World

The pandemic has raised uncomfortable questions regarding whether digital transformation will displace workers, fuel wage gaps and weaken data protections, says Professor Lee Jong-Wha. SEOUL: The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the transition to a digital economy, which will hold the key to future growth and opportunities. That is why, as we prepare for the post-pandemic era, we must acknowledge that the digital economy’s potentially limitless benefits will not be equally distributed unless we take the right steps now. Mobile devices, the internet, cloud computing, and other innovations have created a hyper-connected global space in which billions of people can work and pursue more dynamic ways of life. Digital platforms have changed the way we consume, work, and create economic ...

SINGAPORE: A scientist with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) admitted in court on Monday (Jul 5) to committing various obscene acts including exposing himself to three women. Xie Danpeng, a 31-year-old China national, pleaded guilty to four charges including trespass, sexual exposure and dishonest misappropriation. Another two charges will be considered in sentencing. The court heard that Xie targeted two women at a condominium in the southern part of Singapore on Apr 12, 2020. One of them, aged 37, was going home after hanging out some laundry when she saw Xie masturbating in the common area between 8am and 9am. The woman took a video of him. Xie kept on the obscene act while staring at her. Alarmed, she ran home. The woman showed her employer the video sh...

Jack Dorsey creator, co-founder, and Chairman of Twitter and co-founder & CEO of Square speaks on stage at the Bitcoin 2021 Convention, a crypto-currency conference held at the Mana Convention Center in Wynwood on June 04, 2021 in Miami, Florida. As bitcoin and ether remain in the red on Monday, here are five things worth knowing in crypto from the past week – from Jack Dorsey confirming Square is building a bitcoin hardware wallet to TikTok banning cryptocurrency promotions. 1. Sen. Elizabeth Warren gives the SEC a deadline for answers on crypto regulation On Wednesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., addressed a letter to Gary Gensler, the chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), calling for more crypto regulation. "As demand for cryptocurrencies has grown in rec...

DHARAMSALA, India: The Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama celebrated turning 86 on Tuesday (Jul 6), thanking his supporters and expressing his appreciation for India, where he has lived since he fled his homeland in 1959. “I want to express my deep appreciation of all my friends who have really shown me love, respect and trust,” the Dalai Lama said in a video message. He reiterated his mission to serving humanity and urged supporters to be compassionate. “Since I became a refugee and now settled in India, I have taken full advantage of India's freedom and religious harmony,” he said. He added that he had great respect for India's secular values such as “honesty, karuna (compassion) and ahimsa (nonviolence)”. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a tweet he had passed on...

GENEVA: A United Nations human rights investigator called on countries on Wednesday (Jul 7) to impose economic sanctions on Myanmar's oil and gas sector to cripple the junta that took power five months ago. Myanmar has been in crisis since the military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government on Feb 1, unleashing nationwide anger that quickly turned into protests and strikes brutally suppressed by security forces, with nearly 900 killed. "I am talking about economic pressure, cutting off the revenue that the military junta needs to continue its reign of terror. I'm talking about cutting access to weapons and dual-use technology," Thomas Andrews, special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, told the UN Human Rights Council. No state had imposed sanctions on its oil and gas sect...

This year began with a question about whether we had done enough to secure a full economic recovery. Now the question is: can our economy handle this recovery? Prices are rising and they are rising fast — unsound fiscal policy and government spending are contributing to these higher costs. Families are feeling it when they buy groceries, fill up their tank, or book a plane ticket to finally reunite with relatives after a year and a half in lockdown. Democrats say it's transitory and prices will come down. Republicans say inflation is about to take root. I'd say this debate misses the forest for the trees. Increasing prices are a side effect, not the diagnosis. With more than 9 million job openings we should be seeing a return to work boom—but that's just not happening. Throughout the ...

JAKARTA: An influential firebrand cleric was sentenced to another four years in prison in Indonesia on Thursday (Jun 24) for concealing information about his coronavirus test result. The three-judge panel at East Jakarta District Court, which was under heavy police and military guard, ruled that Rizieq Shihab had lied about his COVID-19 test result, which made contact tracing more difficult. Shihab has been detained since Dec 13. The judges ordered the time he has already served to be deducted from his sentence. Authorities blocked streets leading to the court as thousands of Shihab’s supporters tried to stage a rally to demand his release. Police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse hard-core followers who tried to approach the court. Hundreds who refused to leave were deta...

Covid-19 vaccines by Chinese firms Sinopharm (left) and Sinovac arrived at the Phnom Penh International Airport in Cambodia on June 8, 2021. Sovannara | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images Among countries with both high vaccination rates and high rates of Covid-19 infection, most rely on vaccines made in China, a CNBC analysis shows. The findings come as the efficacy of Chinese vaccines faces growing scrutiny, compounded by a lack of data on their protection against the more transmissible delta variant. CNBC found that weekly Covid cases, adjusted for population, have remained elevated in at least six of the world's most inoculated countries — and five of them rely on vaccines from China. CNBC identified 36 countries with more than 1,000 weekly new confirmed cases per million people as of J...

India and UK first Financial Markets Dialogue (FMD). India accounting for the UK’s second-largest source of investment in terms of the number of projects. The meeting was held to deepen bilateral ties in the financial sector, the British High Commission (BHC). The Dialogue saw government-to-government discussions to strengthen cooperation on four key themes: Gujarat International Finance Tec (GIFT) City; banking and payments; insurance, and; capital markets. It was led by senior officials from the UK Treasury and the Indian Ministry of Finance, with participation from independent British and Indian regulatory agencies, BHC said. The creation of the Financial Markets Dialogue to strengthen financial services cooperation and address regulatory barriers for UK and Indian firms was agre...