By Nichola Saminather | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Asian stocks, taking some cues from a steady Wall Street, edged up on Thursday while the path for the dollar, which crawled up from a four-month low, remained clouded by concerns about the prospects for U.S. President Donald Trump’s pro-growth agenda. Sterling GBP=D3 was steady at $1.2483 following a decline of as much as 0.4 percent on Wednesday, after an attack […]
By Yawen Chen and Ryan Woo | BEIJING BEIJING Business sentiment at Asia’s top companies rose to its highest in almost two years in the first quarter of 2017, buoyed by positive economic signs from the United States and China that underpinned improved global demand, a Thomson Reuters/INSEAD survey showed. The Thomson Reuters/INSEAD Asian Business Sentiment Index .TRIABS RACSI, representing the six-month outlook of 96 firms, rebounded […]
SIBU: Former deputy chief minister and ex-SUPP president Tan Sri Dr Wong Soon Kai (pic) passed away at 4am Wednesday after a long illness. He was 90. This was confirmed by Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) president Datuk Dr Sim Kui Hian in his Facebook posting, saying they were deeply saddened by the news of Wong’s passing. Wong, who was the party’s honourary party president and third […]
Image: Cultura/REX/Shutterstock By Yvette Tan2017-03-21 07:53:00 UTC What’s the first thing you do upon waking up? If your answer’s brushing your teeth or taking a shower, chances are you’re already using a product developed by Givaudan. The Swiss firm is the world’s largest player in the flavour and fragrance industries. It develops scents and flavours across food products as well as household items. That means it’s probably […]
By Henning Gloystein | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Oil prices rose early on Tuesday on expectations that an OPEC-led production cut to prop up the market could be extended, and as strong demand was seen to slowly erode a global fuel supply overhang. Prices for front-month Brent crude futures, the international benchmark for oil, were at $51.76 per barrel at 0043 GMT, up 14 cents, or 0.3 percent, from […]
The release of the Panama Papers exposed an elaborate kickback scheme whose tentacles spread from the Caribbean island of Aruba to warehouses in Doral to the offshore banking haven of Panama City, according to a lawsuit filed in Miami federal court. The scam was allegedly hatched by Egbert Koolman, an employee of Aruba’s state-owned telecommunications provider, Setar. Koolman’s job was to buy phones from suppliers around the […]
NEC, in partnership with Singapore public transport service provider SMRT Corporation, is using artificial intelligence (AI) to prevent bus accidents on the city-state’s roads. The Japanese giant is taking historical data from a bus driver’s work records, telematics data produced by each bus, and observations made by on-board data scientists to determine whether a driver is likely to cause an accident in the next three months, and […]
Monday 06:10 GMT Overview The US dollar continued its slide in the wake of last week’s widely expected decision by the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, while Asian stocks were mixed. European bourses are expected to open with a soft bias, with spreadbetters predicting the UK’s FTSE 100 will be unchanged but Germany’s Dax to drop 30 points to 12,065. US index futures suggest the S&P […]
By Nichola Saminather | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Asian stocks were mixed on Monday in thin trade, following Wall Street’s declines and the G20’s decision to drop a pledge to avoid trade protectionism, while the Federal Reserve’s less hawkish-than-expected comments continued to drag the dollar lower. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS added 0.1 percent. Chinese shares .SSEC added 0.2 percent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng […]
Tim Byrnes is an unlikely symbol of China’s bid to become the world’s high-tech superpower. For a start he is Australian. Yet the 39-year-old quantum physicist’s decision to swap a research post in New York for Shanghai goes some way to explaining the lengths to which Beijing is going in its efforts to upend the world order. “Quantum physics is very strong in China,” says Mr Byrnes. […]
Our round-up of the week’s best comment and analysis from the Financial Times focuses on positive signals for the word’s second-largest economy and the implications for investors of the Federal Reserve rate rise. The selection is taken from our Markets Insight and Smart Money columns, written by industry contributors and FT commentators. Investors may be wary of being burnt by China but the drumbeat of bullish noises […]
A retired Navy admiral charged along with eight military officers with corruption in the “Fat Leonard” bribery case hosted and paid for a lavish sex party in the MacArthur Suite of the Manila Hotel in the Philippines – and used “historical memorabilia” in the room during sex acts, according to a 78-page federal indictment. Rear Adm. Bruce Loveless, while on a port visit on USS Blue Ridge […]
It is fitting that just a few hours until the Fed’s second rate hike in two quarters, and one day after Goldman downgraded global stocks to Neutral for the next 3 months, not to mention with the results of the anticipated Dutch election due shortly, that global stocks as well as S&P futures are higher, while crude oil has finally managed to stage a rebound as the […]
Ride-sharing operator Grab has unveiled two new research facilities in Bangalore and Ho Chi Minh City, as well as plans to add more than 800 jobs across six of such centres worldwide over two years. The new hires would support four other R&D sites including Singapore, Beijing, Jakarta, and Seattle, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Its research efforts would focus on building out Grab’s transport […]
Singapore needs to keep a close watch on teachings or statements that are exclusivist and divisive, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean said yesterday. These have had repercussions in other countries, he noted at a gathering of Islamic religious teachers. “Attacks claimed to be in the name of Islam have led to a rise in Islamophobia, with anti-immigration rhetoric and negative reactions among other communities,” he said. […]
By Katharine Houreld | NAIROBI NAIROBI Pirates have hijacked an oil tanker with eight Sri Lankan crew on board, Somali authorities said on Tuesday, the first time a commercial ship has been seized in the region since 2012. Security forces have been sent to free the Aris 13, a regional police official said late on Tuesday. Graphic on track of suspected hijacked tanker: http:// fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/ce/3/868/868/ARIS13.png Graph showing […]
French explorer Gauthier Toulemonde has begun his journey through Oman’s deserts starting from Wilayat Adam, Al Dakhiliya governorate, where he will cross The Empty Quarter and Al Sharqiya Sands. Toulemonde said his journey will be covered through his social media accounts while he will also send postcards and letters through the mail to his friends around the world to share his experience in Oman. Having previously trekked […]
SINGAPORE – After an eight-month global search, Yale-NUS College has looked in-house and picked historian Tan Tai Yong as its new President. Professor Tan, who was a Nominated Member of Parliament, will take office from July, succeeding the liberal arts college’s founding President Pericles Lewis, who will be returning to Yale University to take up a senior administrative post. Since October 2014, Prof Tan is the Executive […]
From the geometric work of Tunisian artist Nicène Kossentini – who spent time in Córdoba’s Great Mosque while on a residency in Andalusia and produced abstracted drawings based on Tawq Al Hamamah (The Ring of the Dove), a 11th-century treatise of love written by Ibn Hazm – to the paintings of Ahmed Morsi, the pieces displayed as part of the 11th edition of Art Dubai hold fascinating […]
By Tim Kelly and Nobuhiro Kubo | TOKYO TOKYO Japan plans to dispatch its largest warship on a three-month tour through the South China Sea beginning in May, three sources said, in its biggest show of naval force in the region since World War Two. China claims almost all the disputed waters and its growing military presence has fuelled concern in Japan and the West, with the […]
SINGAPORE – A 30-year-old Malaysian man was arrested at the Woodlands Checkpoint on Saturday (Mar 11) after he was found to be carrying 1.38kg of heroin into the country. In a joint release on Monday (Mar 13), the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority and the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) said that a checkpoint officer sent the man, who arrived on a Malaysian-registered motorcycle, for further inspections at about […]
SINGAPORE Singapore’s police took issue on Sunday with a Reuters report on a public protest over water price increases, saying it presented a “false and misleading” picture of the use of Speakers’ Corner, a designated place for citizens to speak publicly on issues. The Reuters report said that more than 100 people gathered at Speakers’ Corner on Saturday to protest against a two-step, 30 percent increase in […]
SEOUL Oil prices dropped to their lowest in three months on Monday despite OPEC efforts to curb crude output, dragged down as U.S. drillers kept adding rigs. Brent crude LCOc1 had fallen 35 cents, or 0.68 percent, to its lowest since Nov. 30 at $51.02 per barrel by 0231 GMT. It closed the previous session down 1.6 percent at $51.37. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) CLc1 […]
By Jeremy Wagstaff | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE In today’s so-called smart home, you can dim the lights, order more toothpaste or tell the kids to go to bed simply by talking to a small Wifi-connected speaker, such as Amazon’s (AMZN.O) Echo or Google’s (GOOGL.O) Home. This voice-first market – combining voice with artificial intelligence (AI) – barely existed in 2014. This year, Voice Labs, a consultancy, expects 24.5 […]
