U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen should intervene at the International Monetary Fund to prevent Taliban-led Afghanistan from being able to use almost $500 million in reserves, Republican House members said, Bloomberg News reported. The group of 18 lawmakers, including Arkansas’s French Hill, wrote to Yellen on Tuesday in a letter obtained by Bloomberg News, asking Yellen to take action at the fund and respond to their request by Thursday afternoon.

The pandemic has led to the International Finance Corporation massively ramping up its impact investment in India - its largest client nation globally - at USD 1.7 billion as of June, a 51 per cent rise over the past 12 months, the largest developmental lender into third world private sector said on Tuesday, the Economic Times of India reported. This is nearly half of its investment in the whole of South Asia since the pandemic, which touched USD 3.8 billion as of June 2021, it said.

The Reserve Bank of India relaxed a rule on bank’s purchases of foreign sovereign bonds, paving the way for lenders to resume a profitable currency trade, Bloomberg News reported. In a notice sent to some banks on Monday, the RBI said foreign sovereign bonds wouldn’t fall under a regulatory cap that requires holdings of securities unlisted in India to be 10% or less of the total non-statutory liquidity ratio portfolio, the people said, asking not to be identified as they aren’t authorized to speak to media. The RBI’s latest decision comes after banks made a representation seeking relaxation.

Thai Airways International reported a net profit in the first half of 2021, its first since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, thanks to a restructure of its business as part of a rehabilitation plan, although uncertainty still clouds its passenger flight services, Nikkei Asia reported. Thai Airways posted on Monday a consolidated net profit of 11.1 billion baht ($333 million), reversing a 28 billion baht loss it recorded in the same period in the last year. This was due to contributions to its bottom line from selling off assets and adjusting employees' benefits.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga officially expanded and extended the nation’s coronavirus state of emergency on Tuesday, as government advisers recommended legal changes that would allow penalties for violations, the Associated Press reported. The measures, approved by a government task force, add seven prefectures to the six areas already under a state of emergency and extend it to Sept. 12.

BHP Group has agreed to sell its petroleum business to Woodside Petroleum in a merger to create a top 10 independent oil and gas producer worth A$38.5 billion ($28 billion) with growth assets in Australia and the Americas, Reuters reported. BHP's exit from petroleum, which made up just 5% of its annual earnings, speeds up its exit from fossil fuels amid pressure from environmentally conscious investors. BHP CEO Mike Henry, however, said the company remained committed to metallurgical coal used in steel making.

Chinese real-estate billionaire Hui Ka Yan has stepped down as chairman of China Evergrande Group’s flagship property business, months after the unit dropped plans for a multibillion-dollar listing on the mainland, the Wall Street Journal reported. The chairman of Hengda Real Estate, the main onshore subsidiary of Hong Kong-listed Evergrande, is now Zhao Changlong, commerce registration information on Chinese database provider qcc.com showed Tuesday. It is unclear exactly when the change happened. Mr.

The Taliban strengthened control of the Afghan capital Tuesday as many stores reopened, traffic police returned to their posts and a senior official from the Islamist movement arrived for contacts with political leaders affiliated with the fallen Afghan republic, the Wall Street Journal reported. Thousands of Afghans employed by Western embassies in Kabul remained stranded in the city, unable to enter the airport for evacuation flights. Military flights resumed as the U.S.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern put the nation into a three-day lockdown after the discovery of the first community case of Covid-19 since February, Bloomberg News reported. The snap lockdown will begin at midnight tonight as authorities rush to identify the source of a single infection in largest city Auckland, Ardern said at a news conference Tuesday in Wellington. While genome sequencing has yet to be completed, the case is assumed to be the highly infectious delta variant, she said.