World

One of the biggest stars in the LCS squad is Singapore skipper Hariss Harun. Hariss is no stranger to ambitious projects, featured as a key player and captain for Malaysian side Johor Darul Ta’zim (JDT) for more than half a decade. During his time at the club, JDT was transformed into a regional giant under the ownership of Johor Crown Prince Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim. And there are parallels between both projects, observed Hariss. “They had an interesting project, nobody knew at that time whether it would take off, what would happen but obviously we all know what JDT is today, and how fast that project moves on and it is still advancing and getting bigger at the same time,” said Hariss. One of the things that the project addressed was his desire to help Singapore football, added th...

Inside Liquidity Services' 130,000-square-foot warehouse in Garland, Texas, the aisles aren't lined with typical merchandise. Instead, they're stacked with returns from Amazon, Target, Sony, Home Depot, Wayfair and more, all in the process of being liquidated. "Liquidators are coming in and they're buying up all of this product in bulk. They're then packaging it, palletizing it and reselling it, either to be resold on a site like eBay or Poshmark, or even to individual consumers. So it's turned into a much bigger portion of the industry than we've ever seen before," said Sonia Lapinsky of consulting group AlixPartners. The liquidation market has more than doubled since 2008, reaching a whopping $644 billion in 2020, according to data from Colorado State University. "A lot of this used t...

JAKARTA: Indonesia hosts its first motorcycle grand prix in 25 years on Sunday (Mar 20), confident that concerns surrounding the new track will be forgotten once racing begins in front of a sell-out crowd. The archipelago nation of 270 million people is motorbike mad - many get around on two wheels - and there is a palpable sense of excitement at the prospect of world-class racing returning. Even President Joko Widodo is a fan and tried out the Mandalika International Street Circuit when he officially opened it in November, having a go on a custom-made green Kawasaki bike. Sunday's race is the second stop on the 2022 MotoGP calendar after the opening race in Qatar two weeks ago, won by Enea Bastianini of Italy. The new 4.3km circuit hugs white-sanded coastline on the island of Lombok, ...

BEIJING — American businesses in China no longer expect relations between the two countries to improve from the tensions of the Trump administration, according to a business association survey. After President Joe Biden was elected in late 2020, there was a spike in optimism among businesses, with 45% of respondents expecting better U.S.-China relations, the American Chamber of Commerce in China's annual survey of members found. That level of optimism has dropped to 27% of respondents in the latest survey — conducted in fall 2021 — the same as when Donald Trump was president and enacted tougher policies on China. Rising U.S.-China tension has ranked among the top five challenges for doing business in China since 2019, the survey said. "There was a level of perhaps hope and optimism once Bi...

SINGAPORE: A 32-year-old man who faces criminal charges in the United States on Monday (Mar 7) admitted in a Singapore court to impersonating two men to deceive Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google for cloud computing services that he used to mine cryptocurrency. Singaporean Ho Jun Jia, also known as Matthew Ho, was charged with identity theft and wire fraud in the US in October 2019. He was unemployed when he committed the offences. One of his victims was Marc Merrill, the co-founder of video game developer Riot Games. Ho used personal and credit card information obtained from a Dark Web forum to cheat AWS and Google into providing cloud computing services worth about US$5.2 million (S$7.1 million) and US$250,000 respectively. Between Nov 21, 2017, and Mar 1, 2018, he used this comput...

Formula One starts a record 23-race season in Bahrain this weekend, with Red Bull's title holder Max Verstappen renewing his rivalry with Mercedes' seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton. The following, in 2021 championship order, looks at how the teams are shaping up (drivers given with racing numbers). MERCEDES 44-Lewis Hamilton (Britain), 63-George Russell (Britain) Mercedes are chasing a record-extending ninth successive constructors' title, with Hamilton seeking to push his many records (103 wins and poles) into new territory after missing his eighth crown in a controversial end to 2021. Russell joins from Williams in place of Valtteri Bottas in an all-British lineup and hoping for a first F1 win. The W13 car has had problems with downforce on the straights but history has taug...

Each weekend in Singapore, the Myanmar diaspora congregates at the Peninsula Plaza for news — and a taste — of home. Customers stream into a pop-up food stall graced by a life-sized image of Myanmar’s deposed leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, where volunteers sell homemade delicacies such as tea-leaf salad and mohinga, a rice-noodle and fish soup. The stall’s owner, May Kyaw Soe Nyunt, says she takes in about 5,000 Singapore dollars ($3,700) in a weekend, with all the funds sent to her homeland to help those having to endure life under the military regime. “I want the world to know people in Myanmar are suffering,” she said through a translator. Singapore is one link in a global fundraising effort that’s sprung up since the army seized control in Myanmar last February. With the economy in melt...

KYIV: An air strike on a residential building in Ukraine's capital killed at least one person on Monday (Mar 14), the country's emergency service said, as Moscow maintained its devastating assault ahead of a fresh round of talks. The strike came as Russian troops edged closer to the city and kept up their siege of the southern port city of Mariupol, where officials said nearly 2,200 people have been killed. "As of 7.40am the body of one person was found dead in a nine-storey apartment building" in the capital's Obolon district, the emergency service said in a statement. An earlier statement had said that the strike had killed two people and wounded a dozen more. In an updated statement, the emergency service said that one person died, three people had been hospitalised and nine were tr...

Harriet Talbot quit her full-time job at Unilever to take part in its U-Work program in London. Millions of Americans are quitting their jobs and rethinking what they want when it comes to work and work-life balance. Companies are responding, meeting their employees' needs in areas like remote work, flexible hours, four-day workweeks, compensation and more. This story is part of a series looking at the Great Reshuffle and the shift in workplace culture that is taking place right now. Harriet Talbot dreamed about bicycling across Europe and then on into Australia. Yet to make it happen, she thought she would have to quit her job. Then, her employer, London-based Unilever, introduced a new program called U-Work that gives employees the flexibility of contract work within the company while...

Wall Street ended sharply higher on Wednesday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled the central bank would likely raise interest rates less than some investors had feared. Powell's comments, in testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, helped calm investors after Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent markets into a tailspin. Powell said he is inclined to support a 25 basis point rate hike in March, quelling some concerns about the potential for a more aggressive rate hike. Traders now see a 95per cent probability of a 25 basis point hike in March. [IRPR] All the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes advanced, with financials jumping 2.6per cent after falling sharply so far this week. The banks index rebounded 3per cent after hitting its lowest level sinc...