SINGAPORE – Christmas might be over, but pine or fir trees from the festive season could still come in useful, at least for Justin Beaver and his other furry pals at the Singapore Zoo and River Safari. The Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS) has appealed to the public to drop off their live Christmas trees at […]

(Reuters) – An entity controlled by Hudson’s Bay Co Chairman Richard Baker will buy the stake owned by a unit of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board in the Canadian retailer, according to L&T B Cayman Inc, a top shareholder in Hudson’s Bay and a joint buyer. The purchase of about 18 million shares at C$9.45 […]

BEIJING (Reuters) – China will cut banks’ reserve requirement ratios (RRRs), taxes and fees, Premier Li Keqiang said on Friday, as the world’s second-largest economy shows further signs of cooling. The measures will also included targeted RRR cuts aimed at supporting small and private companies, Li was quoted as saying in a statement on the […]

KUALA LUMPUR (THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) – The Sessions Court in Kuala Lumpur has allowed a request by prosecutors to try former prime minister Najib Razak and former 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) chief Arul Kanda Kandasamy together over alleged tampering of 1MDB’s final audit report. Sessions Court judge Azura Alwi granted the request after hearing […]

The United States renewed a travel advisory for China on Thursday that warned American citizens could face arbitrary detention there, a move that came amid tense relations between the countries dominated by trade disputes and the recent American-requested arrest of a high-profile Chinese executive in Canada. The rights of foreign nationals in China have received […]

BEIJING (BLOOMBERG) – China’s cyberspace police have ordered Baidu and Sohu.com to suspend a plethora of news services for a week, kicking off an online clean-up campaign with two of the country’s biggest Internet corporations. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) on Thursday (Jan 3) announced it was starting a six-month effort to eradicate “vulgar” […]

SEOUL (REUTERS) – In just over a decade, South Korea has spent the equivalent of a small European economy trying to fix its demographic crisis, yet birth rates have dropped to the lowest in the world. This year, President Moon Jae-in, who describes himself as a feminist president, is testing a new angle: showing women […]

Bath and body product retailer Crabtree and Evelyn will be shutting its 12 stores here in the coming months as it moves its operations online, with some outlets already emptied of goods. The United Kingdom-based company filed for bankruptcy protection in Canada last month amid “significant losses” that it attributed to changing consumer demand, the […]

LONDON — For travel bargain hunters, the first day of 2019 was a spectacular one. On routes between Asia and North America, Cathay Pacific, the Hong Kong-based airline, offered seats in its exclusive business and first classes for less than the economy fare. A round-trip flight in business class from Vietnam to New York cost […]

(Reuters) – U.S. oil and gas executives’ outlook turned negative for the first time since the low point of the last oil bust, according to results of a survey released on Thursday by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. A survey of executive sentiment fell to -10 from 47 in the prior quarter, the first […]