World

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...

U.S. Olympic gold medalist Nathan Chen is an example of how being Chinese-American can be a double-edged sword today in China. The 22-year-old took the top prize on Thursday at the Winter Olympics in the men’s figure skating event. But his record-beating performance, which sealed Chen’s reputation as the top skater in the world, promoted more castigation on Chinese social media than it did elation. A hashtag discussing Chen’s victory was the second-highest trending on the Twitter-like Weibo platform shortly after his win. Many of the comments, however, were negative, including some users who decried his performance as mediocre and “ape-like,” while others called him a “banana,” a derogatory term used to describe people of Chinese descent who are Westernized. Other attacks took on a more...

SINGAPORE: Singapore Airlines (SIA) posted a net profit of S$85 million in the third quarter on Thursday (Feb 24), helped by a strong cargo market and an improvement in passenger numbers as Singapore eased some of its border restrictions. The airline reported its first profitable quarter since December 2019, before the pandemic hit. The profit for the three months ended Dec 31 came in versus a loss of S$142 million in the year-ago period that was boosted by a tax credit. Revenue rose to S$2.32 billion from S$1.07 billion in the prior year. SIA Group said in a news release that the third-quarter performance came amid a "significant step-up" in air travel to and through Singapore in the October to December 2021 period, as well as continued robust demand and strong yields in the cargo mark...

BRUSSELS: The European Union is pushing for a global deal aimed at preventing new pandemics that could include a ban on wildlife markets and incentives for countries to report new viruses or variants, an EU official told Reuters. International negotiators will meet for the first time on Wednesday (Feb 9) to prepare talks for a potential treaty, said the official, who is not authorised to speak to media and so declined to be named. The aim is to reach a preliminary agreement by August. However, Brussels has so far struggled to get full backing for a new treaty from the United States and other major countries, some of which want any agreement to be non-binding. A spokesperson for Charles Michel, the president of the European Council who in November 2020 proposed a new treaty on pandemics...

On Dec 31, MCT announced plans to buy MNACT, seeking to create the seventh-largest REIT in Asia with an expected market valuation of about S$10.5 billion. MNACT's main portfolio includes one commercial property in Hong Kong and two in China, while MCT is a Singapore-focused REIT. Quarz, which is run by Jan Moermann, a former Swiss banker, said it supports the deal rationale but objects to the merger ratio and price. "Quarz has been approached by many MNACT unitholders on MCT's inferior offer for MNACT. We agree that the offer is value destructive to unitholders and significantly undervalues MNACT," Moermann and Havard Chi, Quarz's Singapore-based research head, said in the letter. MCT offered to acquire all units of MNACT in exchange for MCT units, or a combination of both cash and MCT...

In the hinterland of Argentina, Mario Pizarro’s office looks like a shrine to China. There’s the framed photo of a Chinese peasant with Pizarro’s face superimposed beneath the conical farmer hat. There’s the blue-robed smiling Buddha statue. And there’s the model wind turbine from a Chinese company with an inscription in English and Mandarin: “Create Our Future Together.” Pizarro, 62, is the energy secretary of Jujuy, a province high in the Andes that borders Bolivia and Chile. Overlooking a river, his office building is ordinary — shabby, even — but the projects he and his colleagues oversee are anything but. And the one country that’s made them all possible is China. Chinese technology and money have helped build one of Latin America’s largest solar energy plants in Jujuy, where hundre...

SINGAPORE: Singapore is continuing to “invest heavily” in children to give them "the best possible start in life", said Finance Minister Lawrence Wong in his Budget 2022 speech on Friday (Feb 18). “Just as we uplift our vulnerable groups, we will also continue to enhance social mobility,” he added. “The Government is committed to ensuring that all Singaporeans have the opportunities to do well for themselves, no matter their background or starting points.” Support starts early from the pre-school years, especially for children from low-income families, Mr Wong said. “Yet, we know that some vulnerable children fall out of or behind in our education system because of difficult conditions at home. Early intervention in their formative years can make a big difference in their lives.” The ...