Global FX DATA:

• • • ASIAN MARKET
      
      Asia stocks edged up to record highs on Friday, although losses on Wall Street slowed the advance, while worries over a possible U.S. government shutdown weighed on the dollar.
       
    • GOLD
      

      Gold prices edged up on Friday, supported by a weaker dollar amid worries about a possible U.S. government shutdown, but the precious metal was still on track for its first weekly drop in six weeks.

    • OIL
      
      Oil prices dropped more than 1 percent on Friday as a bounce-back in U.S. production outweighed ongoing declines in crude inventories.
       
    • SOUTH KOREA
      
      South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s approval rating has fallen to a four-month low, a poll showed on Friday, after a public backlash over a decision for South and North Korea to field a joint ice hockey team at next month’s Winter Olympics.
       
    • CHINA
      
      Beijing authorities on Friday took outspoken rights lawyer Yu Wensheng into custody as he was taking his child to school, his wife told Reuters, days after Yu said he was stripped of his legal license for criticizing President Xi Jinping.
       
    • CRYPTOCURRENCY
      
      Worries about a crackdown by global regulators on cryptocurrency trading could slow the pace of bitcoin’s rise but should not threaten its existence, At the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami, investors and executives interviewed by Reuters were unfazed by government moves to further regulate cryptocurrencies, which have sent prices into a tailspin.
       
    • HONGKONG
      
      Police in the world’s largest gambling hub of Macau are hunting for a dealer suspected of stealing million worth of casino chips from Wynn Macau.

    • NEW ZEALAND
      
      New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Friday she was pregnant with her first child, prompting an outpouring of support from women’s rights groups and labour activists as she declared “I’ll be a prime minister and a mum”.

    • PHILLIPINE
      
      Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is considering banning workers being sent to Kuwait because of abuses he said were being inflicted on Filipino domestic helpers there and which led to several committing suicide in recent months.
       

    • INDIA
      
      The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for the release of a controversial Bollywood movie based on an epic poem about a 14th-century queen, a day after its producers went to court to fight bans by several states.

    • CAIRO
      
      Sudanese authorities have detained a Reuters stringer and an AFP reporter who were covering protests in the capital Khartoum, the external information council, which deals with foreign media organisations.
       

    • India will cut rates on some products and services under the new Goods and Services Tax (GST), the finance minister said on Thursday, in a bid to encourage greater compliance as revenues have dipped since the landmark reform was announced in July.