World

The Bank of Japan may see conditions fall in place to begin debating a new strategy for hitting its price target around the end of this year, as the economy shakes off the blues from the COVID-19 pandemic, its board member Asahi Noguchi told Reuters. TOKYO: The Bank of Japan may see conditions fall in place to begin debating a new strategy for hitting its price target around the end of this year, as the economy shakes off the blues from the COVID-19 pandemic, its board member Asahi Noguchi told Reuters. Even so, the central bank can hold off on expanding stimulus unless a shock event derails Japan's economic recovery, Noguchi, known as a vocal advocate of aggressive monetary easing, said in his first interview since joining the board in April. "Once vaccinations proceed and the econ...

SINGAPORE: On Monday (Jul 12), the Ministry of Health (MOH) first announced the KTV cluster - then called the Case 64693 cluster - with three cases linked to it. MOH said that day it was investigating cases of infection among Vietnamese social hostesses who had frequented KTV lounges or clubs currently operating as food and beverage (F&B) outlets, as well as their close social contacts. Then on Tuesday, MOH officially named the cases as the KTV lounges/clubs cluster, and stated that the cluster had swelled to 12 cases, with likely ongoing COVID-19 transmission at three KTV outlets. On Wednesday, MOH announced 42 new COVID-19 cases in Singapore had been linked to the cluster, with Health Minister Ong Ye Kung calling the situation “troubling and disappointing”. “We knew about c...

MOSCOW: Contact has been lost with a passenger plane carrying more than two dozen people in Russia's Far Eastern peninsula of Kamchatka, local officials said on Tuesday (Jul 6). The An-26 was flying from Kamchatka's main city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to the town of Palana when it disappeared and failed to land as scheduled, Valentina Glazova, a spokeswoman for the local transport prosecutor's office, told AFP. She said that 29 people were on board, including 23 passengers and six crew. "Search and rescue efforts are under way," she said. "All that is known at this time, what has been possible to establish, is that communication with the plane was interrupted and it did not land." She said that the plane had been operated by a local aviation company in Kamchatka, a vast peninsula...

YANGON: With hospitals in junta-run Myanmar empty of pro-democracy medical staff and coronavirus cases surging nationwide, volunteers are going house-to-house to collect the fast-rising number of victims dying in their homes. Early each morning, Than Than Soe's phone starts ringing with requests from family members of those who have died in the commercial capital Yangon. She writes the name, address and contact number of the victim in a ledger and dispatches a team to their home. "We are running our service without resting," she told AFP at the bustling office of her volunteer group. Every day "my team is collecting between 30 to 40 dead bodies ... I think other teams will be the same like us". "Sometimes, there are two dead bodies in one house." Volunteers wearing personal p...

related media assets (image or videos) available. Click to see the gallery. 2 related media assets (image or videos) available. Click to see the gallery. SINGAPORE: In implementing Singapore's foreign worker policy, the Government's approach is based on whether it will help Singaporeans, said Manpower Minister Tan See Leng in Parliament on Tuesday (Jul 6). He was explaining the challenges and trade-offs of Singapore's foreign workforce policies in a ministerial statement, in response to a series of questions filed by several Members of Parliament. Non-Constituency MPs Leong Mun Wai and Hazel Poa from the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) had asked for data on the number of foreign nationals and their dependants from countries that Singapore has free trade agreements (FTAs) with. As...

For Russia, Afghanistan has posed a conundrum, requiring it to work with many regional players to keep the Taliban in check, says NTU’s Christopher Cheang. SINGAPORE: The US’ impending withdrawal from Afghanistan and rapid territorial gains by the Taliban leave Russia in a dilemma. On the one hand, Western military and political power will be gone from a country geographically and culturally close to some of Russia’s Central Asian allies like Tajikistan. That might be in line with Russia’s interest since it has never been fully comfortable with the overwhelming US presence there. On the other hand, the power vacuum might threaten the security of Central Asian allies and by extension, Russia’s, in the near future. RUSSIA’S ATTITUDES TOWARDS AFGHANISTAN Secretary of the powerful Sec...

SINGAPORE: Last year, when an exotic disease reached Singapore’s shores, a chain of testing, investigation and contact tracing was triggered to contain it. It's not COVID-19, but rabbit haemorrhagic disease or RHD - a deadly disease for bunnies that was detected in Singapore for the first time last year. In September 2020, a notice was sent out to all rabbit owners to minimise contact between their pets and other rabbits as the illness is highly contagious. Back then, eight out of 11 rabbits died within two days of being sent to the vet. Two rabbits recovered after “prolonged hospitalisation” and one was found not to have the disease, according to a research paper published in Transboundary and Emerging Diseases on Apr 23. For infectious diseases affecting animals, the National...

The dollar edged higher across the board on Monday as concerns about the pandemic encouraged investors to seek a safe haven, and as they awaited more clues about the global economic recovery. With markets hyper-sensitive to any talk of early tapering, U.S. inflation data on Tuesday will be closely watched ahead of testimony by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday and Thursday. "Market caution reigned at the start of the week, weighing on risk sentiment and boosting the U.S. dollar," said Joe Manimbo, senior market analyst at Western Union Business Solutions in Washington. Reports from around the globe of surging infections of the Delta coronavirus variant also hurt investors' appetite for riskier assets. Investors will look to U.S. inflation data on Tuesday and Federal Rese...

If the Covid pandemic has proven any axiom, it's that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure — and if you can't prevent or cure, insure. Travelers are taking that lesson to heart and, as they return to cars, planes and cruise ships, they're looking to hedge their bets by insuring trips, locking in prices and more — when, where and as easily as they can. And they're willing to pay for that peace of mind, according to travel app Hopper. "There's an enormous appetite for security and stability, and customers are willing to pay for this," said Hopper founder and CEO Frederic Lalonde. To help meet that need, Hopper announced Tuesday it's teaming with Amadeus to offer customers of the Madrid-based global distribution system and travel software giant its fintech insurance and price-fr...

BEIJING: Chinese factory activity stabilised in June, data showed Wednesday (Jun 30), but output was hit by supply shortages of key commodities and microchips as well as the coronavirus-induced closure of a key port that caused huge delivery delays. The Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), a key gauge of manufacturing activity in the world's second-largest economy, came in at 50.9 in June from May's 51.0, the National Bureau of Statistics said. While the reading has been edging down for three straight months, it appears to be levelling out. It was also broadly in line with forecasts and continued to stay above the 50 point mark that separates growth from expansion. China's economy is well on the recovery track after overcoming the impact of the virus early by imposing strict lockdowns ...