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Australia's iron ore giants BHP Group, Rio Tinto and Fortescue are set to report a steep drop in their earnings, which is set to compress their payouts to shareholders, after China's COVID lockdown drove down iron ore prices.

Earnings at Rio Tinto (RIO.AX) and BHP Group (BHP.AX) are seen declining 48% and 28%, respectively, for the six months to December 2022, while Fortescue's half-year earnings (FMG.AX) are set to slide about 16%, based on estimates from Visible Alpha and Vuma Financial.

The miners are expected to offer a mixed outlook for 2023, amid uncertainty over the strength of China's recovery following the lifting of its strict COVID-19 curbs.

"We haven't seen too much hard data from China just yet, but I think there's enough for the miners to be more optimistic - cautiously so," said Adrian Prendergast, an analyst at Morgans Financial in Melbourne.

The companies are also facing higher materials and fuel costs and a dearth of skilled workers that could impinge on their expansion projects.

Average realised prices for iron ore fell sharply in the six months to December, hitting earnings.

Dividend payouts are expected to fall, undermined by the weaker earnings and a push by the major diversified miners to fund growth, be it through building their own projects or through acquisitions, analysts at Goldman Sachs wrote in a note.

Buyout activity has been ramping up in the mining sector, as evidenced by Rio's recent $3.3 billion takeover of Canada's Turquoise Hill to gain control of its Mongolian copper mine, and BHP's A$9.6 billion offer for copper and gold producer OZ Minerals (OZL.AX).

BHP, which will report its first-half results on Feb. 21, is expected to record attributable profit from total operations of $6.82 billion, down from $9.44 billion.

First-half net profit at Fortescue, reporting on Feb. 15, is seen declining to $2.34 billion from $2.78 billion. BHP and Fortescue report on a July-June financial year.

Underlying half-year profit at Rio Tinto, which reports on a calendar year cycle, is seen declining 48% to $4.77 billion from $9.21 billion. Rio will report on Feb. 22. (Reuters)

U.S. State Department Counselor Derek Chollet will lead a delegation to Pakistan this week as Washington and Islamabad seek to repair ties strained under former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The U.S. delegation will visit Bangladesh and Pakistan from Feb. 14-18 to meet with senior government officials, civil society members and business leaders, the State Department said in a statement on Monday.

Khan, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote in parliament last April, had antagonized the United States throughout his tenure. He welcomed the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 and accused Washington of being behind the attempt to oust him in 2022.

Washington and Pakistan's National Security Council, a body of top civil and military leaders, dismissed his accusations. Khan was succeeded as prime minister by Shehbaz Sharif.

The U.S. delegation's visit comes as the $350-billion economy of Pakistan is still reeling from devastating floods last year that left at least 1,700 people dead, and the government estimates rebuilding efforts will cost $16 billion.

The nuclear-armed nation is in the grip of a full-blown economic crisis. Talks between Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund were scheduled to resume online this week after 10 days of face-to-face discussions in Islamabad on how to keep the country afloat ended without a deal on Friday.

The Dawn newspaper reported late in January that Pakistan had sought U.S. support to unlock the stalled IMF program that would release $1.1 billion to its strained economy as the country rebuilds.

"The delegation will also reaffirm the strong security cooperation between our nations," the State Department said on Monday. Economic ties and cooperation to tackle the impact of climate change would be on the agenda in the meeting between U.S. and Pakistani officials, the department added. (Reuters)

The leaders of five Pacific island nations said on Tuesday that U.S. President Joe Biden would soon visit their region for a leaders' summit.

The leaders of the Pacific's five Micronesian nations, Kiribati, Palau, Nauru, Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), met on Monday and issued a communique on Tuesday saying they had discussed the "value of a visit by U.S. President Joseph R. Biden Jr to the Pacific sometime in the near future".

"Presidents welcomed President Biden's planned visit for Leaders Summit in the Pacific Region and expressed their full support and cooperation to ensure the success of this visit," they said in a statement.

The U.S. embassy covering the Pacific islands and the U.S. consulate in the Australian city of Sydney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Leaders of the Pacific Island Forum, a regional bloc of 18 countries, will meet in Fiji on Feb. 24 and any invitation for a Biden visit would likely be agreed on and issued by the forum.

The United States last year stepped up its diplomacy and aid to the strategically important Pacific region after China struck a security deal with the Solomon Islands, and China attempted but failed to forge a wider security and trade pact with 10 island nations.

FSM president David Panuelo said in a statement a U.S.-Pacific Islands summit hosted by Biden at the White House in September was "an unambiguous success".

"It will be of instrumental importance for the Pacific to ensure the United States continues to re-engage, as thoroughly as possible, with our Blue Pacific Continent," he said.

Biden is expected to travel to Australia this year to attend a meeting of the so-called Quad group of the United States, India, Australia and Japan. (Reuters)

Taiwan has not spotted any surveillance balloons from China in its vicinity, the island's defence ministry said on Tuesday, as a dispute between China and the United States over spy balloons triggers worries about rising military tensions.

The U.S. military on Feb. 4 shot down what it called a Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina.

China said the balloon was a civilian research craft that had mistakenly blown off course and on Monday it accused the United States of sending spy balloons over China. The United States denied that.

A Taiwan military intelligence officer said the armed forces had not seen any surveillance balloons from China near the island that were similar to the one shot down over the United States.

"The majority of the balloons near our waters were used for meteorological purposes," the officer, Major General Huang Wen-chi, told a regular briefing in Taipei, adding that weather balloons posed no serious security threat.

He said the military would destroy any balloon approaching Taiwan's territory that posed "high security threats" but no such action had been necessary.

The balloons detected near Taiwan had no steering capability and thus were unlikely to be used for surveillance, he added.

The Financial Times reported this week cited unidentified Taiwan sources as saying that the island has observed dozens of Chinese military balloon flights in its airspace in recent years, far more than previously known.

The ministry declined to comment on the report.

Beijing claims self-ruled Taiwan as its territory and has ramped up its military activities near the island in recent years, raising fears Beijing might try to take control of the it by force.

Taiwan vows to defend itself if attacked, saying Beijing's sovereignty claims are void as the People's Republic of China has never governed the island. (Reuters)