World

A landslide victory is on the cards for Ferdinand "BongBong" Marcos Jr. in the Philippines, seen here at his campaign headquarters in Mandaluyong City, Manila, on Monday. Veejay Villafranca/Bloomberg via Getty Images It appears all but certain that Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the namesake son of the late dictator, will become the Philippines' next president. The unofficial vote count so far shows that Bongbong, as he's popularly known at home, is set for a landslide victory — pulling ahead by a wide margin against his closest rival, incumbent Vice President Leni Robredo. Official results are expected near the end of the month. A Marcos Jr. presidency would be vastly different from the six years under President Rodrigo Duterte, said Victor Manhit, managing director of advisory firm BowerGroupAsi...

RIYH: The head of the world's biggest airline trade body said on Monday (May 9) the recovery in passenger traffic was accelerating and that on average, the industry could now return to pre-pandemic figures in 2023, a year earlier than its previous forecast. The continued easing of COVID-19-related restrictions by governments around the world is releasing demand pent up over the last two years when countries had shut their borders. International Air Transport Association (IATA) Director General Willie Walsh told Reuters that overall passenger traffic was picking up faster than expected despite the war in Ukraine and continued restrictions in major aviation market China. "We're seeing very strong bookings. Certainly all the airline CEOs that I'm talking to are seeing not just good demand ...

TOKYO : Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said on Monday the yen's recent moves had been "quite sharp" and could hurt companies' business plans, offering his strongest warning to date of the risks stemming from the currency's depreciation. Kuroda said there was no change in his assessment that, overall, a weak yen was good for the economy since it boosts the value of profits Japanese firms earn overseas. But he said the yen's drop to about 125-126 yen against the dollar, from about 115-116 yen a month ago, was volatile enough to hurt companies. "The recent falls in the yen, which lost about 10 yen to the dollar in about a month, is quite sharp and could make it hard for companies to set business plans," Kuroda told parliament. "In that sense, we need to take into account the negat...

HONG KONG: TerraUSD, one of the world's largest stablecoins, lost a third of its value on Tuesday, spooking cryptocurrency investors and partly contributing to bitcoin's tumble below US$30,000 for the first time in 10 months. Stablecoins are digital tokens pegged to the value of traditional assets, such as the US dollar. They are popular as safe havens in times of turmoil in crypto markets and are a common medium of exchange, often used by traders to move funds around and speculate on other cryptocurrencies. TerraUSD, also known as 'UST', is a so-called algorithmic stablecoin, one of the largest by market capitalisation. On Tuesday it broke its 1:1 peg to the dollar and fell as low as 67 cents, according to price site CoinGecko. The token shot to prominence earlier this year when non-pr...

DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates' de facto leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan was elected president of the Gulf Arab state by a federal supreme council on Saturday (May 14), solidifying his rule over the OPEC oil producer and key regional player. He becomes president at a time when the UAE's long-standing ties with the United States have been strained over perceived U.S. disengagement from its Gulf allies' security concerns and as Western countries seek support from the region to help isolate Russia over the Ukraine conflict. The council, which groups the rulers of the seven emirates of the UAE federation, elected Sheikh Mohammed, known as MbZ, a day after the death of his half-brother, President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, who was also ruler of Abu Dhabi. "We congratulate him and ...

Hong Kong's incoming chief executive John Lee has focused on security throughout his career and is largely "untested" in other areas, according to the CEO of a consultancy. "He's a blank sheet of paper for most people in the community. That gives him flexibility, I think," said David Dodwell of Strategic Access. "But it means that how he's going to manage is perhaps more uncertain … than any leadership we've had in the past 25 years," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia" on Monday. Lee, a Beijing loyalist and the only candidate for Hong Kong's top post, won the vast majority of votes in Sunday's election. "His lifetime has been devoted to security issues, first in the police force and then as security secretary here in Hong Kong. He's by and large untested and unknown, for that matter, in any ...

A US$471 million venture capital fund to be established by a group of Chinese military and business institutions aims to circumvent US sanctions to secure high-end military technology, according to a recent Taiwanese media report. Yang I-Kwei, a researcher affiliated with Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, said in an April 15 Taipei Times article that China aims to develop its own domestic military supply chain through the fund, significantly at a time when Beijing has stepped up its threats against Taiwan. Yang’s comments came after Guangzhou Haige Communications Group Corporation, which provides communications, simulators, military pilot training systems, and navigation equipment to the Chinese military, announced this month that it will team up with China Poly Group, China’s large...

Canned goods are displayed at a Safeway store on April 11, 2022 in San Anselmo, California. A measure that the Federal Reserve focuses on to gauge inflation rose in March, likely cementing the central bank's intention to hike interest rates by half a percentage in May. The core personal consumption expenditures price index, which measures costs that consumers pay across a wide swath of items and accounts for how behavior changes in response to market dynamics, increased 5.2% from a year ago, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. However, that was slightly below the 5.3% reading in February, which was the highest since April 1983. March's figure was less than the 5.3% Dow Jones estimate. On a month-over-month basis, core prices rose 0.3%, in line with the estimate, providing som...

TOKYO: Financial leaders from Japan, China and South Korea on Thursday (May 12) warned of risks to Asia's economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and committed themselves to backing market stability and sound fiscal policy. Heightened risks included unexpectedly early rises in interest rates "in some advanced nations", accelerating inflation, and disruption from the war in Ukraine, finance ministers and central bank governors of the three countries said in a joint statement. The statement followed an annual meeting, held online, before the leaders were due to meet virtually with their counterparts from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, also on Thursday. The Japanese, Chinese and South Korean officials affirmed their commitment to using support measures, which they did not...

ANKARA: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Saudi Arabia on Thursday (Apr 28) in the first high-level visit in years which he hopes will herald a new era of relations after intense efforts to repair strained ties. Erdogan met with King Salman in an official ceremony in the al-Salam palace in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, the Turkish presidency said in a statement. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler, attended the ceremony before having a one-on-one meeting with Erdogan, Ankara's communication office said on Twitter. Erdogan's visit, which his office said was at the invitation of the Saudi king, marks the culmination of a months-long drive to mend ties that included dropping a trial over the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018....