World

NEW DELHI : Softbank Group-backed Ola Electric plans to build a battery cell manufacturing plant in India with a capacity of up to 50 gigawatt hours (GWh), a source told Reuters, as part of its broader electrification push. Ola will need 40Gwh of battery capacity to meet its annual target to produce 10 million electric scooters and the remainder will be for electric cars, which it plans to manufacture in the future, said the person who has knowledge of the plans. The initial plan is to set up 1Gwh of battery capacity by 2023 and expand it to 20GWh over the next 3-4 years, said another source aware of the plans, adding that this alone will need an investment of up to $1 billion. Ola, which currently imports battery cells from South Korea, also plans to invest in companies with advanced c...

SINGAPORE: A former financial consultant with OCBC Singapore was sentenced to 30 months' jail on Monday (Feb 21) for cheating five of his clients of S$170,000 in fake time deposits. In sentencing Hoi Wei Kit, 34, the judge said Hoi had betrayed the trust placed in him by bank customers and abused the access given to him to the customers' banking information by virtue of his job. The judge said what was worse was that Hoi had “carefully targeted vulnerable victims” who were not technologically savvy. Hoi pleaded guilty last month to seven charges of cheating, acquiring benefits of criminal conduct and giving false information to a public servant. Another 13 charges were considered in sentencing. He was a financial consultant at OCBC from October 2015 to April 2018, selling insurance and...

NEW YORK :Investors around the world lost their appetite for risk on Wednesday, with stocks selling off and the U.S. dollar gaining some ground as Ukraine declared a state of emergency amid intensifying fears of a full-scale Russian invasion. Trading in many asset classes has been volatile since Russian President Vladimir Putin's dispatch of troops earlier this week into parts of Ukraine. This triggered sanctions from Western countries and threats of more if Moscow advances further. Oil futures, which were whipsawed during the day, settled well below their session highs and U.S. Treasury yields, while staying above Tuesday's close, were also volatile. Ukraine declared a state of emergency and told its citizens to flee Russia, while Moscow began evacuating its Kyiv embassy. The Russian-b...

Mark Cuban doesn't typically invest in businesses without a track record of success – but the billionaire entrepreneur and start-up investor may have recently broken his own rule. And for a side hustle, to boot. The company, called Diaper Dust, appeared on Friday's episode of ABC's "Shark Tank." Its CEO, Regina Crisci, created a deodorizing powder – a mix of activated charcoal and sodium bicarbonate – to sprinkle onto dirty diapers before throwing them in the trash. She launched her side hustle in December 2020, manufacturing the product in her North Carolina backyard and selling it online while maintaining her full-time job as a travel nurse. The product's ease-of-use had clear appeal: Parents simply sprinkle the dust onto a soiled diaper before rolling it up and disposing it. But Cris...

PeopleImages | E+ | Getty Images Identify the retirement account for you One big reason why people often do not save money toward retirement is that their employer does not provide a retirement savings plan, Royal said. But that shouldn't necessarily stand in the way of you starting to invest for your retirement years, he said. Individual retirement accounts will still let you set aside pretax or post-tax funds and invest the money so it can grow. A traditional IRA allows you to contribute pretax money, which will lower your taxable income now. However, you will have to pay levies on the withdrawals you make in retirement later on. A Roth IRA, on the other hand, lets you contribute earnings that have already been taxed, therefore paving the way for tax-free withdrawals in retirement. An...

The World Bank said on Thursday it was preparing options to provide immediate support to Ukraine’s government, as the development lender and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) assess the economic fallout from the conflict in Ukraine. “We stand ready to provide immediate support to Ukraine and are preparing options for such support, including fast-disbursing financing,” World Bank President David Malpass said in a statement, adding that the institution was “horrified by the shocking violence and loss of life” in Ukraine. The statement came after Malpass told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday that the bank was preparing a $350 million disbursement to Ukraine for budget support by the end of March. It was unclear, however, what resources may be available to aid Ukraine...

Russia’s multi-year push to remove the dollar’s hold over its economy and financial markets has so far helped ease the impact of sanctions from the U.S. and its allies, even as they roll out tougher measures that could test the extent of a true de-coupling from the greenback. The nation slashed its dollar reserves to just 16% of the central bank’s stockpile in 2021, down from more than 40% just four years prior. That’s meant aggressively hacking its holdings of U.S. Treasuries, shrinking ownership by almost 98% from a peak in 2010 and removing dollar assets from its sovereign wealth fund. These moves will now help insulate Russia from some of the worst fallout of escalating U.S. and European sanctions after President Vladimir Putin began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. While sanctions ...

LONDON: Oil prices jumped on Monday (Feb 28) as Western allies imposed more sanctions on Russia and blocked some Russian banks from a global payments system, which could cause severe disruption to its oil exports. Brent crude rose US$4.16, or 4.3 per cent, to US$102.09, at 9.15am after hitting a high of US$105.07 a barrel in early trade. The Brent contract, for April delivery, expires on Monday. The most active contract, for May delivery, was up US$4.16 at US$98.28. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was up US$4.19, or 4.6 per cent, at US$95.78 a barrel after hitting US$99.10 in early trade. "Moves by the US and Europe to remove certain Russian banks from the SWIFT system have raised fears of a disruption to supply of some sort in the near term," said ANZ commodity strategist Danie...

CHRISTMAS EVE MASS KILLINGS One of them details mass killings in Kayah State on Christmas Eve where about 35 people, including women and children were killed and burned in various vehicles. Witnesses said some were even torched alive. During that media event, the NUG lined up witnesses including doctors who did autopsies on the bodies as well as victims’ families to give their testimonies. The NUG also aired drone footage showing the extent of the damage in Kayah State – a group of burnt-out vehicles with completely charred corpses inside them. Witnesses said some bodies were too brittle to be moved intact. Founding member of Special Advisory Council for Myanmar Chris Sidoti, an international human rights and law expert, said the situation in Myanmar is bad and getting wors...

UDUPI, India: Facing a choice between her schooling and her religious beliefs, A.H. Almas says she had no choice at all. The 18-year-old Muslim pupil at the Women's Pre-University College in Udupi in majority-Hindu India has been wearing the Islamic headscarf since she was a child. But in December, authorities banned her and at least four of her schoolmates from class for wearing the hijab. "They are making us choose between our faith and our education," she told AFP. "What kind of equality is this?" The girls have been demonstrating ever since. In response, Hindu teenagers in Udupi have repeatedly gathered in saffron-coloured shawls symbolising their own religion. What began as one school issuing an edict ostensibly to protect secularism in the classroom has now escalated into religi...