World

OXFORD, England: British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab warned that the world would not be adequately vaccinated until 2024 unless other countries joined Britain in donating shots to poorer nations, an effort that could bring that date forward to the middle of next year. Britain pledged to donate 100 million vaccines when it hosted the Group of Seven summit earlier this year, sending them directly to countries in need or through the COVAX scheme which ensures equitable, global access to shots. US President Joe Biden said at the summit in Cornwall, England, that the United States would buy and donate 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine to more than 90 countries. Raab told Reuters on Wednesday that Britain, which has fully vaccinated 71 per cent of its adults, was ready to begin d...

LONDON: Container shipping prices have reached record highs about 18 months after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic that disrupted maritime logistics chains and drove demand sky-high. "We are basically running out of vessels and of empty containers," Alan Murphy, head of the consultancy Sea Intelligence, told AFP. "There's been a massive shortage of empty containers, they are in the wrong place, they are stuck in ports and not in Asia ready to be loaded." The Freightos Baltic Index, a benchmark for major shipping routes, has more than tripled in a year to nearly US$7,000 (€5,900) for a trip from China to the west coast of the United States. A trip to Europe has exceeded US$10,000, compared with just US$1,600 at the same time last year. Murphy said the unprecedented situatio...

SINGAPORE: Vice activities conducted by some individuals here are not representative of the Vietnamese population in Singapore, said an official from the Vietnam embassy. There are about 15,000 Vietnamese living in Singapore. Many of them work in the food and beverage industry such as restaurants and hawker centres, or are here to study, said the embassy’s deputy chief of mission Le Cong Dung. “Those (who work at KTVs) are a very small number … not all Vietnamese come to Singapore for KTV jobs,” he said. “It’s just bad luck that this Vietnamese woman was infected … and that it (created) a public image that the Vietnamese community is doing (KTV jobs),” he said. “But I can assure you that the Vietnamese here, are one of the most easy-going people. We are (mostly) working with hawke...

Cruise ship crew and hospitality staff are international labour migrants driven by hopes of a better life. COVID-19 has revealed the precarity of their employment, says the Australian National University’s Kathryn Robinson. SYDNEY: The early focus during the COVID-19 outbreak on cruise ships as “petri dishes” of infection has been eclipsed by the enormous economic and health impacts of the pandemic. But early outbreaks on mega cruise ships presaged the global dimensions of the outbreak. The Diamond Princess was quarantined in Yokohama in February 2020 as over 700 of its 3700 passengers were infected and over a dozen died. Subsequently, its sister ship, the Ruby Princess controversially disembarked 2,700 passengers in Sydney in March 2020, seemingly the result of failures in Australi...

Federal mandate could pave the way for private-sector policies Dr. Bruce Y. Lee, professor at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy, tells CNBC Make It the Biden announcement is "significant." First, the federal decision provides a sweeping precedent that employers can point to as a reason why they're adopting a similar policy for their own staff right now. Businesses will also have a point of reference for how to handle pushback and employees who may threaten legal action against the requirement. And finally, leaders can learn from the way the federal policy is rolled out and enforced. Working through operational challenges will take time and could be especially difficult for small businesses, Lee says. Employers will have to figure out how to verify their employees' ...

BANGKOK: Customs officials in Thailand made their biggest seizure of heroin this year, about 315kg worth up to 944 million baht (US$29 million), bringing the total confiscated so far this year to 2 tonnes, officials said on Tuesday (Jul 6). They did not say where the drugs originated, but the seizure comes amid concerns that production may surge in neighboring Myanmar, the region’s main supplier of illicit drugs, because of severe instability following the military's ouster of an elected government in February. Customs Department Director-General Patchara Anuntasilpa said 134 shrink-wrapped packets of heroin, each weighing about 2.4kg, had been concealed in a shipment of acrylic paint headed for Australia. He said the drugs were discovered on Monday because the packets of heroin wer...

Indian digital payments firm Paytm expects to launch its initial public offering (IPO) at around the end of October, pending regulatory approvals, a source familiar with the matter said on Monday. NEW DELHI: Indian digital payments firm Paytm expects to launch its initial public offering (IPO) at around the end of October, pending regulatory approvals, a source familiar with the matter said on Monday. Paytm, which has filed for a 166 billion rupee (US$2.2 billion) IPO that will likely be the largest ever in India, also expects to break even in 18 months, the source said, declining to be named as the matter is not public. Paytm's IPO plan comes at a time when several first-generation homegrown startups in India prepare to go public on domestic bourses, led by food delivery firm Zomat...

PHNOM PENH/HANOI: Buried in a long US indictment accusing China of a global cyberespionage campaign was a curious detail: Among the governments targeted by Chinese hackers was Cambodia, one of Beijing's most loyal Asian allies. The target of the hack, which two sources with knowledge of the indictment said was Cambodia's foreign ministry, was also revealing: discussions between China and Cambodia over the use of the Mekong River, a new battleground for US and Chinese influence in Southeast Asia. Four Chinese nationals - three security officials and a contract hacker - have been charged with attacks aimed at dozens of companies, universities and government agencies in the United States and abroad, the US Justice Department said on Monday. Reaction from the defendants named in the ind...

SINGAPORE: The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Wednesday (Jul 28) announced it would lift dividend restrictions on local banks and finance companies. Last year, the authority asked banks and finance companies to cap their financial year (FY) 2020 dividends per share at 60 per cent of the previous year’s and offer shareholders the option of receiving the remaining dividends to be paid for FY2020 in shares in lieu of cash. “The dividend restrictions were a pre-emptive measure, introduced to ensure that local banks and finance companies maintain strong lending capacity to support the economy throughout the pandemic, given the significant uncertainties at that time,” MAS said in a press release. It added that the global economic outlook has since improved. “While some uncertai...

Five Asian countries are responsible for 80per cent of new coal power plants planned around the world, the Carbon Tracker group said on Wednesday, saying most would prove uneconomical and the new plants would put international climate goals out of reach. LONDON: Five Asian countries are responsible for 80per cent of new coal power plants planned around the world, the Carbon Tracker group said on Wednesday, saying most would prove uneconomical and the new plants would put international climate goals out of reach. China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Vietnam plan to build more than 600 new coal-fired power projects, with a combined capacity of more than 300 gigawatts. Coal use has declined in Europe, the United States and elsewhere, with governments under pressure to cut carbon emission...