LONDON (Reuters) – The dollar resumed its decline on Thursday, shrugging off Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s relatively confident comments on the U.S. economy as survey figures suggested fears of a broadening economic weakness in Europe could be exaggerated. The single currency popped a fifth of a percent higher after German retail sales contracted by less […]
SINGAPORE – About half a million senior citizens eligible for the Merdeka Generation Package can expect to receive their eligibility letter by this week, said the Ministry of Health (MOH) on Thursday (May 2). Eligibility letters were mailed to these Singaporeans by end-April, said the ministry in a statement. They can also look forward to […]
SINGAPORE – A bank relationship manager won the trust of two elderly customers, then made off with more than $200,000 of their money. Liaw Tick Kwan made unauthorised transfers and lied about investments before using their money for his own ends, such as to buy real estate in Cambodia under his wife’s name. The 37-year-old pleaded […]
GENEVA (Reuters) – OPEC tries to depoliticize oil, the producer group’s secretary-general was quoted by the Iranian oil ministry as saying on Thursday, following accusations by Iran that the United States is using oil as a weapon against Tehran. The United States has demanded that buyers of Iranian oil stop purchases by the start of […]
The Chinese government calls them free “vocational training centres”; Aibota Serik, a Chinese Kazakh whose father was sent to one, calls them prisons. Her father Kudaybergen Serik was a local imam in Tarbagatay (Tacheng) prefecture of China’s western Xinjiang region. In February 2018 the police detained him and Aibota hasn’t heard from her father since […]
Chinese police are using a mobile app to keep data on millions of ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang province, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). In a report released on Thursday, HRW said it had reverse engineered the app to see how mass surveillance worked. The app is used to closely monitor behaviours, it said, including […]
BHUBANESWAR, India (AFP) – Nearly 800,000 people in India’s eastern coastal districts have been evacuated ahead of the expected arrival of a major cyclone packing winds of up to 200 kilometres per hour, officials said on Thursday (May 2). The Indian weather service said Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm Fani is expected to make landfall on […]
PETALING JAYA (BLOOMBERG, THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) – A set of diamond jewellery worth US$1.7 million (S$2.3 million) that fugitive Malaysian businessman Low Taek Jho allegedly bought with money stolen from 1MDB for his mother will be handed over to the United States government. A pair of flawless diamond earrings and 7.53-carat diamond ring will be […]
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Oil prices fell on Thursday, pulled down by record U.S. crude production that led to a surge in stockpiles. Outside the United States, however, oil markets remained tense as exemptions to U.S. sanctions on Iran expired, a political crisis in Venezuela escalates, and as producer club OPEC keeps withholding supply. Spot Brent […]
SINGAPORE – A 45-year-old man who was found with about 18 gallons of cough syrup allegedly stolen from clinics in Bedok was arrested on Tuesday (April 30). In a statement early on Thursday, the police said that they received a report that cough syrup had been stolen from a clinic in Bedok North Street 1. […]