Australia's non-bank residential lenders may soon be unable to raise funds in the United States by securitising their mortgage assets unless U.S. regulators give them special relief from tough regulatory requirements - potentially denying them access to the world's major capital market.

Shelley Penn, the Former national president of the Australian Institute of Architects, recently announced that she will contest for one of the six Senate Parliamentary seats available to Victorian candidates at the next Australian Federal election. Penn will run as one of three Victorian Australian Labor Party candidates alongside the incumbent Kim Carr and current Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Stephen Conroy.

Amidst the uncertainty, Norway’s nearly $900 billion sovereign wealth fund (the largest in the world) is keen on being a source of stability in an increasingly unstable world — which is why it’s planning on spending the country’s oil revenue on “a lot” of Asian skyscrapers and shopping malls.