SINGAPORE – Malaysia has reimbursed Singapore about $102.8 million for costs incurred in the failed high-speed rail (HSR) project, after the bilateral agreement was terminated. In a joint statement on Monday (March 29), Singapore’s Transport Minister and Malaysia’s Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Economy) said the two countries have finalised the settlement of compensation […]
BEIJING (CAIXIN GLOBAL) – Guo Qing’s second-grade son often stays up until 11 pm struggling through his math homework, which is usually as hard as fourth-grade work, the Beijing father says. To keep his son from lagging behind, Guo signed him up for after-school tutoring, as did the parents of most other students in his […]
JAKARTA – Two suicide bombers who blew themselves up at the gate of a Catholic church in South Sulawesi’s provincial capital Makassar on Sunday (March 28) are a married couple, the Indonesian police said on Monday. A blast at the cathedral on Palm Sunday, the first day of the Holy Week leading up to Good […]
TAIPEI (REUTERS) – There has been no progress on talks to seal a deal with Germany’s BioNTech for its Covid-19 vaccine though talks are continuing, Taiwanese Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said on Monday (March 29). Taiwan complained last month that the firm had pulled out of a deal to sell it five million doses at the […]
SINGAPORE – Not all is lost if you find yourself overwhelmed by work and school stress. Being resilient is a skill that can be learnt, a recent study of Singapore university students has found. The paper, which was published last month in academic journal Current Psychology, studied what made a group of 107 undergraduates resilient, […]
HONG KONG (REUTERS) – When Mr Ritesh Mehra, 43, enlisted for a four-month stint as captain on a liquid gas tanker last July, he never expected to be stranded at sea until spring. “Twice it has happened that the ports are not allowing crew change,” Mr Mehra told Reuters via Zoom from the bridge of […]
JAKARTA (REUTERS) – Indonesian state oil company Pertamina said on Monday (March 29) it was trying to control a massive fire at its Balongan oil refinery in West Java and that five people had been injured and about 950 people evacuated because of the blaze. The fire began just after midnight on Sunday evening, media […]
SYDNEY (REUTERS) – Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s approval ratings fell to the lowest level in a year as his conservative government struggles to contain a backlash over allegations of mistreatment of female MPs and staff, a poll showed on Monday (March 29). A Newspoll conducted for The Australian newspaper showed Mr Morrison’s public support […]
SINGAPORE – A Singaporean who had returned from India was among the 12 new Covid-19 cases reported by the Ministry of Health on Sunday (March 28). All 12 cases were imported had been placed on stay-home-notice or isolated upon arrival into Singapore, said MOH. Among the new cases announced on Sunday, 10 were asymptomatic and […]
NEW DELHI – Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Bangladesh is seen to have generated goodwill and paved the way for greater economic engagement and connectivity between the two South Asian economies. India is predicted to be the fastest-growing economy by the end of the year while Bangladesh last year overtook India in gross domestic […]