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1. American Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost has become the 267th pontiff of the global Catholic Church, taking the name of Pope Leo XIV. The new pontiff, the first from the U.S. in Christianity’s 2,000-year history, appeared on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica on Thursday afternoon to a huge cheer from tens of thousands of Catholic faithful and curious tourists gathered in St. Peter’s Square. Pope Leo is expected to be a unifying figure after years of fractious ideological tensions between the progressive and conservative wings of the Catholic Church. As a cardinal, Pope Leo rarely took an outspoken stance on the church’s polarizing issues, such as priestly celibacy or blessings for same-sex couples. The choice of Pope Leo XIV upends conventional wisdom that a cardinal from the U.S. was all but unelectable for the cardinals of a church that has in recent times been inclined to balance against American global power. Leo emerged as a strong contender for pontiff in recent days thanks to his missionary work in South America and his record as a bishop in Peru. He also built a strong international network within the church while working as Pope Francis’ chief official for the appointment of bishops in large parts of the world. (Source: wsj.com, vaticannews.va Ed Note: There are roughly 1.4 billion Catholics in the world)

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2. A gauge of the Taiwan dollar against its major trading partners’ currencies surged to a record high this week, threatening to breach a level closely watched by the central bank. The Taiwanese dollar’s historic rally has pushed the currency’s nominal effective exchange rate, or NEER, a measure of its performance relative to a basket of other currencies, to a record high this week, according to data complied by Bank for International Settlements. Greenback reparation by exporters, hedging of US debt by local insurers and speculation on US demanding currency appreciation as part of a trade deal fueled the biggest two-day rally in Taiwan dollars since 1980s. That’s put currency stability front and center for the central bank.

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3. Asian investors have been rushing to shield themselves from big swings in the US dollar, putting upward pressure on their local currencies and forcing Hong Kong authorities to intervene in the market. Taiwan’s dollar has surged almost 6 per cent against the greenback this month, posting the biggest single-day moves since the 1980s, while Hong Kong’s monetary authority spent the largest weekly amount since 2020 to stop the city state’s currency strengthening beyond a US dollar peg. “It is not even once in a decade — it has been a once in a lifetime event. It has been an extraordinary move” in the Taiwan dollar in particular, said Mark Ledger-Evans, a portfolio manager at emerging markets investment firm Ninety One. (Source: ft.com)