Singapore-based Olam, one of the world’s biggest food traders, is predicting a revival in chocolate consumption in Europe as prices fall on the back of a bumper west African crop. Cocoa is one of the worst performing commodities this year, with the London benchmark trading at its lowest since 2013 amid concern over a glut in supply in west Africa, the key growing region. Sunny Verghese, Olam […]
Barely a year ago, Vale, the Brazilian mining company, was reeling. Prices of iron ore, its principal export, were at an all-time low, investors were ditching its shares and China — the market on which it most depends — looked as if it was heading for a rapid and uncontrolled slowdown. Fast forward 13 months and iron ore is back in fashion. Vale is producing record amounts […]
By Pilar Olivares | RIO DE JANEIRO RIO DE JANEIRO The top of a towering float collapsed during the final night of the parade by Rio’s elite samba troupes early on Tuesday, injuring 12 people in the second accident to mar Brazil’s glittering Carnival show. Firemen rushed to rescue costumed dancers caught in the tangled top section of the Unidos da Tijuca samba school, which lost precious […]
By Stephanie Nebehay and Joseph Sipalan | GENEVA/KUALA LUMPUR GENEVA/KUALA LUMPUR South Korea called for “collective measures” to punish North Korea for using chemical weapons to kill the estranged half-brother of its leader Kim Jong Un, as Malaysia said on Tuesday it would charge two women with murder over the airport attack. Police have said the women smeared VX nerve agent, a chemical on a United Nations […]
South Korean prosecutors have charged Lee Jae-yong, Samsung’s de facto boss, with bribery, embezzlement and other offences in connection with the country’s sprawling corruption scandal. The move on Tuesday is a blow to the leadership transition to the third generation of the founding family of South Korea’s largest conglomerate. The indictment of the 48-year-old vice-chairman of Samsung Electronics, along with four other Samsung executives, comes as the […]
Tuesday 12:30 GMT Overview Global stocks are finishing a positive month on a mixed note as traders appear cautious about making fresh bold bets ahead of Donald Trump’s speech to a joint sitting of the US Congress later on Tuesday. The dollar is fairly steady, while gains for perceived haven assets such as Treasuries and the Japanese yen speak to the underlying tentative tone. Hot topic The […]
By 2019, 77 percent of businesses in Australia will have embraced the Internet of Things (IoT) in some form, according to a study by Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. In its latest study, The Internet of Things: Today and Tomorrow, Aruba said the remaining 13 percent of Australian organisations are currently not thinking about an IoT strategy, with approximately 8 percent of those surveyed still unclear […]
By Joseph Sipalan | KUALA LUMPUR KUALA LUMPUR Two women – an Indonesian and a Vietnamese – will be charged with murder on Wednesday over their alleged involvement in the killing of the estranged half-brother of North Korea’s leader at Kuala Lumpur’s main airport, Malaysia’s attorney general said. Police have said that the women smeared VX nerve agent, a chemical on a U.N. list of weapons of […]
Frictions? Between the press corps and the White House?! Monday’s White House press briefing made Sunday night’s languorous (if now comically notorious) Oscars ceremony look like the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus (absent the elephants). It was all tranquil, rife with policy questions and only one passing reference to Friday’s combo tumult: President Trump trashing the press before an annual gathering of conservatives and Press Secretary […]
At Qayyarah Airfield West, a sprawling Iraq base 40 miles south of Mosul, a United States Army task force fires Himars satellite-guided rockets at targets. Apache attack helicopters, equipped with Hellfire missiles, stand ready to carry out their missions from the base’s airfield. Continue reading the main story Not to mention the punishing airstrikes by American and allied warplanes and drones. A flurry of attacks were carried […]
The number of mobile phone users globally will top 5 bn by the middle of this year, according to a study The number of mobile phone users globally will surpass five billion by the middle of this year, according to a study released Monday by GSMA, the association of mobile operators. With populations in Asia, and notably India, on the rise, the number, which stood at 4.8 […]
The LG G6 There’s a bit of disappointing news for those who were expecting LG’s G6 to be a completely bezel-free phone. While the phone’s display dominates its front, it still features small non-screen borders at its sides and slightly larger ones at its top and bottom sandwiching its display’s rounded corners. But while the G6 may not be an all-screen device, its screen is still — […]
MOSCOW Russia has released anti-Kremlin activist Ildar Dadin from a Siberian prison, freeing the first person jailed under new rules that made some forms of non-violent protest a criminal offence, his lawyer told Reuters on Sunday. Dadin’s release had been expected after the Supreme Court had overturned his conviction on Wednesday. He was originally sentenced in December 2015 to three years in jail — later reduced on […]
By Joseph Sipalan and Noah Browning | KUALA LUMPUR/DUBAI KUALA LUMPUR/DUBAI Malaysia welcomed Saudi Arabia’s King Salman on Sunday for the start of a rare, month-long Asian tour, where the monarch will build ties and seek to draw more investments to the oil-rich gulf nation. The visit is the first by a Saudi king to Malaysia in more than a decade, as the Arab nation courts Asian […]
Rangoon Director: Vishal Bharadwaj Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Saif Ali Khan, Shahid Kapoor Four stars Not that a Kangana Ranaut movie needs any prepublicity stunts – the leading lady’s presence guarantees a peak in interest – but her recent interview and verbal sparring with Karan Johar on Koffee with Karan ensured that even those of us only half-interested in her latest Bollywood project, Rangoon, would at least think […]
By Joseph Sipalan and Angie Teo | KUALA LUMPUR KUALA LUMPUR Malaysia on Sunday declared its international airport a “safe zone” after completing a sweep of the terminal where the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was assaulted with a deadly chemical last week. Kim Jong Nam died on Feb. 13 after being smothered at the airport’s budget terminal with VX nerve agent, classified […]
25 February 2017 Fitch Ratings-London-24 February 2017: Fitch Ratings has assigned UAE based Majid Al Futtaim Holding LLC’s (MAF) proposed benchmark size subordinated perpetual hybrid notes a rating of ‘BB+(EXP)’. The proposed securities qualify for 50% equity credit. The final rating is contingent on the receipt of final documents conforming materially to the preliminary documentation reviewed. The hybrid note proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes […]
HANOI The Vietnamese woman arrested as a suspect in killing the half-brother of North Korea’s leader thought she was taking part in a prank video, Vietnam’s foreign ministry said on Saturday. Hanoi had not previously confirmed that Doan Thi Huong was Vietnamese, saying only that it was in touch with authorities in Malaysia, where Kim Jong Nam was murdered on Feb. 13. Vietnamese embassy officials met her […]
KUALA LUMPUR Malaysia plans to sweep one of the terminals at Kuala Lumpur international airport for toxic chemicals after Kim Jong Nam was murdered there with a nerve agent last week. The teams involved include the police forensic team, the fire department and the Atomic Energy Licensing Board, the Malaysian police said in a statement on Saturday. The sweep will be conducted from 1 a.m. (1700 GMT) […]
Image credit: Arqiva Samsung Electronics says it will start the UK’s first 5G broadband network in central London, following earlier trials South Korea, China and Japan. In London, it will work with Arqiva, which is best known for DAB radio broadcasting. Arqiva has a licence to use the 28GHz spectrum across the UK, and will host a number of Samsung’s 5G base stations. Arqiva’s CEO, Simon Beresford-Wylie, […]
SEOUL Plans for the first contact between North Korea and the United States after President Donald Trump took office were cancelled after the U.S. State Department denied a visa for the top envoy from Pyongyang, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. The talks, between senior North Korean foreign ministry envoy Choe Son Hui and former U.S. officials, were scheduled to take place on March 1 and […]
Iraqi fighter jets struck Isis positions in neighbouring Syria on Friday, in what officials said was retaliation for a spate of car bomb attacks in the capital Baghdad. The air strikes coincided with Iraq’s ground forces pushing deeper into the western half of Mosul and reaching the first residential districts. Iraq’s second city, a critical Isis stronghold split by the Tigris river, is divided between government forces […]
Uber is under attack once again today as the Twittersphere quickly concluded it was behind a smear campaign against a former engineer for the company, Susan Fowler Rigetti, who dropped a scathing blog post earlier this week detailing sexual harassment claims while working at Uber over the course of a year. Rigetti tweeted today people were being contacted for “personal and intimate info” about her, causing many […]
OSLO Aid agencies must get food to close to 3 million people by July to avert a famine in Africa’s Lake Chad region caused by drought, chronic poverty and Islamist insurgents Boko Haram, the United Nations said on Friday as it launched a funding appeal. International donors at a conference in Oslo pledged $672 million for the next three years in new money, $457 million of which […]
