Beijing, Asian stock markets rose Friday after Wall Street hit a new high as fears of the coronavirus’s omicron variant eased. Tokyo, Hong Kong and Sydney advanced. Shanghai declined.   Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index rose 0.6% on Thursday in the last U.S. trading session before Christmas, said an AP report.   Investor anxiety has mounted as omicron spread

Washington, Global airline carriers have canceled more than 2,000 flights so far on Friday, the FlightAware website said, in an indication of how COVID-19 is affecting holiday travel. The website showed that as of 8:20 a.m. Eastern Time (1320 GMT), 2,028 flights around the world had been scrapped, Reuters reported. FlightAware said there had been 448 cancellations within, into, or

Bangkok, Thailand’s Central Group and Austrian real estate group Signa said Friday they plan to buy luxury British department store chain Selfridges.   The deal, reportedly worth 4 billion pounds ($5.4 billion), adds to Central’s collection of posh retailers that includes Rinascente in Italy, Illum in Denmark, Switzerland’s Globus and The KaDeWe Group in Germany, The Associated Press (AP) reported.

Hong Kong, Most Asian share markets edged higher on Friday and the safe-haven dollar was on the back foot, on signs the Omicron variant would not significantly derail global economic growth.   The greenback was headed for its worst week since September while other risk-friendly assets from bitcoin to the Australian dollar held onto their recent gains buoyed by ebbing