By Wayne Arnold
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Olympus’s board wants to hang around until March and possibly April. That’s too long. Though the three directors implicated in the Japanese company’s ongoing accounting scandal have resigned, the remaining bunch failed to spot their scam. They also fired the only director brave enough to cry foul once it emerged. The company still needs to placate regulators, woo creditors and repel litigious investors. For that, it needs a fresh board as soon as possible.

By Wayne Arnold
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

The retreat of European banks from Asia could create a $390 billion hole that drives up borrowing costs and crimps growth. Asia’s companies are used to a world where dollars were cheap and abundant. The region’s banks are flush with local currency deposits, but have to borrow most of their dollars. So as Western banks pull back, Asian lenders may find it difficult to fill the gap.

By Wayne Arnold
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Michael Woodford may not be the right fit to run a post-scandal Olympus. Two months after he was fired for blowing the whistle on an accounting scandal, the former chief executive wants to return to the helm. Woodford knows the Japanese group well, but his short, divisive tenure as CEO makes him an awkward choice. Though Woodford should make any shortlist, Olympus shareholders would be wise to consider other candidates.

Woodford is rounding up a posse of investors and bankers to oust Olympus’s board and put him back in charge. He’s promising to shed jobs and side-show units like face cream in an effort to boost earnings at Olympus, which has 70 percent of the global market for scopes that peek into people’s insides. The trick will be mustering shareholders who’ve owned at least 3 percent of the stock for at least six months and can force an extraordinary general meeting. Some of the biggest and most vocal – like Southeastern Asset Management – can’t do that because much of their stake is held on behalf of clients.

By Wayne Arnold
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Myanmar has been thrust into the centre of an economic love triangle. The visit of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirms the strategic importance of the former pariah state for the United States, but also for China and India. For would-be investors, the biggest risk may simply be that Myanmar gets too popular, too quickly.

By Wayne Arnold
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

China’s manufacturing engine is sputtering, boding ill for other Asian exporters like Japan and South Korea. They’re counting on China to offset slowing demand from the United States and Europe. But much of what China imports goes into making its own exports. And even bona fide domestic demand left is likely to be affected by a trade slowdown.

By Wayne Arnold
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Olympus’ embarrassing decision to dump its foreign chief executive two weeks after naming him to the job shows that reform is a slow and fitful process. Michael Woodford was brought in to carry out a house-cleaning at the Japanese camera maker, and became one of the country’s handful of non-Japanese corporate bosses. That the board decided to fire him so soon shows the medicine was distasteful. It also strengthens the case for a bigger dose.

By Wayne Arnold
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

South Korea has assumed battle stations. Investors’ retreat from emerging markets has exposed the country’s reliance on short-term foreign credit, sending its markets spinning and prompting Prime Minister Lee Myung Bak to call the first economic crisis meeting in almost a year. Banks and government balance sheets look sturdy, but an economic slump centred on indebted households is a real risk.

By Wayne Arnold
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Currency wars have returned, and this time the world has little choice but to let the United States win. The Fed’s vow to keep U.S. interest rates near zero until 2013 heralds a prolonged devaluation of the dollar. For export nations, the temptation is to fight back by pushing their own currencies lower. That’s a mistake. Tit-for-tat devaluations are futile, and would delay the recovery of exporters’ number one customer, turning a global slowdown into dreaded stagflation.

By Wayne Arnold
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Nintendo slashed its profit forecast and the price of its newest hand-held gaming device, and its stock plummeted. The strong yen and weak U.S. consumer spending are problems, but Nintendo’s nemesis is the iPhone. If it doesn’t make a forceful entry into the smartphone market, the game could be up.

Nintendo joins a growing list of Japanese and other Asian electronics makers hit by the slowdown in consumer spending. It reported that sales in the second quarter dropped 50 percent compared to the same period of 2010, leaving it with a 25 billion yen loss. Sales in the Americas, usually its biggest market, fell by 69 percent.

By Wayne Arnold
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

TOKYO — Bond traders have been betting against Japanese government debt for years — and losing spectacularly. Victims of the so-called “widow-maker” trade of shorting JGBs thought the March disaster would vindicate them. Rebuilding, after all, will add to Japan’s sky-high debt and, with a shrinking workforce and rising pension costs, push yields up. But the quake hasn’t disrupted the self-perpetuating money machine that drives JGBs. Doomsayers still run the risk of becoming road kill.