World

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...

SINGAPORE: Mid-year examinations for all primary and secondary school levels will be removed by 2023, announced Minister for Education Chan Chun Sing on Monday (Mar 7). Speaking in Parliament during his ministry’s Committee of Supply debate, Mr Chan noted that mid-year examinations for Primary 3 and 5 and Secondary 1 and 3 students have been removed over the last few years. “We saw the positive impact. Schools and teachers can better pace and deepen students’ learning,” he said. “They use ongoing assessments to identify what students have mastered and the areas they have difficulties with. Students also focus more on their learning and less on marks.” Removing mid-year examinations for all primary and secondary levels frees up more time for “self-directed learning and developing 21st-c...

The consumer-price index hitting a forty-year high would seem like a pretty straightforward headline, but of course there's already tons of debate about which components saw deceleration, which ones are now picking up, whether it would have peaked already absent the Ukraine invasion, and so on. But the core issue for the real staying power of inflation in the months (and years) to come is not the direction of oil, wheat, nickel, or any other aspect of the supply chain (although that obviously doesn't help things) or even the housing market. The real issue going forward is the tightness of the labor market. On that front, the arguably more important data point this week was the typically second-tier "JOLTS" report (Job Openings and Labor Turnover) released yesterday morning. We previously...

Russia’s attack on Ukraine seems to have united Europe and many other democracies in the West, which were until fairly recently squabbling over trade, defense agreements, COVID-19 policies and other issues. European countries and the United States have consulted closely over their response to Russia’s incursion, putting together a range of tough measures against Moscow that includes cutting Russian businesses off from much of the global financial system, banning Russian planes from much of the airspace over Europe and North America, and introducing heavy sanctions. What’s more, the member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are sending weapons into Ukraine, including rocket launchers and surface-to-air missiles. In many ways, the Ukraine conflict seems like a defining moment...

HONG KONG: Hong Kong resident Yeung waited for 13 hours outside a hospital in the city's eastern district in cold, rainy weather with his three-year-old daughter, who had a high fever, before they could be admitted for COVID-19 treatment. By the time they could enter, her fever had gone down and she didn't require medical attention. Yet the 42-year-old utilities worker had to stay in the hospital for four nights without a bed, because he and his daughter were not allowed to leave. They were then sent to a government isolation centre for nine more days. His biggest stress came not from becoming infected, but leaving his wife and 22-month-old, both with COVID-19, at home without any support. "My wife suffered a lot. Her symptoms became more serious because of the hardship of taking care ...