Asian stocks extended losses into a second day in early ‍trading on Friday as a selloff on Wall Street intensified, with precious ​metals and cryptocurrencies gripped by wrenching volatility.

MSCI’s broadest index of ⁠Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.9 per cent, led by a 5.0 per cent dive in South Korea’s Kospi which triggered a brief trading halt shortly after the open. Japan’s Nikkei 225 shed 0.7 per cent, while S&P ‌500 e-mini futures ​slid 0.6 per cent as Nasdaq e-mini futures tumbled 1.1 per cent.

“Investors are ‍questioning their commitment to the pillars that have underpinned markets over the past six months: AI, crypto, and precious metals,” said Tony Sycamore, market analyst at IG in Sydney. “This raises the odds of ​a deeper unwind.”

Stocks sold off ‌overnight on fears that new AI models may start to eat into the ​profits of software firms, with the S&P 500 turning negative ‍for the year as fears around the labour market grew.

Layoffs announced by US employers surged in January to ​the highest ​level for the ​month in 17 years, a survey ​from global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas showed on Thursday.

Precious metals saw little respite, with gold falling 1.6 per cent to $US4,691.76 ($A6,720.51), and silver plunging another 8.9 per cent to $US64.912 ($A92.980).

Cryptocurrency markets extended also losses after breaching several milestones in a $US2 trillion ($A2.9 trillion) wipeout on Thursday, with bitcoin tumbling 3.0 per cent to $US61,238.64 ($A87,718.71) ‍and ether down 1.8 per cent at $US1,813.77 ($A2,598.06).

Global media giant News Corporation continues to build a moat around its media assets against the theft of intellectual property by big artificial intelligence tools hungry for data and content.

Chief executive Robert Thomson, an Australian, responded on Friday to concerns in the US about the AI threat to legacy media outlets in the information and news space.

There was a misconception about AI’s impact on News Corp, which owns multiple major media mastheads in Australia, he told analysts in an earnings call.

“AI is retrospective and synthesises generic content, sometimes imperfectly,” Mr Thomson said.

“We have contemporary, creative, proprietary content which is only accessed if AI companies pay us – our woo or sue strategy.

“We’ve been consciously building a moat and that is a moat with saltwater crocodiles, with sharks and an even more dangerous species – lawyers.”

Mr Thomson pointed to the recently settled $US1.5 billion ($A2.1 billion) lawsuit filed by a group of authors against AI company Anthropic for copyright infringements after it scrapped and exploited half a million published works from pirate websites. 

Anthropic had argued its actions fell under “fair use” practices, although a court eventually disagreed.

“We and our authors (News Corp owns publisher Harper Collins) will get a large chunk of that money later this year,” Mr Thomson said.

At the same time, News Corp has a partnership with OpenAI, to “enhance” its editorial and other products.

“We are absolutely confident about our ability to create compelling premium content and experiences in an age in which many AI companies will be recycling rubbish,” he said.

“AI models need data … they need real time, real world data and that’s what we produce every single minute of every single day.”

New Corp on Friday reported a six per cent jump in second quarter revenue to $US2.4 billion ($A3.4 billion), which was in line with analysts’ forecasts, driven by its Dow Jones information services powerhouse, which includes The Wall Street Journal.

The result was helped by its digital real estate services unit, which includes Australia’s online property business REA, and the book publishing segment.

Quarterly underlying earnings – before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation – hit $U521 million, a gain of nine per cent on the previous corresponding period.

For the half year ended December 31, revenue was up seven per cent to $US1.2 billion ($A1.7 billion) while underlying earnings also rose seven per cent to $US861 million ($A1.2 billion).

While Dow Jones remains the jewel in News Corp’s media crown, other news media assets in the UK and Australia, which include Britain’s The Times and The Australian, fared less well, posting flat quarterly revenue and a four per cent fall in underlying earnings, mainly due to a challenging print advertising market.

This was “primarily driven by lower contribution from New Corp Australia” and modest investment at the New York Post related to the launch of the California Post.

The six-month result was also flat, at $US1.1 billion ($A1.6 billion).

However, circulation and subscription revenue rose on the back of higher pricing in the UK and Australia, as digital subscriber numbers grew, according to the company’s internal data.

News Corp Australia had 1.2 million digital subscribers at the end of December and almost one million news masthead subscribers.

“We are pleased with the strength displayed across the business throughout the second quarter, and the signs so far are patently positive for the second half of the year,” Mr Thomson said.

News Corp shares were down almost two per cent to $39.74 in morning trading on the Australian stock exchange.

Amazon sales have surged 14 per cent during the fourth quarter, helped by strong holiday spending and a better-than-expected growth in its prominent cloud computing unit.

But the Seattle-based online behemoth’s shares fell nearly 10 per cent in after-hours trading as its profits came in slightly below analysts’ expectations.

Investors also didn’t seem to like Amazon’s announcement on Thursday that it was stepping up its capital expenditure to $US200 billion ($A286 billion) this year, up from $US125 billion ($A179 billion) in 2025 as it sees opportunities in artificial intelligence, robots, semiconductors and satellites.

Wall Street analysts were expecting spending to rise to around $US147 billion ($A211 billion) this year, according to FactSet.

The results come as Amazon is slashing about 16,000 corporate jobs in the second round of mass layoffs for the e-commerce company in three months. It has said that most of these cuts are part of an effort to reduce the workforce that swelled during the pandemic, not because of artificial intelligence.

Separately Amazon said it would cut about 5000 retail workers, according to notices it sent to state workforce agencies in California, Maryland and Washington, resulting from its decision to close almost all of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh stores.

That’s on top of a round of 14,000 job cuts in October, bringing the total to well over 30,000 since Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy first signalled a push for AI-driven organisational changes.

Analysts are analysing retailers’ performances for insight into how shoppers spent during the holidays and what’s in store for 2026. They also want to know how the online behemoth is managing cost increases given all the uncertainty around President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Amazon is also under pressure to shore up confidence that its computing arm Amazon Web Services is just as powerful as Microsoft’s Azure and Google’s Google Cloud platform.

Amazon delivered 24 per cent growth for AWS in the fourth quarter, the fastest in 13 quarters, the company said. That followed 20 per cent growth in the third quarter and a 17.5 per cent increase in the second.

Meta, Apple and other Big Tech firms are expected to ramp up their spending on artificial intelligence this year. After pouring $US91 billion ($A130 billion) into capital expenditures devoted mostly to AI, Alphabet, the parent company of Google, disclosed Wednesday that it expects to double down by spending another $US175 billion ($A251 billion) to $US185 billion ($A265 billion) this year.

Amazon also continues to invest in its speedy fulfilment network, through a combination of robotics, AI technology and more efficient warehousing.

The online retailer said it now delivers groceries in 5000 US cities and towns. In many of them, customers can get same-day delivery of fresh produce and other perishables. Based on strong customer feedback, it said it plans to expand its same-day delivery to more places this year.

Amazon is also reworking its physical store footprint.

Last week, it said that it was closing almost all of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh locations within days as it narrows its focus on food delivery and its grocery chain, Whole Foods Market.

Some of the shuttered stores will be converted into Whole Foods locations, the company said in a blog post last week.

Amazon reported net income of $US21.2 billion ($A30.4 billion), or $US1.95 ($A2.79) per share, for the three-month period ended December 31. That compares with $US20 billion ($A29 billion), or $US1.86 ($A2.66) per share, in the year-ago quarter.

Revenue rose to $US213.4 billion ($A305.7 billion) in the fourth quarter, compared with $US187.8 billion ($A269.0 billion) in the year-ago period.

Analysts were expecting $US1.97 ($A2.82) per share on sales of $US211.4 billion ($A302.8 billion), according to analysts polled by FactSet.

Revenue from Amazon Web Services reached $US35.6 billion ($A51.0 billion). Analysts were expecting $US34.9 billion ($A50.0 billion).

The company said that it expects sales to be between $US173.5 billion ($A248.5 billion) and $US178.5 billion ($A255.7 billion) for the first quarter.

Analysts are projecting $US175.6 billion ($A251.5 billion).

Former prime minister John Howard is being discussed in conservative circles as a potential mediator for the Liberal-National split, which threatens to become more permanent if a compromise can’t be reached soon.

MPs from the former coalition are hoping a team of elders from both parties could help break the deadlock and avoid a permanent divorce.

Mr Howard, fellow former prime minister Tony Abbott and former Nationals leader John Anderson are among the names being floated.

Liberal frontbencher Melissa McIntosh, who worked for Mr Howard when he was prime minister, said he would be welcome to step in.

“There’s no better person than Mr Howard in bringing the broad church back together, bringing the congregation… back together,” she told reporters in Canberra on Monday morning.

Ms McIntosh said the former prime minister would help the parties shift focus after weeks of ugly political infighting.

Ms Ley was expecting to receive a counter-offer from the regional party on Friday morning.

If a compromise isn’t struck by Monday, the opposition leader has indicated she will appoint Liberals to fill the front bench roles.

The break up was triggered by a disagreement between the two allies over hate crimes laws, which saw three Nationals senators offer to quit from the frontbench for voting against their Liberal colleagues.

When the trio’s resignations were accepted, the remaining Nationals frontbenchers staged a mass walkout.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley wants the three senators to be suspended from the frontbench for breaking shadow cabinet solidarity – a move which the Nationals appear unwilling to accept.

But if negotiations with the Nationals go south, she’s expected to announce her new shadow ministry before then – potentially on Sunday – a move which would cement the coalition split and deepen animosity between the two former partners.

Some Liberals and Nationals believe their parties can go it alone, but others believe the parties will only be successful if they can restore the coalition partnership.

Liberal senator Jane Hume said her party would always be stronger with the Nationals, but shouldn’t compromise on its own values.

“We need to start building our policy agenda based on our own party’s values and our own priorities,” she told reporters in Canberra.

“The Nationals are better when they’re Nationals. Liberals are better when they’re Liberals. But we’re stronger when we’re together,” Senator Hume said.

But Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie argued her colleagues could be successful without their long-term ally.

“The National Party has been a party of government in Canberra for over a century, long before the Liberal party arrived on the scene,” she told reporters at Parliament House.

“We’ve done it before, we can do it again,” Senator McKenzie said.

Pizza Hut plans to close 250 US restaurants in the first half of 2026 as its parent company considers a sale of the chain.

Yum Brands on Wednesday said it is targeting underperforming Pizza Hut restaurants in its system. Pizza Hut has more than 6000 locations in the United States.

Louisville, Kentucky-based Yum Brands said in November it was conducting a formal review of options for Pizza Hut, which has struggled with outdated stores and growing competition. The chain’s US same-store sales, or sales at locations open at least a year, fell five per cent in 2025, Yum said.

Rival Domino’s, the world’s largest pizza company, hasn’t yet released its full-year earnings, but its US same-store sales were up 2.7 per cent in the first nine months of 2025.

Internationally, Pizza Hut’s results have been stronger. International same-store sales were up one per cent in 2025, with growth in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, Yum said. China is Pizza Hut’s second-largest market outside the US, accounting for 19 per cent of sales.

Yum CEO Chris Turner on Wednesday said the company plans to complete its review of options for Pizza Hut this year. He declined to share further updates on the process.

Pizza Hut ended 2025 with 19,974 stores globally, which was 251 fewer than it had the previous year. It opened nearly 1200 stores across 65 countries in 2025, but closures outpaced that. Yum said Pizza Hut plans more global openings in 2026 but it didn’t give details.

Pizza Hut was founded in 1958 in Wichita, Kansas. PepsiCo acquired the chain in 1977 but spun off its restaurant division — which became Yum Brands — in 1997. Yum Brands also owns KFC, Taco Bell and Habit Burger & Grill.

Decisive action must be taken to tackle the growing racist hate directed at Indigenous Australians, a senator says after an attempted Invasion Day rally bombing was declared a terrorist act.

Thousands of people were evacuated from Forrest Place in Perth’s city centre on January 26 after a 31-year-old man allegedly threw an explosive device at a crowd of Indigenous people, families and supporters.

It’s left First Nations Australians fearful and angry, as they come to terms with the allegedly targeted attack that was designed to inflict mass casualties.

Authorities on Thursday confirmed the incident was an act of terror motivated by racist, pro-white nationalist ideology, with the accused facing life behind bars if he is found guilty.

Independent Victorian senator Lidia Thorpe was critical of the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s response in federal parliament after the declaration was made.

“His suggestion that these racist or white supremacist views live only in corners of the internet is minimising the reality,” she said.

“First Peoples face these hateful views every day … It’s everywhere, and it is growing.”

Charges against the accused man, who remains in custody, have been upgraded to engaging in a terrorist act.

Police will allege the incident was a nationalist and racially motivated attack targeting First Nations people at the protest.

Authorities were criticised in the wake of the alleged attack for not immediately declaring it a terrorist act and not taking it seriously amid cries of double standards and racism.

Police have defended their actions, saying a comprehensive investigation was required to gather the facts.

Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke on Thursday said a joint counter terrorism team was engaged within 40 minutes of the incident. 

Senator Thorpe also called on the prime minister to talk honestly about the prevalence of white supremacist ideology in Australia.

“White supremacy is a growing threat to First Peoples, and to black and brown communities across this country,” she said.

“The Albanese government must now begin the serious work to address systemic racism, to stamp out white supremacy and to protect our communities.”

That should start by implementing the National Anti-Racism Framework, which was delivered by the Australian Human Rights Commission more than a year ago, the senator said.

The plan proposes reforms across legal, justice, health, education, workplaces, media, arts and data collection to tackle all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism.

A deepening security relationship with Indonesia will lead to issues arising for Australia as its “northern shield” walks back democratic rights, an expert says.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has flown to Jakarta where he will meet with Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto to sign a “watershed” security treaty.

The details of the Australia-Indonesia Treaty on Common Security, announced last November, have remained largely hidden.

Melbourne University’s Tim Lindsey, a leading expert on Indonesian law, described the increasing visits to the Southeast Asian nation as positive.

But he warned greater ties with Australia’s “northern shield” would not make the relationship easier for Canberra.

“Indonesia’s slide away from liberal democracy and towards authoritarianism presents new challenges for an Australian government which must interact with Indonesia,” Professor Lindsey told AAP.

A draft law put forward by the Indonesian government against disinformation and foreign propaganda could lead to a crackdown on civil society groups.

This could lead to a scenario where Indonesians in Australia are targeted, Prof Lindsey said.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong is joining Mr Albanese, and will meet with her Indonesian counterpart Sugiono during the visit.

Indonesia has long upheld a foreign policy of non-alignment to avoid being entangled in conflicts.

Mr Albanese’s trip will be his fifth as prime minister, and second since his re-election in 2025, opting to make Indonesia the first country he visited after retaining office.

“This treaty is a proud moment in the shared history of Australia and Indonesia,” the prime minister told parliament ahead of his departure on Thursday.

“It will ensure that we work together to shape a better future, securing our shared place in the world, so that we can secure the best outcome for those we serve here at home.”

Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst Gatra Priyandita said the agreement could be seen as a positive step in the context of the broader bilateral relationship.

“There is going to be no element concerning mutual commitment to each other’s security,” he said.

Dr Priyandita said Indonesia remained “very allergic” to the idea of defence alliances to preserve its non-alignment policy.

President Prabowo is facing domestic criticism over the perceived deviation from that norm. 

Senator Wong said the step taken marked the most important in strengthening the partnership in 30 years.

“In these uncertain times, this is a demonstration of the importance we place on our relationship and the respect we have for each other,” she said.

Artificial intelligence means many things to different people.

For some, the arrival of large language models is a threat to jobs and livelihoods, or even humanity itself.

But AI does bring change for good, as Australia’s biggest retail bank has discovered.

Some years ago, Commonwealth Bank started receiving calls from customers warning that its digital payment platforms were being misused to perpetuate abuse.

In one case, for as little as one cent, a man was sending hundreds of payments to pepper his ex-partner with horrific language and threats in the payment description.

“She had blocked his number, she had blocked his social media, she had actually changed addresses,” CBA customer advocate Angela MacMillan told AAP.

“The last channel that he was able to use to continue to perpetuate abuse … was by sending low-value transactions to her repeatedly.

“There were a few hundred – I think it had cost him $2.38 to send message after message.”

At the time, CBA estimates, more than 8000 customers had received abusive messages embedded in transactions in just three months.

Since then, CBA has fed data into an AI model, allowing it to learn to block certain words, such as profanity or phrases picked up as insulting, coercive or threatening, as well as somewhat subtle wording to evade detection.

“It was things like ‘when are you coming home’, ‘you looked beautiful in your purple jumper at the train station this morning’,” Ms MacMillan said.

The technology has prevented more than one million abusive messages from reaching victim-survivors since 2020.

However, it’s also flagging about 3600 high-risk transactions a year.

Is the frequency decreasing? No, it’s not, but Ms MacMillan says CBA is blocking transactions and manually intervening in high-risk cases at a higher rate.

“So that is a positive … and look, it is symptomatic of the broader challenges of domestic and family violence in this country, which is increasing,” she said.

It’s no secret that CBA chief Matt Comyn is a big believer in the value of artificial intelligence to business and society at large.

The bank, which has been training staff to become familiar with AI in their day-to-day work for almost two years, has now produced its first report – Our Approach to Adopting AI – on how it’s embedding the models into its operations.

“We aim to share our knowledge as we navigate this rapidly evolving landscape,” Mr Comyn said on Thursday.

One of the bank’s other AI wins is in the war against scammers, fraudsters and cybercriminals targeting its customers.

CBA watches more than 20 million payments and sends about 40,350 warning alerts each day via its banking app.

The result has been a 20 per cent reduction in fraud losses in the first half of the current financial year, compared to the same period in 2025.

A lot of this knowledge is shared with other businesses under the anti-scam intelligence loop, set up by the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange and National Anti-Scam Centre. 

CBA has also made its AI model to detect abusive transactions available to other banks globally.

Executive general manager and report lead author Alex Matthews says CBA sees significant opportunities with AI but is mindful of the risks.

“One of the things we are really conscious of is Australians’ perspectives on AI … we think that it’s an important priority for Australia in terms of adopting this technology, in order that Australia can capture the benefits,” he told AAP.

“Trust is obviously fundamental to adoption.” 

Mr Matthews said it was well known that Australians felt cautious, and the bank’s insights suggested their perspectives on AI and banking were broadly similar to their views on the tech in general.

“But we are seeing promising indications,” he said.

Victim-survivor Rachael Lloyd, who suffered financial abuse, told AAP CBA’s AI work on abuse transactions had been “phenomenal”.

“And hopefully, the other banks will continue to follow,” she said.

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The Reserve Bank governor will face renewed questioning over the role the federal government played in driving up inflation and forcing the central bank to lift mortgage rates for the first time in more than two years.

Michele Bullock, her deputy Andrew Hauser and other senior central bank officials will report to Parliament House in Canberra on Friday for their regular grilling by a committee of Labor, Liberal and crossbench MPs.

Since the Reserve Bank lifted the benchmark borrowing rate to 3.85 per cent on Tuesday, opposition MPs have bombarded Treasurer Jim Chalmers with accusations rising government spending is at fault for the resurgence in inflation.

Dr Chalmers’ mid-year budget update, released in December, projected Commonwealth spending to hit 26.9 per cent of GDP this financial year – the highest level since the 1980s, excluding the COVID-19 pandemic.

“And it is driving up inflation and it is driving up interest rates,” opposition finance spokesman James Paterson said.

“Until they can get a handle on spending, it’s going to hurt the Australian people.”

Some economists, including AMP’s Shane Oliver, Deloitte Access Economics partner Stephen Smith, EY chief economist Cherelle Murphy and Paul Bloxham of HSBC, say higher government spending has contributed to the Reserve Bank’s inflation problem.

Household spending recovered stronger than the Reserve Bank expected, boosted by three rate reductions in 2025 and income tax cuts. 

With high public spending adding more fuel to the fire, the economy began to overheat.

The result was higher inflation.

“Basically, we are seeing aggregate demand, public and private, push up against the limits of growth, and that’s what we’re seeing in terms of inflation at the moment,” Ms Bullock said in her post-conference rate meeting on Tuesday.

Dr Chalmers has pointed out that, other than that brief mention of aggregate demand, Ms Bullock mainly attributed the inflation surprise to the unexpected acceleration in private demand.

“What we saw in the economy in 2025 was public demand growth making a smaller contribution to demand in the economy, and private demand growth making a bigger contribution to growth in the economy,” he said during question time on Thursday.

Public spending has fallen as a proportion of total demand, but that’s only because of the relative rise in public demand.

Short of a sudden jump in productivity growth or a reduction in public spending, it will continue to crowd out the private sector and put pressure on the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates further to bring inflation under control.

Rio Tinto says it ‍is no longer in talks with Glencore about a takeover that ​would have created the world’s largest mining company as it could ⁠not reach an agreement that would deliver value to its shareholders.

Glencore shares fell as much as 10.8 per cent to 456 pence.

Rio Tinto’s London-listed shares were down 2.6 per cent at 6,820 pence by 3.35pm in the United Kingdom (2.35am AEDT on Friday).

Rio Tinto told shareholders on Thursday that it “is no longer considering a possible merger or other business combination with Glencore”.

Attempts ‌to combine ​the companies have repeatedly fallen short.

The British-Australian company rejected a ‍merger approach from Glencore in 2014, saying it was not in the best interests of shareholders, and another round of discussions in 2024 also fizzled out without a deal.

“The key terms of the potential ​offer were Rio Tinto retaining both ‌the chairman and chief executive officer roles and delivering a proforma ownership of the ​combined company which, in our view, significantly undervalued Glencore’s underlying relative ‍value contribution to the combined group,” Glencore said in a statement.

Glencore said it concluded that the proposed acquisition on ​these ​terms were not in ​the best interests of its shareholders.

The ​abandoned talks echo other ambitious mining deals that have faltered, including BHP’s $US49  billion ($A70 billion) approach for Anglo American, which unravelled over concerns about the structure of the offer, even as the sector pushes to consolidate amid rising demand for metals.

with PA