Latest updates on Key Economic Indicators 

Australian Dollar: $0.7780 USD (up $0.0040 USD)

Iron Ore Feb Spot Price (SGX): $169.15 USD (up $4.18 USD)

Oil Price (WTI): $53.62 USD (up $0.70 USD)

Gold Price: $1,845.51 (down $7.65 USD)

Dow Jones: 31,033.59 at 3.08 pm NY time (down 36.85 points on yesterday's close)

All changes compared to 7am yesterday.

Australia vs India fourth Test underway:

Australia meets an injury-ravaged India side in Brisbane.

Predicting the result of the final Australia-India Test is pointless — let's just enjoy finding out

Speculating about who will come out on top in the Gabba Test is futile, with Australia and India each facing challenges with the series locked at 1-1, writes Geoff Lemon in his preview.

India are bruised and battered, but showed incredible mettle to draw the last game in Sydney, so it's hard to write them off entirely, even on a Gabba wicket that traditionally favours the home team.

Chaotic presidency doomed to end in disgrace

The Australian - Page 1 & 9 : 15 January 2021 - Original article by Cameron Stewart - PortMac.News Summary

The US House of Representatives has voted 232-197 to impeach President Donald Trump for inciting insurrection.

Ten members of the Republican Party voted in favour of impeachment, and Trump will now face a trial in the Senate.

However, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says the trial is unlikely to proceed before the inauguration of Joe Biden on 20 January.

Trump could be barred from running for president again if he is convicted in the Senate.

Meanwhile, a new poll shows that Trump's approval rating has fallen to 34 per cent, while a record 63 per cent of voters now disapprove of his performance.

Murray tests positive for COVID-19

Herald Sun - Page 10 : 15 January 2021 - Original article by Kieran Rooney, Stephen Drill, Marc McGowan, Peter Rolfe - PortMac.News Summary

British tennis player Andy Murray is quarantining at home after testing positive for COVID-19.

However, Murray remains hopeful of competing in the 2021 Australian Open, which begins on 8 February.

Meanwhile, Victorian officials have cleared US player Tennys Sandgren to board a flight to Melbourne despite testing positive in recent days.

Sandgren was diagnosed with the coronavirus in November and has fully recovered.

Victoria's Police Minister Lisa Neville says health experts believe that Sandgren is still shedding the virus and is not infectious.

Mining camps for overseas travellers ?

The Australian - Page 5 : 15 January 2021 - Original article by Michael McKenna - PortMac.News Summary

The Queensland government has confirmed a proposal to house returning international travellers in remote mining camps due to growing concern about the high-contagious UK variant of COVID-19.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says this is a "Rational option" given that the new variant is up to 70%t more infectious than the original strain.

Palaszczuk intends to put the proposal to the upcoming meeting of the national cabinet on 22 January.

Queensland has recorded four new cases of COVID-19 among people in hotel quarantine, and there are 27 active cases statewide.

NSW's mutant coronavirus strain cases double in a week

The Sydney Morning Herald - Page Online : 15 January 2021 - Original article by Mary Ward - PortMac.News Summary

A total of 13 returned travellers in hotel quarantine in Sydney have now been diagnosed with the UK variant of COVID-19.

Seven new cases of the highly-contagious strain have been detected since 8 January, while New South Wales has now had five cases of the South African variant.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard is confident that the state's hotel quarantine system can handle the new strains of COVID-19.

NSW reported two new cases of COVID-19 in returned travellers on 14 January, although there were no new locally-acquired cases; there are 173 active cases statewide. 

Pfizer boosts its output by 2bn doses

The Australian - Page 5 : 15 January 2021 - Original article by Natasha Robinson - PortMac.News Summary

Pfizer chairman and CEO Albert Bourla says the US pharmaceutical giant has manufactured 33 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine so far in 2021, and it aims to "dramatically increase" production.

He adds that Pfizer aims to produce up to two billion doses of the vaccine in 2021, and there will be no issues with supplying large quantities of the vaccine to other countries.

The Australian government has agreed to buy 10 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, and contends that it has been unable to secure additional doses.

Vaccine experts take a jab at trial results

The Australian - Page 5 : 15 January 2021 - Original article by Natasha Robinson - PortMac.News Summary

Professor Nikolai Petrovsky from the University of Adelaide has questioned the efficacy of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine.

The phase three clinical trials suggest that the efficacy rate was 90% for people who were initially given a half-dose of the vaccine by accident, compared with 62% for those who received two standard doses.

Petrovsky says the efficacy rate for the accidental dose has no statistical validity, adding that currently-available data does not justify approving the vaccine's use in Australia.

The federal government has ordered more than 50 million doses of the vaccine.

Nearly four in five Australians working from home suffered from burnout last year

The New Daily - Page Online : 15 January 2021 - Original article by Matt Johnson - PortMac.News Summary

An international study undertaken on behalf of work management app Asana has found that 77% of Australians and New Zealanders experienced burnout while working from home in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

This compares with 71% of respondents globally.

The study also found that working from home resulted in more employees putting in longer hours, yet productivity was negatively affected.

Jim Stanford from the Centre for Future Work contends that working from home is not sustainable. 

JobKeeper will end in March. But do economists believe that's a good idea?

The New Daily - Page Online : 15 January 2021 - Original article by Euan Black - PortMac.News Summary

Economist Cameron Murray has backed the government's view that the JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme does not need to be extended again.

Murray contends that relatively few industries still need government support, and he argues that increasing the JobSeeker payment would be a better option as the financial support would go to people who need it.

The Blueprint Institute's chief economist Steven Hamilton also says JobKeeper should be phased out on 28 March as scheduled.

Toyota vows to return over $18m worth of JobKeeper payments

MyBusiness - Page Online : 15 January 2021 - Original article by Adrian Flores - PortMac.News Summary

Toyota Australia president and CEO Matthew Callachor says the car-maker's sales in 2020 were better than expected given the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a result, it has decided to repay more than $18m it received via the federal government's JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme.

Callachor says Toyota had claimed JobKeeper payments to support its workforce across Australia, having recorded a revenue decline of more than 50%t as sales fell in the wake of the health crisis.

However, Toyota's sales rebounded in the December quarter, rising 29.1% year-on-year.

Cyber concerns behind block on Chinese bid for Probuild

The Australian - Page 6 : 15 January 2021 - Original article by Patrick Commins - PortMac.News Summary

The federal government continues to attract scrutiny over its decision to block a Chinese company's $300m takeover bid for construction firm Probuild.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has rejected suggests that the increased focus on the national interest in assessing foreign investments is politically motivated and discriminates against China.

The greater focus on the national interest in recent years has coincided with growing concern about the issue of cyber warfare and data security.

Healthcare and tech lead gains

The Australian - Page 23 : 15 January 2021 - Original article by Rebecca Le May - PortMac.News Summary

The Australian sharemarket posted a solid gain on 14 January, with the S&P/ASX 200 adding 0.43% to close at 6,715.3 points.

Whitehaven Coal rose 3.14% to $1.80, the ANZ Bank was 1.82% higher at $24.60 and Afterpay advanced 9.74% to finish at $121.

However, Fortescue Metals Group shed 1.63% to end the session at $24.76 and Rio Tinto was down 0.89%t at $119.66.

Powell says Fed won't raise interest rates any time soon

The Age - Page Online : 15 January 2021 - Original article by Steve Matthews - PortMac.News Summary

US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell has reiterated that interest rates will remain at a historic low for some time.

He has used a virtual discussion to emphasise that this is not the time to be considering a tightening of monetary policy; the Federal Reserve has previously indicated that a rise in the cash rate is unlikely before the end of 2023.

Powell said it is also too soon to be thinking about winding back the central bank's bond-buying program.

Rise in failures a 'Pointer to future'

The Australian - Page 17 : 15 January 2021 - Original article by Patrick Commins - PortMac.News Summary

Michael Fung of PwC and Sal Algeri from Deloitte expect the rate of business failures in Australia to be higher than usual in 2021.

The federal government has wound back some of the COVID-19 support measures that helped businesses to stay afloat during the virus-induced economic downturn, while the JobKeeper scheme is slated to be phased out in March.

Data from the Australian Securities & Investments Commission supports the view that a rise in insolvencies is likely; an average of 60 companies were placed in external administration in the final two weeks of 2020, compared with 13 during the same period in 2019.

Frydenberg joins protest against media blocking

The Australian Financial Review - Page 2 : 15 January 2021 - Original article by Miranda Ward - PortMac.News Summary

Google's revelation that it has 'experimented' with changes to its search and news algorithm has attracted scrutiny from the federal government.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says digital platforms should be paying for news content rather than removing stories from Australian news publishers from its search results.

Communications Minister Paul Fletcher says this issue demonstrates the power imbalance between Google and traditional news publishers.

Forrest's Minderoo charity eyes $2bn mark after $90m paid out

The Australian - Page 15 & 19 : 15 January 2021 - Original article by John Stensholt - PortMac.News Summary

The Minderoo Foundation's 2020 annual report shows that its net assets rose to a record $1.87bn in the 2019-20 financial year, compared with $1.34bn in 2019.

The charitable foundation spent $88.3m on projects and partnerships during 2019-20, compared with $75.2m in 2018-19.

Andrew and Nicola Forrest contributed $522m to the foundation in 2019-20, primarily from dividend income from their stake in Fortescue Metals Group.