SINGAPORE – Singapore would have been hit hard by a shortfall of at least 100,000 workers and 30,000 domestic workers if migrant workers had not been allowed to enter after the circuit breaker period last year, the Ministry of Manpower said on Tuesday (May 18). MOM said that the Republic would have had a labour […]
WELLINGTON (REUTERS) – New Zealand plans to reset its immigration policy, cutting the number of overall immigrants, particularly low-skilled migrants, when it reopens its borders following the coronavirus pandemic, the government said. At the same time, the country of 5 million would look to attract more highly skilled workers as well as rich investors, Tourism […]
HONG KONG (REUTERS) – Hong Kong’s leader said that freezing the assets of democracy activist Jimmy Lai, including his majority stake in media publisher Next Digital, would hopefully reinforce the Asian financial hub’s status by ensuring national security. Carrie Lam, speaking at a weekly press briefing on Tuesday (May 18), said that the move against […]
NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) – Apple Inc. stores data from its Chinese customers in servers owned by a Chinese state-owned company, potentially making it easy for the government to gain access to the information, the New York Times reported. The data deal, in response to a 2017 Chinese law, is one of several concessions to the […]
BEIJING (REUTERS) – China will tread carefully in relaxing its birth policies for fear of harming social stability, even as the latest census highlights the urgency to address the country’s declining birth trends and ageing population, policy sources said. Expectations for birth policy reforms are rising after the 2020 census last week showed China’s population […]
YANGON (REUTERS) – Thousands of residents of a hill town in north-west Myanmar were hiding in jungles, villages and valleys on Monday (May 17) after fleeing an assault by state troops, witnesses said, as the army advanced into the town after days battling local militias. Mindat, about 100km (60 miles) from the Indian border in […]
SINGAPORE – Covid-19 may have caused delays to shipments of key equipment, but that has not derailed the timeline set out for building Singapore’s largest solar photovoltaic (PV) system to date. Spread across 10 solar-panel islands – equivalent in size to 45 football fields – on the surface of Tengeh Reservoir, it is also one […]
NEW DELHI (AFP) – A powerful cyclonic system, Tauktae, is expected to make landfall in the Indian state of Gujarat late on Monday (May 17) after barrelling up the Arabian Sea in the Indian Ocean. It is the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane in the Atlantic and East Pacific Ocean basins and reports say […]
SINGAPORE – The World Economic Forum (WEF) special annual meeting scheduled to be held in Singapore in August has been postponed to next year. Organisers cited the uncertain travel outlook and new variants of Covid-19, among others, as reasons. In a statement on its website on Monday (May 17), the WEF said: “Regretfully, the tragic […]
NEW DELHI (REUTERS) – India has found 26 suspected cases of bleeding and clotting among recipients of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the Health Ministry said on Monday (May 17), describing the risk as “minuscule” out of the 164 million doses administered. Some countries have suspended or restricted use of the shot over fears of possible side […]