Good morning! Here's what you need to know. Chinese stocks are getting ripped to pieces again. Fresh from being slammed by more than 4% on Friday, a sell-off which took weekly losses to more than 10%, Chinese stocks have been hammered in early trade on Monday. As of 6:45 a.m. London time (1:45 a.m. ET) the Shanghai Composite is down 8.54%. That's despite a move by Beijing to try and push pension funds into stocks. Chinese authorities wheeled out their latest attempt to underpin shaky investor confidence over the weekend, announcing that China’s giant pension fund will be able to increase its allocation in domestic shares to as much as 30%. Other Asian markets are getting hammered. Japan's Nikkei index is down 4.64% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng is down 5.06%. Greece's opposition is slowing down the process of new elections. Greek opposition leaders ignored calls from home and abroad for a rapid move to elections so the country can deal with its simultaneous economic and humanitarian crises on Sunday. No face-to-face talks were scheduled for the day of rest, although conservative leader Evangelos Meimarakis planned to ring the head of the unreformed KKE communist party - a likely exercise in futility even if the call goes ahead. And the bailout for Athens has weakened the Dutch government. The Dutch government's approval ratings have slipped after it supported Greece's latest bailout, and just as it prepares for a crucial budget bill, a poll released on Sunday showed. UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond reopened Britain's Iranian embassy. In a signal of the most striking thaw in the Western ties with Iran for over a decade, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond reopened the British embassy in Tehran nearly four years since protesters ransacked the elegant ambassadorial residence and burned the Union Jack. One of the world's big four iron ore exporters reported crumbling profits. Australian miner Fortescue Metals on Monday posted an 88% slump in full-year net profit on the back of tumbling prices for the steel-making commodity iron ore. BT is accusing its American rivals of hurting competition. BT Group's Americas unit president has called on the United States to require that telecoms rivals allow access to their networks at regulated prices, the Financial Times reported Sunday. Ukraine's president says a big escalation in conflict is possible today. Petro Poroshenko, speaking at a military rally in Kharkiv region at which he handed over new weapons and equipment to the army, praised Ukrainian forces for combating what he called a "Russian offensive" in the separatist conflict that erupted in the eastern Donbass region in April 2014. But he saw a possibility of a "large-scale escalation" of military action from Russian-backed separatists around Ukraine's Independence Day, which falls on Monday. A huge fire broke out at a steel plant near a Tokyo airport. A huge blaze broke out Monday at a steel plant near Tokyo's Haneda airport, a fire department official said, as television images showed plumes of thick black smoke and flames shooting up into the air.Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: This is how rapper 50 Cent made millions and then lost it
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