The crisis engulfing China Evergrande Group deepened, as the embattled property developer said it had been ordered to tear down dozens of buildings on an extravagant man-made island in southern China, the Wall Street Journal reported. At the same time, Evergrande released data showing its much-publicized financial stress had largely halted sales of new homes, depriving it of an important source of cash. Contracted sales dwindled to about 720 million yuan, the equivalent of just $113 million, between mid-October and year-end, the company’s figures showed.

Mass protests in Kazakhstan over an increase in fuel prices have prompted the country’s authoritarian government to resign and the president to impose a state of emergency in a crisis that threatens to destabilize the oil-rich former Soviet republic, the Wall Street Journal reported. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has declared a two-week curfew in Kazakhstan’s western Mangistau region and in Almaty, the country’s largest city. The restrictions include a ban on mass gatherings and limitations on movement. Mr.

A wall of maturing debt and a surge in seasonal demand for cash will test China’s financial markets this month, putting pressure on the central bank to ensure sufficient liquidity, Bloomberg News reported. Demand for liquidity may total about 4.5 trillion yuan ($708 billion) in January, 18% more than the amount seen last year, according to calculations by Bloomberg based on official data and analysts’ estimates. An increase in the amount of policy loans coming due and demand for cash to be spent during the Lunar New Year, which takes place earlier in 2022, are drivers.

A demolition order from authorities on the southern Chinese island of Hainan has plunged embattled property giant Evergrande into a fresh publicity crisis amid an investigation into the legality of a major project’s planning permits, the Washington Post reported. Trading of China Evergrande Group shares was suspended Monday following reports from local media that the Danzhou government had ordered the removal within 10 days of 39 apartment blocks on an artificial island in the seaside city after ruling that previous approvals were not valid.

When V. Rajapandian was pushed out of his job at a heat treatment plant in India, the reason had nothing to do with performance or falling revenue. Instead, his boss offered a peculiar explanation: After Rajapandian defaulted on a loan from a mobile app, recovery agents demanded the plant pay on his behalf, Bloomberg News reported. “I lost my job because of them,” Rajapandian said of CASHe, the app he used to secure a $132 loan.

Trading in the shares of the indebted property developer China Evergrande Group were suspended on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Monday morning as the company raced to deliver apartments to millions of home buyers and raise cash to manage its $300 billion in debt, the New York Times reported. Evergrande said in a filing that its shares were halted pending an announcement “containing inside information,” without giving more details. The company had halted its shares once before, in October, as it tried to finalize the sale of a $2.6 billion stake in its property management unit.

Activity in South Korea's factories expanded at the fastest pace in three months in December but the economy struggled to gather momentum as rising global coronavirus cases and continued supply constraint weighed on production and overseas demand, Reuters reported. The IHS Markit purchasing managers' index (PMI) for the final month of the year rose to 51.9 from 50.9 in November, remaining above the 50 threshold that indicates expansion in activity for a 15th consecutive month.

Philippine Airlines Inc. received approval to tap $150 million in additional financing and plans to cut its debt by $2 billion, after winning approval last month from a U.S. court for its reorganization plan, Bloomberg News reported. “There are immense challenges ahead, but we look forward to tackling them as a reinvigorated Philippine Airlines, better positioned for strategic growth to continue serving our customers,” President Gilbert Santa Maria said in an emailed statement Friday.

China added $16.7 billion in foreign debt in the third quarter of 2021 due in part to increased purchases of onshore yuan-denominated bonds by foreign investors, Bloomberg News reported. About 47% of China’s outstanding debt of $2.7 trillion at the end of September are medium to long-term obligations, up three percentage points from the end of June, Wang Chunying, deputy director and spokesman of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, said in a statement released on Friday.

China’s manufacturing and service sectors showed unexpected signs of recovery to close out the year, according to a pair of official gauges released Friday, as Beijing moved to arrest a downward spiral triggered by a real-estate slump and coronavirus outbreaks, the Wall Street Journal reported. China’s official manufacturing purchasing managers index rose to 50.3 in December, up from November’s 50.1, the National Bureau of Statistics reported Friday. The result was better than the 50.0 median expected by economists polled by The Wall Street Journal.