World

In India, roadside restaurateurs are halving their palm oil use and moving into steamed snacks. Bakers in Ivory Coast want to cut the size of their standard baguette. Sandwiches from U.S. fast-food stalls are headed for fewer slices of bacon, pizzas for a more parsimonious sprinkle of pepperoni. With the world economy already shackled by shortages linked to COVID-19 and now reeling from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, prices of basics such as bread, meat and cooking oils have jumped across the world, sending shock waves through commodity markets and damaging the global food system. For the most vulnerable societies — think Yemen, which imports 90% of its food in the midst of a grinding conflict and depreciating currency — this poses a genuine risk of hunger. Elsewhere, it triggers worries ...

TAIPEI: Taiwan's spy catchers have launched probes into around 100 Chinese companies suspected of illegally poaching semiconductor engineers and other tech talent, a senior official at the island's Investigation Bureau told Reuters. That comes on top of seven prosecuted since the start of last year and includes 27 which have either been raided or whose owners have been summoned for questioning by the bureau, the official said. Home to industry giant TSMC and accounting for 92 per cent of the world's most advanced semiconductor manufacturing capacity, Taiwan possesses what China needs - chip expertise in spades. A global chip shortage and Beijing's avowed goal of achieving self-reliance in advanced chips - more forcefully promoted by Chinese President Xi Jinping after a trade war with th...

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida hopes to bridge the differences between Western and Southeast Asian approaches to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in a trip to Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the U.K. While Europe, the United States and Japan have taken tough actions against Russia, many Southeast Asian nations are reluctant to impose sanctions due to their close relations with Moscow. Kishida is considering visiting the countries during the Golden Week holiday period, from the end of April to early May. The focal point of his visit would be how much cooperation he can elicit from the Southeast Asian countries, including on sanctions against Russia. The trip would be Kishida's second visit to other parts of Asia since he took office in October last year. On his first visit, in March, he went...

Similarly, for halal food firm Pondok Abang, its expansion into Malaysia was halted unceremoniously due to a nationwide lockdown there, which was first imposed in March 2020. The firm, which manufactures halal-certified frozen ready-to-eat dishes, already has a presence there, in the form of a partnership with a Malaysian food manufacturing firm which helps supply pastries to Pondok Abang for sale in Singapore. With an eye to expanding to both Malaysia and Australia, Pondok Abang’s managing director Hasan Abdul Rahman was planning to turn a factory space, owned by the partner company, into a manufacturing facility. But border closures around that time — which devastated economies around the world — put paid to his plans. “The factory space belongs to our partner, which we were supposed t...

1. Futures rise after jobs report and worst quarter in 2 years Traders on the floor of the NYSE, March 31, 2022. Source: NYSE 2. Recession signal: Key Treasury spread flips for first time since 2019 Treasury yields jumped on Friday's jobs report, one day after the 2-year yield briefly rose above the 10-year yield for the first time since 2019, an inversion that often happens before economic recessions. That spread was on either side of inversion Friday morning. Some data providers showed the 2-year/10-year inverted for a few seconds on Tuesday, but CNBC data did not confirm it at the time. Treasury yields In another key yield spread, which inverted Monday for the first time since 2006, the 5-year and the 30-year flipped again Friday. The short-duration yields going above the longer-da...

Kymeta's flat panel internet antenna is designed to offer connectivity in the most remote areas and the defense industry has been an early use case. Kymeta In this weekly series, CNBC takes a look at companies that made the inaugural Disruptor 50 list, 10 years later. Back in the 1990s, Bill Gates made a big bet on the future of satellite-based connectivity: Teledesic. At the time, when he teamed with another Seattle tech titan, telecom billionaire Craig McCaw, and each invested $5 million, "the pairing was akin to Elvis and the pope on tour together," according to the Seattle Times. But if you have not heard of Teledesic, that is because it failed. Gates, though, has never given up on investing in the space-based future of connectivity. Kymeta, a flat panel antenna technology for global ...

SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Law aims to establish a Public Defender’s Office (PDO) by the end of this year, announced Law Minister K Shanmugam on Monday (Apr 4). This proposal comes after Mr Shanmugam said in 2020, while addressing the Parti Liyani case, that the Government would study the details and feasibility of a public defender scheme. Former domestic worker Ms Parti was found guilty of stealing from her employer, former Changi Airport Group chairman Liew Mun Leong. She was eventually acquitted after the High Court found several issues with the conviction and how the case was handled “We want to enhance access to justice for vulnerable individuals in Singapore,” said Mr Shanmugam, who is also the Home Affairs Minister. The PDO will be fully funded by the Government, he said, addin...

Wall Street stocks finished lower while bond yields and the dollar rose on Thursday as investors worried about the potential for aggressive U.S. policy tightening as other central banks around the world moved to reduce support. The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield jumped, following two days of declines, after a flurry of U.S. economic data such as retail sales and jobless claims and the European Central Bank's announcement of less aggressive than expected tightening plans. New York Fed President John Williams said on Thursday that the U.S. Federal Reserve should reasonably consider raising interest rates by a half percentage point at its next meeting in May, which was seen as a further sign that even more cautious policymakers are on board with bigger rate hikes. This was after the...

SINGAPORE: Ministry of Education (MOE) employees who had their taxable income over-reported to the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) will not be taxed more than necessary, said the ministry on Wednesday (Mar 16). This comes after several accounts emerged on the Salary.com portal over the weekend from MOE officers who noticed they were being taxed much more than expected. One such account linked this issue to the CONNECT Plan award, which some of the employees received in December. Under the CONNECT Plan, MOE officers receive payouts at defined points every three to five years during their career. The plan was implemented in 2002. The Education Ministry is aware that the CONNECT Plan award amounts have been over-reported to IRAS, it said in a statement in response to queries ...

This image from February 2022 shows Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Foreign Minister of India, speaking on the second day of the Munich Security Conference. Jaishankar's visit Colombo on Monday comes as Sri Lanka is in the throes of an economic crisis. Sven Hoppe | picture alliance via Getty Images India's Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar was in Sri Lanka this week to offer help to the struggling Sri Lankan economy in an attempt to pry it away from a decades-long Chinese embrace. Sri Lanka's two-year-old economic crisis comes after two decades of heavy Chinese investment, under what a geopolitical expert called "strategic trap diplomacy." Having a giant, increasingly assertive neighbor so closely intertwined with Sri Lanka has unsettled India, which is locked in a standoff with China at ...