarian catastrophe by gutting the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and slashing development assistance to Haiti. Trump has also sought to deport distraught Haitians, to turn away asylum-seeking Haitians and has even rolled back Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians living in the U.S. Yes, it's true that the menace in the U.S. White House, the war in Ukraine and the crisis in the Middle East have taken up a lot of oxygen in the backrooms of power. But that's a really poor excuse for inaction on Haiti. There are things that can be done to ameliorate the conditions on the ground. Clearly, the violent gang activity needs to be attenuated and gradually neutralized so that the country can be stabilized and free and fair general elections can take place. There also needs to be an acceptable, and manifestly robust, military presence in the country to ensure order and public safety. Perhaps that will require a capable peace enforcement operation with the imprimatur of the United Nations. Most important, Haitians desperately need development assistance of all kinds (financial, medical, social, educational, governance and institutional) to get themselves back on their feet again. But we're talking here about a massive, multifaceted aid program that needs serious financial resources from any and every country that can spare it. Much of this, of course, requires large dollops of cash and political will, which is obviously in short supply these days. But there is nothing that says it has to be that way. Yet political decision-makers, and those with power to do something, have chosen not to act. It seems pretty clear that a desperately poor and mostly black Caribbean country — to say nothing of its former status as a key slave colony — doesn't much register on the international radar screen. It makes you wonder if Haiti was a predominantly white, European country whether the world's response would be so callous and negligent. Conveniently, Western governments and political leaders are quick to dismiss Haiti as fundamentally broken and simply beyond repair. Let's be honest: to them, it's a god-awful quagmire and a political minefield that they just don't want anything to do with. So they justify their inaction and indifference by labelling Haiti a 'failed state' and then blame Haitians themselves for their own misfortune. The sad reality is that governments around the world (and here I include the so-called 'Friends of Haiti' such as Canada, France and Brazil) have come to the stark conclusion that Haiti is not worth the effort to save. Stated differently, they are not going to sacrifice putting their military men and women in harm's way (or to cough up the requisite financial resources) for the sake of Haitian lives or their overall well-being. I have come to believe that this destitute country will have to explode into a continuous morass of violence and death before the world community will even notice. And even then one wonders whether the response to the ongoing crisis in Haiti will be sufficient to make a real difference. Peter McKenna is professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown.
Toronto Star
an hour ago
- Toronto Star
Iran's supreme leader criticizes US proposal in nuclear talks, but does not reject idea of a deal
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Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Iran's supreme leader criticizes US proposal in nuclear talks, but does not reject idea of a deal
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's supreme leader on Wednesday criticized an initial proposal from the United States in negotiations over Tehran's rapidly advancing nuclear program, though he stopped short of entirely rejecting the idea of agreement with Washington. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described the U.S. proposal as '100% against the idea of 'we can,'' borrowing from an Iranian government slogan. He also insisted that Tehran needed to keep its ability to enrich uranium. 'If we had 100 nuclear power plants while not having enrichment, they are not usable for us,' Khamenei said. 'If we do not have enrichment, then we should extend our hand (begging) to the U.S.' However, some nuclear power nations get uranium from outside suppliers. Details of the American proposal remain unclear after five rounds of talks between Iran and the U.S. A report by the news website Axios outlined details of the American proposal, the details of which a U.S. official separately confirmed, include a possible nuclear consortium enriching uranium for Iran and surrounding nations. Whether Iran would have to entirely give up its enrichment program remains unclear, as Axios reported that Iran would be able to enrich uranium up to 3% purity for some time. Reaching a deal is one of the several diplomatic priorities being juggled by U.S. President Donald Trump and his trusted friend and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. An accord could see the United States lift some of its crushing economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for it drastically limiting or ending its enrichment of uranium. But a failure to get a deal could see tensions further spike in a Middle East on edge over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. Iran's economy, long ailing, could enter a free fall that could worsen the simmering unrest at home. Israel or the U.S. might carry out long-threatened airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities. And Tehran may decide to fully end its cooperation with the United Nations' nuclear watchdog and rush toward a bomb.
