World

HONG KONG : With one win from three matches in the final round of Asia's World Cup preliminaries, Hajime Moriyasu leads Japan into Tuesday's meeting with Australia knowing his side must win to reignite their challenge and dampen speculation over his future. The Japanese have qualified for every World Cup since their debut in France in 1998, when a team led by Takeshi Okada was forced into a playoff with Iran before confirming their berth in their first-ever finals appearance. Sitting in fourth place in Group B with only the top two teams guaranteed to advance to Qatar next year, Japan's current predicament carries echoes of that fraught campaign. In October 1997, during a swing through central Asia, Shu Kamo was fired following a draw with Kazakhstan and was replaced by his assistant, O...

NEW DELHI :Amazon.com Inc launched in India on Friday eight global and local streaming services on its video platform, in a move aimed at boosting subscriptions. The move comes at a time of increasing competition from global and domestic rivals in an important market for the U.S. tech company. The Amazon Channels service will help customers using its Prime flagship loyalty programme to subscribe to multiple streaming services on a single interface, Gaurav Gandhi, the head of Amazon Prime Video in India, told Reuters in an interview ahead of the launch. "We believe besides solving customer problems... multiple apps, multiple log ins... it also solves a lot for our partners where they are able to get the benefit of Prime Video's reach and ubiquitous distribution," said Gandhi. Channels i...

Myanmar is battling a plunging local currency amid an unprecedented dollar shortage, driving up the cost of imports and worsening the economy’s struggle with the dual challenges of the pandemic and post-coup financial isolation. The kyat has tumbled about 50% since the military seized power in February, triggering a freeze on parts of Myanmar’s foreign reserves held in the U.S. and the suspension of multilateral aid — both key sources of foreign currency supplies. Restrictions on cash withdrawals have fueled worries about the safety of money in banks, prompting people to seek more widely used currencies such as the U.S or Singaporean dollars or Thai baht, analysts said. The Central Bank of Myanmar’s efforts to quell the rush for dollars, including stepping up foreign currency supplies an...

BOSTON: Global airlines agreed on Monday (Oct 4) to step up plans to tackle climate change as they face mounting pressure from regulators and environmental groups over the impact of billions of extra passengers expected to take to the skies in coming decades. The International Air Transport Association (IATA), which groups 290 airlines including leading state carriers, committed to reaching "net zero" carbon emissions by 2050, despite opposition from Chinese airlines. The move accelerates a 12-year-old pledge to halve emissions from 2005 levels by 2050 and involves tackling an extra 300 million tonnes or so of carbon through measures such as bio-based sustainable aviation fuels or hybrid-electric technology. But it drew a series of complaints from Chinese airlines, reflecting political ...

NEW YORK: US shares slipped on Tuesday in choppy trade, as investors waited for businesses to report how rising prices have hit their latest earnings, while bond yields spiked and the dollar shone on bets that monetary policy will soon be tightened. Indeed, two US Federal Reserve policymakers said on Tuesday that the central bank has kept pace with a planned move to reduce its bond buying program, cementing expectations that the Fed will start withdrawing its crisis-era stimulus as soon as next month. Soaring oil prices largely held on to recent gains, while US stock indices vacillated repeatedly between modest gains and losses before a flurry of third-quarter bank earnings reports from Wall Street on Wednesday and Thursday. After watching oil prices steadily gallop higher in the past 1...

SINGAPORE: More than S$900 million in Jobs Support Scheme (JSS) payouts will be disbursed to employers from Sep 30. The payouts will be given to more than 43,900 employers in Singapore to support the wages of more than 570,000 local employees, said the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) on Tuesday (Sep 21). "With this payout, more than S$27.6 billion of JSS support would have been disbursed since the introduction of the scheme at the Unity Budget in February 2020," said the authorities. The JSS subsidises the salaries of Singaporeans and permanent residents to help companies affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Employers who made mandatory Central Provident Fund (CPF) contributions for their local employees for April to July 2021 by the stipulated ...

SHENZHEN, China :China's Huawei Technologies will see revenue from its smartphone business drop by at least US$30-40 billion in 2021, with new growth streams unlikely to make up the shortfall in the next few years, chairman Eric Xu said. While the firm has been "getting used to U.S. sanctions" imposed on it since 2019, its new 5G related business areas cannot offset the losses from the handset business, Xu, who is rotating chairman this year, said at a press conference in Beijing on Friday. Former U.S. president Donald Trump put Huawei on an export blacklist in 2019 and barred it from accessing critical U.S.-origin technology, impeding its ability to design its own chips and source components from outside vendors. The sanctions hit Huawei's smartphone business particularly hard. Once b...

HONG KONG : Debt-ridden property developer Evergrande Group missed a dollar bond interest payment deadline, moving closing to a potential default and fuelling worries that a collapse could send shockwaves through China's economy and beyond. Here is a timeline of events leading to Evergrande's debt problems and what the developer has done to raise funds so far: August 2017 Evergrande vows to cut debt for the first time, aiming to slash net gearing ratio to 70per cent by June 2020 from 240per cent in June 2017. November 2018 Central bank names Evergrande as one of few financial holding conglomerates on its watch that it said could cause systemic risk. March 2020 Evergrande targets cutting its debt by 150 billion yuan (US$23.3 billion) annually for three years. August 2020 Regulators...

SINGAPORE: The National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Singapore Management University (SMU) are looking to resume overseas student exchange programmes from January 2022. Responding to queries, an NUS spokesperson said the university has been in discussion with its partner universities in 40 countries to resume its student exchange programme in January. About 1,600 students have signed up for the programme, and the university has also started accepting applications from international students from partner universities, the spokesperson said. “The commencement of these programmes will be subject to prevailing health and travel advisories,” the spokesperson said, adding that NUS will continue to offer online programmes with partner universities a...

SINGAPORE: The Jobs Growth Incentive (JGI), which gives businesses support to hire more locals, will be extended by six months to March 2022, the Ministry of Manpower said on Friday (Sep 24). This is to “secure recovery amidst an improving labour market”, MOM said in a press release. But support levels will be tapered down "in line with improving conditions”, said Manpower Minister Tan See Leng on Friday. JGI started about a year ago, providing subsidies for up to a quarter of the first S$5,000 earned by an eligible employee for up to 12 months. To qualify, the company must increase its overall local workforce and the number of resident workers earning at least S$1,400. At Budget 2021, the scheme was extended to September this year and subsidies were raised for mature workers, workers...