World

LONDON: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will offer to help India cut reliance on Russian oil and defence equipment when he begins a two-day visit on Thursday (Apr 20) that will test his diplomatic skills and provide brief respite from a row raging at home. On his first trip to India as prime minister, Johnson will discuss strengthening security cooperation in meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his spokesperson said. Western allies have urged India to speak out against the war in Ukraine. India, which imports Russian oil and is the world's biggest buyer of its weapons, abstained in a United Nations vote condemning the invasion and has not imposed sanctions on Moscow. Modi has expressed concern over the killing of civilians. US President Joe Biden told Modi earlier this mon...

WASHINGTON: The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) proposed by the US needs to be "inclusive" and provide "tangible benefits" to encourage wider participation, said Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Thursday (May 12). Singapore welcomes the proposed framework, said Mr Lee, speaking at an engagement with the US-ASEAN Business Council and the US Chamber of Commerce. The IPEF aims to set regional standards for cooperation, and includes the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states. The new US economic strategy for the Indo-Pacific is expected to be formally launched when US President Joe Biden visits Japan later this month. President Biden had previously announced at a virtual summit with ASEAN in October 2021 that Washington would start talks about develop...

Overseas investors extended their selling of Chinese shares into April, after dumping them in the previous month, on mounting worries about the impact of prolonged COVID-19 lockdowns, growth and the fallout of the Ukraine-Russia war. Foreign investors have sold a net $1.01 billion worth of Chinese equities so far this month via Hong Kong's stock-connect program, after their sales of $7.1 billion in March, data from Refinitiv Eikon and the Hong Kong stock exchange showed. Chinese shares have dropped nearly 5 per cent so far in April, as strict COVID lockdowns in Shanghai and other big cities paralyses economic activity. Mainland large and mid-cap stocks have fallen about 20 per cent this year, making Chinese stockmarkets the world's worst performers after Russia. Graphic: Foreign flows ...

TOKYO: Japan's SoftBank Group is set to report a bruising loss at its Vision Fund investment unit on Thursday (May 12), analysts said, after investors sold off the high-growth stocks favoured by the fund with questions about their earnings potential. With the technology investor poised to post full-year earnings, comments from founder and chief executive Masayoshi Son about his risk appetite amid rising interest rates and war in Ukraine will also be in focus. SoftBank has suffered a slump in its China tech assets and saw shares slide in January-March in top portfolio firms DiDi Global, Grab Holdings and Coupang. The conglomerate is also likely to book losses on its unlisted portfolio, analysts said, as weakness in public markets feeds through to private valuations. "It's hard to see th...

WASHINGTON/MILAN : U.S. shares tumbled on Tuesday, with the Nasdaq posting its steepest one-day rout since September 2020, while European stocks extended losses for a third session as investors warily awaited U.S. tech earnings and fretted over global growth. China's COVID-19 curbs and fears of aggressive U.S. Federal Reserve tightening continued to damp risk appetite and lifted the dollar to new two-year highs. Oil prices rebounded in volatile trading and gold prices rose on safe-haven buying. The tech-heavy Nasdaq led Wall Street lower, closing at its lowest since late 2020. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2.38 per cent to end at 33,240.18 points, while the S&P 500 lost 2.81 per cent to 4,175.2. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 3.95 per cent to 12,490.74. Alphabet Inc and Microsof...

MANILA :A tycoon and close associate of outgoing Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte is considering selling businesses collectively worth several billion dollars, including a South China Sea gas field and a commercial land lease firm at the site of a former U.S. military base, two sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday. Dennis Uy, chairman of conglomerate Udenna Corp and listed Chelsea Logistics, has seen rapid growth and diversification of his business empire during the six-year presidency of Duterte, who leaves office next month. The assets he is considering selling are the Malampaya gas field, which Uy had acquired from Chevron and Shell for approximately $1 billion, and Clark Global City, which also cost $1 billion, the sources told Reuters, declining to be identified as...

HANOI: A tough-tackling midfielder in his heyday, Young Lions head coach Nazri Nasir is no stranger to a battle. And he had a straightforward message for his charges prior to a must-win Group B fixture with Cambodia on Wednesday. Fight. For themselves, for the country and for everybody back home. "(I wanted them to have) a never-say-die attitude. We go for every ball, challenge for every ball, tackle (for) every ball," he told reporters at a post-match press conference. "I told them not to throw the towel away, we are still going to fight, we are not going to raise the white flag." And on Wednesday (May 11), his team responded by keeping their flagging hopes of a SEA Games medal alive after a 1-0 victory over Cambodia in a must-win game. “They showed a lot of character today. They di...

BOAO, China :China's securities watchdog is holding regular talks with U.S. regulators over audit cooperation and expects a deal soon, a Chinese regulatory official said on Thursday about a dispute that could lead to delistings of U.S.-listed Chinese firms. The comments by Fang Xinghai, vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), represent the latest gesture from Beijing that it is willing to solve the long-standing dispute with Washington. "I'm very confident that we will reach an agreement in the near future, so that PCAOB could conduct checks on Chinese accounting firms in China in a reasonable way," Fang said at the annual Boao Asia Forum, referring to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the U.S. audit regulator. "This uncertainty will be removed s...

LONDON : Moody's said Russia may be in default because it tried to service its dollar bonds in roubles, which would be one of the starkest consequences to date of Moscow's exclusion from the Western financial system since President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. If Moscow is declared in default, it would mark Russia's first major default on foreign bonds since the years following the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, though the Kremlin says the West is forcing a default by imposing crippling sanctions. Russia made a payment due on April 4 on two sovereign bonds - maturing in 2022 and 2042 - in roubles rather than the dollars it was mandated to pay under the terms of the securities. Russia "therefore may be considered a default under Moody's definition if not cured by 4 May, which is the...

BANGKOK: When 23-year-old Norwegian Anastasia Johansen and her boyfriend were planning their first vacation in two years, they considered going to Thailand but chose nearby Vietnam instead, for its simpler entry rules on the coronavirus. "The regulations to enter Thailand ... were complicated to me and we had to pay for the hefty PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test," Johansen said. Thailand, one of the world's tourism destinations before the pandemic, was among the first nations in Asia to reopen its borders to vaccinated visitors last year with limited quarantine norms, hailed at the time as a model for re-opening. But as regional peers have eased entry requirements, Thailand has clung to a cumbersome process. "Whichever (country) offers easy, smooth, less complicated procedures wins...