World

China is rolling out its digital yuan to athletes and spectators ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the first major test of the virtual currency’s appeal among foreign nationals. With less than a month to go before kickoff, and the event already encumbered by diplomatic boycotts and the threat of virus outbreaks, China is looking to use the Games to showcase the digital yuan’s clout globally. Visitors can download an app or get a physical card that stores the digital yuan, or convert foreign bank notes into e-CNY at self-service machines, according to the Bank of China Ltd., a state lender and official partner of the Games. Athletes and their coaches are eligible to get wristbands that act as e-wallets and can be swiped to pay for goods or services. Whether foreign athletes adopt th...

DUBAI: The multibillion-dollar world's fair in Dubai has warned that some venues on site may shut down as COVID-19 cases rapidly rise in the United Arab Emirates. Dubai's Expo 2020 said that virus outbreaks among staff may force some parts of the fair to “close temporarily for deep cleaning and sanitisation", without elaborating on the scope or the location of the infections. The UAE's daily virus caseload has skyrocketed by a multiple of 37 in just the last three weeks after the arrival of the Omicron variant. The vague statement from Dubai's government-run media office on Monday (Dec 27) underscores the daunting challenges of hosting among the world's first major in-person events amid a still-raging pandemic. The fair opened in October after a year's delay as the UAE bet that its rap...

Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi commended a recent visit by Cambodian leader Hun Sen to Myanmar, which was the first by a foreign leader since the military coup in February. In a phone call with his counterpart Prak Sokhonn on Tuesday, Hayashi said he remained concerned about violence in Myanmar, and welcomed Cambodia’s positive efforts to resolve the situation, according to an emailed statement from the Foreign Ministry. Hun Sen’s trip resulted in progress toward a ceasefire with ethnic minority groups and enabling humanitarian support, Hayashi added. While Japan has called on the junta to stop the violence and restore democracy, it wants to remain close to Myanmar as part of a strategy of countering China’s influence there and to also protect significant investments in industries ra...

DETROIT: John Deere & Co said on Tuesday it will start commercial delivery this year of technology that enables a tractor to till a field without an operator in the cab, a first for the top North American tractor manufacturer after years of effort to automate farm work. Deere plans a low-volume launch this year delivering systems for 12 to 20 machines, and then scaling up, Jahmy Hindman, Deere's chief technology officer, told Reuters. The company is weighing whether to sell the technology, lease it, or offer it to farmers in a subscription package that could allow for upgrades as hardware and software evolve, he said. The cameras and computers for automated tilling can be installed on an existing tractor and tiller machine in a day, Hindman said. Deere and other equipment makers such as...

NEW YORK : U.S. stocks fell on Monday despite staging a comeback late in the day, as bets that the U.S. Federal Reserve could raise interest rates as soon as March led investors to pare risky assets and lifted the 10-year Treasury yield to a two-year high. Monday's drop follows a bruising first week of the year when a strong signal from the Fed that it would tighten policy faster to tackle inflation and then data showing a strong U.S. labor market, unnerved investors who had pushed equities to record highs over the holiday period. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 0.45per cent, and the S&P 500 lost 0.14per cent. Technology stocks, which have soared in the past two years thanks in part to very low interest rates, led the falls early in the day but rallied later in the session to leav...

NEW YORK :Oil prices rose on Wednesday after a larger-than-expected drawdown in U.S. inventories, shaking off worries about the likely hit to economic activity from the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant. Brent crude futures ended the day up US$1.31, or 1.8per cent, to US$75.29 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures settled at US$72.76 a barrel, up US$1.64, or 2.3per cent. U.S. inventories fell more than expected, with crude stocks down by 4.7 million barrels, though that is in part due to year-end tax considerations that encourage companies not to store crude barrels. "We saw a drop in production, we saw inventories and crude fall, so that’s giving the market a supportive outlook," said Phil Flynn, senior analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago. "Because su...

SINGAPORE: With the cost of living likely to be a key issue in 2022, the Workers’ Party (WP) will track what the Government does to support Singaporeans who require assistance, secretary-general Pritam Singh said in his New Year’s Day message on Friday (Dec 31). “2022 will be a year of new challenges for Singapore and Singaporeans,” Mr Singh said in the message, posted on the WP Facebook page. “Apart from the unpredictability of COVID-19, the cost of living is likely to be a major pressure point for many Singaporean households, particularly the low to middle-income, and most acutely, those with both young children and aged parents to care for.” Mr Singh highlighted several basic needs that “hit the headlines” recently because they will cost more for Singaporeans, including transport, ac...

Nino Cerruti, the Italian fashion designer credited with revolutionising menswear in the 1960s and who gave Giorgio Armani his first fashion break, has died, Italian media reported Saturday (Jan 15). He was 91. Cerruti died in northwestern Italy, where his family has operated a textile company since 1881, the Italian news agency LaPresse reported. The Italian daily Corriere said he had been hospitalised for hip surgery. Cerutti inherited the family business, based in the city of Biella in the Piedmont region, at age 20 upon his father's death in 1950. He launched his first menswear company, Hitman, in 1957 near Milan, dedicated to creating sartorial elegance on an industrial scale and becoming part of the nascent men's ready-to-wear sector. Armani was hired as a young talent at the Hitm...

SINGAPORE: Singapore's manufacturing output continued to rise in November, although the pace of growth slowed to 14.6 per cent year-on-year, official data on Friday (Dec 24) showed. In October, manufacturing output had expanded by a revised 17 per cent. Excluding biomedical manufacturing, November's year-on-year output grew 12.4 per cent, the Economic Development Board (EDB) said in a media release. On a seasonally adjusted month-on-month basis, production increased 2.3 per cent. Excluding biomedical manufacturing, output grew 2.7 per cent. SLOWER GROWTH IN BIOMEDICAL MANUFACTURING, CHEMICALS, TRANSPORT ENGINEERING The biomedical manufacturing, chemicals and transport engineering clusters eased in November, while the electronics, precision engineering and general manufacturing industr...

TOKYO : Japanese manufacturers turned less positive about their business conditions in January, in a sign the economy faces pressure from the Omicron variant as well as rising energy and raw material costs, the Reuters Tankan poll showed. Manufacturers and service sector firms were more optimistic about the coming three months, the monthly poll, which tracks the Bank of Japan's closely watched "tankan" quarterly survey, showed. Some firms in the poll of 502 big and mid-sized companies, of which 254 responded, said their bottom lines were being pressured by commodity inflation, while others were more optimistic as they benefited from strong global demand. "There's a demand rush before prices are raised," a manager at a metal products maker said in the Dec. 22-Jan. 7 poll. The Reuters Ta...