World

SHIMULIA, Bangladesh: Hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi garment workers rushed back to major cities on Saturday (Jul 31), besieging train and bus stations, after the government said export factories could reopen despite a deadly coronavirus wave. With the economy badly hit by the pandemic, the government excluded the factories that supply top brands in Europe and North America from a nationwide lockdown order. Authorities had ordered factories, offices, transport and shops to close from Jul 23 to Aug 5 as daily coronavirus infections and deaths hit record levels. Officially, Bangladesh has reported 1.2 million cases and more than 20,000 deaths. Experts say the real figures are at least four times higher. The government said however that the country's 4,500 garment factories, which e...

SINGAPORE: A 29-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly causing grievous hurt to another man in an assault in the early hours of Thursday (Jul 29), the Singapore Police Force (SPF) said. The police were alerted to the case at 5.35am on Thursday, when the man allegedly kicked and punched the victim along Clementi Avenue 5. He fled the scene before the police arrived, SPF said, adding that the victim was conscious when he was taken to the hospital. The man was arrested within three hours of the alleged assault, said the police. Preliminary investigations show that both men "are believed to be known to each other" and had a dispute before the incident, police said. The man will be charged in court on Friday with voluntarily causing grievous hurt, an offence which carries a jail term...

Last year, the countries of East Asia were hailed for their success stories in the effort to stop the coronavirus pandemic. Today, these same countries are battling a resurgence in infections. One unintended consequence of their early success in suppressing the virus has been a late start in vaccinating their populations. China alone has successfully contained the spread of the virus, vaccinated its people and taken measures to get its economy back on track. The Asian giant’s government immediately set up special hospital wards for coronavirus patients and called up a large number of regional health care professionals to provide assistance. Domestic vaccines are in full production and more than 25 million doses are administered daily. The speed with which China is vaccinating its citizen...

TOKYO: China's Hou Zhihui, current world record holder in the lightest women's category, may smash her own record on Saturday (Jul 24) when the Tokyo 2020 weightlifting begins, and take the first gold for her country. Hou, who holds the world record in snatch with 96kg, is going up against India's Mirabai Chanu, who holds the world record with 119kg in clean and jerk. However, with 213kg in total, Hou holds the world record in that category, too. There are two Olympic lifts: The clean and jerk, and the snatch. Each athlete is allowed three attempts at each lift. The best lift in each is combined to determine the overall total. Athletes must successfully attempt the snatch before proceeding to the clean and jerk. Since the Olympic weightlifting competition restricts the number of entries...

LONDON: The government bond market rally that had sent U.S. Treasury yields under 1.2per cent and the entire German curve negative paused on Tuesday, though there were more problems in China as internet giant Tencent took another battering. Rising bank shares helped Europe's main bourses and Wall Street futures shuffle higher but the real action was elsewhere. A Chinese state media outlet branding online games "spiritual opium" was enough to send Tencent's shares tumbling as much as 10per cent in Asia, wiping US$60 billion off its value hot on the heels of its worst month in nearly a decade. The firm scrambled to say it would curb children's access to its flagship Honor of Kings game but the panic engulfed gaming rivals NetEase, XD and GMGE which all plunged between 8per cent and 15per ...

UNITED NATIONS: The UN General Assembly approved its first-ever resolution on vision, calling on its 193 member nations to ensure access to eye care for everyone in their countries which would contribute to a global effort to help at least 1.1 billion people with vision impairment who currently lack eye services by 2030. The “Vision for Everyone” resolution, sponsored by Bangladesh, Antigua and Ireland, and co-sponsored by over 100 countries, was adopted on Friday (Jul 23) by consensus by the world body. It encourages countries to institute a “whole of government approach to eye care.” And it calls on international financial institutions and donors to provide targeted financing, especially for developing countries, to address the increasing impact of vision loss on economic and social de...

JAKARTA : Indonesia launched on Monday a website to process investment permits, which the government hailed as an important milestone in reforms aimed at making it easier and quicker to do business in Southeast Asia's largest economy. President Joko Widodo has vowed to overcome lingering hurdles such as red tape, rigid labour laws and poor infrastructure in his second term to compete with neighbours such as Vietnam and Thailand to attract foreign investment. The "Online Single Submission" oss.go.id website will process investment proposals based on the level of risk, with lower risk investments needing only to register and medium ones to meet national standards. "We want our investment climate to become more conducive ... to increase investors' confidence, to create jobs and become a so...

China's efforts to be seen as a responsible investor overseas are at risk from high rates of human rights abuses linked to its business operations, especially in the metals and mining sector, a report released on Wednesday (Aug 11) found. The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, a global non-governmental organisation, logged 679 charges of human rights abuse against Chinese companies operating abroad between 2013 and 2020. Metals and mining drew the most allegations - 236, or 35 per cent of the total. Peru, the world's second-biggest copper producer, and China's neighbour Myanmar, a leading supplier of tin and rare earth ore, were named as hotspots. China, the world's top metals consumer, does not have enough resources to meet domestic demand and has encouraged companies to secure s...

TOKYO : The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said it had issued a warning to the two Chinese cycling medallists who wore badges featuring the head of their country's former leader Mao Zedong at the Tokyo Olympics podium, breaching a rule on political gestures, and that the case was now closed. The IOC said on Saturday (Aug 7) it had received a "clarification" from the Chinese Olympic Committee over the political gesture of its athletes. "We have received a clarification and the athletes have been warned," Christian Klaue, IOC Director of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs, told reporters. "We also received assurances that it will not happen again and with this the IOC considers this case closed." The Tokyo Games end on Sunday. Cyclists Bao Shanju and Zhong Tianshi wore t...

Intuit, the company behind popular tax filing software TurboTax, announced that it will no longer participate in the IRS Free File program, which helps millions of Americans submit tax returns at no cost. "With the Free File program surpassing its founding goals of e-file and free tax preparation, and due to the limitations of the Free File program and conflicting demands from those outside the program, we are not able to continue in the program and deliver all of the benefits that can help consumers make more money, save more, and invest for the future," the company wrote in a blog post Thursday. Intuit did not immediately respond to a request for further comment. The IRS Free File program is a public-private partnership between the agency and the Free File Alliance, a group of tax pre...