WORLD FINANCE UPDATE:
The Australian dollar has tumbled further on the back of Reserve Bank comments and disappointing economic data.
At 0700 AEST on Wednesday, the local unit was trading at 75.44 US cents, down from 75.87 cents on Tuesday.
And the Australian share market looks set to open lower after falls on Wall Street as investors took gains off the table following a recent rally and ahead of an upcoming quarterly reporting season likely to reveal sharply lower earnings.
At 0645 AEST on Wednesday, the share price index was down 20 points at 4,888.
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ELSEWHERE:
WASHINGTON - US hiring jumped to a nine-year high in February, a sign of robust business demand for new workers, while the number of open positions slipped.
LONDON- The Panama Papers revelations have plunged Iceland into a political crisis and put British Prime Minister David Cameron under fire from opponents accusing him of allowing a rich elite to dodge their taxes.
DETROIT - Ford will build a new $US1.6 billion ($A2.12 billion) factory in Mexico, creating about 2,800 jobs and shifting small-car production from the US.
NEW YORK - Drugmaker Pfizer is leaning towards abandoning its $US160 billion ($A212.30 billion) agreement to buy Allergan in light of the US Treasury's new measures to curb such tax evading deals, a source familiar with the situation says.
WASHINGTON - Facebook has bolstered the default encryption settings for the more than one billion users of its popular WhatsApp messaging service, so that all messages will now be accessible only to the sender and recipient.
NEW YORK - The National Football League says it has chosen Twitter as its exclusive global partner for streaming its Thursday night games during the 2016 regular season.
WASHINGTON - Federal health officials have approved a cheaper version of Johnson & Johnson's top-selling drug, Remicade, a pricey biotech medicine for inflammatory diseases.
WELLINGTON - Financial markets operator NZX is developing a new market offering New Zealand dairy farmers a way to lessen the risk of volatile milk prices.
