Friday, 29 Mar 2024

Asia

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Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing donates $176 million to support local business

HONG KONG (REUTERS) – Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-shing will donate HK$1 billion (S$176 million) to support local small and medium sized businesses, his foundation said on Friday (Oct 4), a move that comes as the city’s economy has been roiled by pro-democracy protests. Hong Kong tycoons and property developers have come under pressure […]

Turnout Soars, and Suspicion of Fraud With It, in Days After Afghan Vote

KABUL, Afghanistan — By early afternoon on Election Day for the president of Afghanistan, officials began to fret. At many polling stations, including some in the capital, Kabul, only the occasional voter had shown up. To allow for a bigger turnout, voting was extended by two hours. The worry about low turnout has now turned […]

Massacred at Home, in Misery Abroad, 730,000 Rohingya Are Mired in Hopelessness

বাংলায় পড়তে ক্লিক করুন When things go wrong, those in power often promise to make it right. But do they? In this series, The Times investigates to see if those promises were kept. NGA KHU YA, Myanmar — Rusting behind barbed wire, rows of trailers at a repatriation center sit empty and uninviting, evocative of […]

U.S. holiday sales to rise up to 4.2% amid trade uncertainty: NRF

(Reuters) – U.S. holiday sales in 2019 are expected to be higher than a year earlier, the National Retail Federation said on Thursday, even as the retail sector grapples with fears of slowing global growth due to an ongoing U.S.-China trade war. Sales in 2019 are estimated to grow between 3.8% and 4.2% to a […]

More women needed in cyber security to meet high industry demand: Sim Ann

SINGAPORE – The Republic needs more women to take up positions in cyber security, a sector that is facing a shortfall of talent. On Thursday (Oct 3), Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information Sim Ann said more women can be encouraged to join the cyber-security industry and thrive in it. “Given the high […]

Youth gets jail, caning for raping ex-girlfriend and cousin

SINGAPORE – A youth who raped his former girlfriend in his flat when he was 17, and then a distant relative less than a year later, was on Thursday (Oct 3) sentenced to a jail term of six years, nine months and two weeks. The full-time national serviceman, who turns 21 on Sunday (Oct 6), […]

Yes whey! U.S. touts dairy product to Chinese hog farmers fighting swine fever

CHICAGO (Reuters) – When Beijing announced it was exempting 16 U.S. goods from retaliatory tariffs, Chinese firms hurried to call Proliant Dairy Ingredients in the heart of American farm country. Among the products included in China’s first batch of exemptions last month was whey permeate for animal feed, a dairy byproduct sold by Iowa-based Proliant. […]

Australian PM echoes Trump with call to reject globalism

SYDNEY (REUTERS) – Australia should reject “unaccountable internationalist bureaucracy”, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Thursday (Oct 3), echoing a recent call by US President Donald Trump for nations to embrace nationalism. “We should avoid any reflex towards a negative globalism that coercively seeks to impose a mandate from an often ill-defined borderless global community,” […]

Singapore is world's smartest city: IMD Smart City Index

SINGAPORE – People living here have picked the Republic as the smartest city in the world, the inaugural IMD Smart City Index showed. Published by Swiss business school IMD and the Singapore University of Technology and Design, the index ranked cities in terms of how “smart” they are, which in this case was defined as […]

ECB must fight specter of `Japanification': de Guindos, Rehn

MADRID/HELSINKI (Reuters) – The European Central Bank must battle low inflation expectations to keep them from becoming self-fulfilling, the sort of misfortune Japan has struggled with for years, two policymakers said on Thursday. The ECB loosened policy further last month to lift growth and inflation, sparking an unusual public spat between its doves and more […]