Bernard Hickey details the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am in association with Bank of New Zealand, including news that South Korea's President is threatening "enormous retaliation with multiple firepower" after North Korea's artillery attack on a South Korean island overnight.
North Korea fired more than 100 artillery rounds into fishing villages on the island, killing two soldiers and wounding dozens.
These were the first artillery attacks on the South by North Korea since the 1953 armistice.
They also follows the discovery of a massive new uranium enrichment complex in North Korea with more than 2,000 centrifuges, built in defiance of UN sanctions after inspectors were kicked out.
Global financial markets fell on the news of the North Korean attacks and fears of a wider conflict on the nuclear armed peninsular.
The Dow was down more than 150 points in late trade.
More concerns about the spreading European crisis also dragged on market sentiment. As did news of weaker US existing home sales.
And news that Chinese banks are nearing their quotas for new lending for the year as the government tries to slow a hot economy down.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned of "serial European bailouts" if the debt contagion was not limited to Ireland.
Portugal and Spain are seen as next in line, with any Spanish implosion seen as a euro-threatening event. Also, Ireland has put its banks up for sale.
Ireland's government is in political turmoil with both independent MPs and the Green party threatening to bring down the government before a new austerity budget is enacted.
All this aversion to risk on global markets drove the New Zealand dollar down to 76 USc.
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