World

The magnitude of the United States’ failure in Afghanistan is breathtaking. It is not a failure of Democrats or Republicans, but an abiding failure of American political culture, reflected in U.S. policymakers’ lack of interest in understanding different societies. And it is all too typical. Almost every modern U.S. military intervention in the developing world has come to rot. It’s hard to think of an exception since the Korean War. In the 1960s and first half of the 1970s, the U.S. fought in Indochina — Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia — eventually withdrawing in defeat after a decade of grotesque carnage. President Lyndon B. Johnson, a Democrat, and his successor, the Republican Richard Nixon, share the blame. In roughly the same years, the U.S. installed dictators throughout Latin America ...

SINGAPORE: ComfortDelGro on Friday (Aug 13) announced a net profit of S$91 million in the first half of 2021, as global economic activity gradually resumed amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This reversed what the company called "massive" destruction in the same period last year, when it posted a net loss of S$6.6 million. In a media release on Friday, ComfortDelGro's managing director and Group CEO Yang Ban Seng described the past six months as "painful but tolerable". "The global situation continues to be difficult but it is definitely an improvement over the catastrophic conditions we all experienced last year," said Mr Yang. While the situation has improved, the "continuous see-saw effect of lockdowns and reopenings" has taken its toll on businesses and the community, he added. "As a gro...

A man walking past wind turbines at the Phu Lac wind farm in southern Vietnam's Binh Thuan province. MANAN VATSYAYANA | AFP | Getty Images Southeast Asia's economy could lose trillions of dollars over the next 50 years if the region does not act to reduce carbon emissions significantly, a Deloitte report found. In fact, the region is at a turning point, and can turn the cost into an opportunity, the report said. If Southeast Asia steps up efforts on climate change and rapidly reduces emissions, it could achieve economic gains of $12.5 trillion in present value terms — with an average GDP growth of 3.5% each year for the next 50 years, according to the consulting firm. "This potential future not only avoids the worst impacts of climate change, it also creates prosperous long-term economic ...

Automobile and electronics manufacturers worldwide have recently had to reduce output because a severe drought in Taiwan has hit the island’s production of semiconductors. This and other global supply-chain disruptions — many of them caused by the COVID-19 pandemic — have prompted advanced economies to take steps to mitigate the potential impact. But what types of government action make economic sense? Supply-chain bottlenecks can have a significant economic effect. Germany, for example, imports 8% of its intermediate products from low-wage countries (the United States relies on these economies for just 4.6% of its inputs). Problems with input deliveries recently led Germany’s Ifo Institute to lower its forecast for German GDP growth this year by almost half a percentage point, to 3.3%. ...

SINGAPORE: Over more than three years, the director of a firm providing security guards to the Takashimaya store at Ngee Ann City gave S$121,000 in bribes to a senior manager to cover up a shortage in security guards. The store suffered estimated losses of about S$479,700 in liquidated damages that it was supposed to receive if there was a shortfall in the number of security officers deployed. The director of White Knights Security Services, 30-year-old permanent resident Mandhir Singh Karpal Singh, was sentenced to 10 months' jail on Monday (Aug 16). He pleaded guilty to five counts of corruptly giving bribes to Takashimaya's senior divisional manager Chan Kuen Thong, with another 15 charges taken into consideration. The court heard that Chan was in charge of Takashimaya's security de...

For the first time in a decade, China has released some of its strategic metal stocks to try to dampen a price rally hurting manufacturers. It has also released coal and imported corn reserves to cool prices, while buying pork to prop up that market. China is the world's largest user of commodities and has built up vast reserves. The following are details of key commodities and estimates and assessments of strategic reserve levels METALS Based on past stockpiling activity, analysts estimate China's strategic reserves hold 1.5 million to 2 million tonnes of copper, 800,000-900,000 tonnes of aluminium and 250,000-400,000 tonnes of zinc. The reserves administration also stockpiles key battery metal cobalt, of which industry sources estimate China is holding about 7,000 tonnes. It also kee...

BEIJING : China's businesses and the broader economy came under increasing pressure in August as factory activity expanded at a slower pace while the services sector slumped into contraction, raising the likelihood of more near-term policy support to boost growth. The world's second-biggest economy staged an impressive recovery from a coronavirus-battered slump, but momentum has weakened recently due to domestic COVID-19 outbreaks, high raw material prices, slowing exports, tighter measures to tame hot property prices and a campaign to reduce carbon emissions. The official manufacturing Purchasing Manager's Index (PMI) fell to 50.1 in August from 50.4 in July, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Tuesday, holding just above the 50-point mark that separates growth f...

While authorities in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State are starting to vaccinate priority groups against COVID-19, they currently have no plan to include minority Rohingya Muslims that are living in densely packed camps, the junta-appointed local administrator has said. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled to Bangladesh during military operations in 2017, and those who remain complain of discrimination and mistreatment in a country that does not recognize them as citizens. Local administrator Kyaw Lwin said the vaccine rollout had begun in the Sittwe township with 10,000 vaccinations for priority groups such as older people, health care workers, government staff and Buddhist monks. There were no current plans for vaccinating any of the Muslims living in camps in Sittwe, he said. “We ar...

Containers are transferred from a truck to cargo ship at the international cargo terminal of a port in Hai Phong city on August 12, 2019. Furniture rental company Cort is jumping through hoops to manage supply-chain delays and a sharp rise in shipping costs it began facing last year as the coronavirus pandemic gripped the world. To avoid the difficulty in finding available shipping containers to lease, it bought 100 so it could get its couches, beds and bar stools to the United States. The company imports from seven countries, but it is adding even more, including Mexico, and sourcing more products domestically. To bypass the traffic buildup at the Port of Los Angeles, Cort has turned to other ports to bring in its desks, office chairs and book cases. "In my time in business, I've neve...

JERUSALEM: Passengers on an El Al flight from New York to Tel Aviv will be tested for the coronavirus on the plane itself or before boarding on Thursday (Aug 5) to speed up procedures upon arrival in Israel, where infections are on the rise. The Israeli airline announced the plan a day after Israel said travellers from the United States, like those from many other countries, would have to self-isolate for at least a week after landing at Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion airport. Israel hopes the new restriction will slow the spread of COVID-19 and discourage Israelis - foreign tourism to Israel is still largely banned - from flying abroad and risking higher exposure to the Delta variant that is fueling a surge of infections worldwide. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests for the El Al passeng...