World

LONDON : The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Sri Lanka should kick off debt restructuring talks with its bilateral lender China, while the island state's government seeks a financing loan from the Washingtonne-based fund. "China is a big creditor, and Sri Lanka has to engauge proactively with it on a debt restructuring," Krishna Srinivasan, director of the IMF's Asia and Pacific Department, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. The island of 22 million is currently engulfed by its most severe economic and political crisis in recent historey. Six-time prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was recently appointed as president after a popular uprising ousted his predecessor following months of severe shortages of fuel, food and medicines. The government recently decided to restrict...

Singh is feeling the heat as he evolves from start-up cheerleader to champion of corporate governance. Increased scrutiny prompted some Sequoia-backed Indian founders to compare him to a forceful ruler from Indian history. “There is art to setting up governance — the board, process and advisers — in such a way that brakes kick in automatically when something bad happens,” said Dmitry Levit, founder of Singapore-based VC firm Cento Ventures. He said many of Sequoia India’s companies are like racing cars. “If somebody tries to run a Formula One car on off-road terrain in stormy weather, it can’t absorb the shocks.” Sequoia India said it has always cared about corporate governance. “Building world-class companies requires first-rate governance,” a Sequoia India spokesperson said in a stat...

A summary trial usually involves a less formal type of prosecution, with servicemen being charged and sentenced by superiors - from the same unit or otherwise - in SAF camps. While Dr Ng did not specify examples of minor offences, he mentioned common offences such as smoking outside designated areas in SAF camps and not completing the yearly individual physical proficiency test (IPPT). However, offences are assessed on a case-by-case basis with factors like repeat offences taken into consideration. INCREASE IN MAXIMUM FINES For minor offences dealt with by summary trial, a junior disciplinary officer can now impose on a soldier ranked third sergeant and below a maximum fine of S$600, up from S$300. The most senior disciplinary officer is the Chief of Defence Force, who will be able to...

SHANGHAI: China raced on Tuesday (Aug 9) to stamp out COVID-19 outbreaks in the tourist hubs of Tibet and Hainan, with the authorities launching more rounds of mass testing and closing venues to contain the highly transmissible Omicron variant. Mainland China reported 828 new domestically transmitted cases across more than a dozen provinces and regions for Aug 8, with more than half of them in Hainan, a highly popular tourist destination, official data showed on Tuesday. Tibet, which until now had reported only one symptomatic case since the pandemic started more than two years ago, has also reported cases. Parts of Tibet were running mass COVID-19 testing on Tuesday, including its two largest cities Lhasa and Shigatse, where local authorities suspended large events, closed entertainmen...

BEIJING: China's exports grew at their fastest pace in five months in June, exceeding analysts' expectations and adding to evidence that the world's second-biggest economy is slowly recovering from the damage of pandemic restrictions. However, imports rose at a slower pace, missing forecasts, despite the easing of limits on movement. Despite the buoyant export growth, the country's trade outlook faces rising pressures in the second half of the year, as fading demand in key export markets, a protracted Ukraine war and high inflation fuel concerns about a global recession. Outbound shipments in June were 17.9 per cent higher than a year earlier, official customs data showed on Wednesday (Jul 13), compared with a 16.9 per cent annual gain seen in May and quicker than analysts' expectations...

HONG KONG: Hong Kong's economy contracted 1.3 per cent in the second quarter from the same period a year earlier, government data showed on Friday (Aug 12), following a weak performance in external trade during the period. It was the second straight quarter of year-on-year contraction for the Asian financial hub's gross domestic product (GDP). Seasonally adjusted GDP was 1 per cent higher in the second quarter than three months earlier, however. Rising inflation, cooling global demand and weak consumer sentiment in the trade-reliant city remain significant risks for the recovery, analysts say. The second quarter's annual growth pace compared with a decline of 3.9 per cent in the previous quarter. The advance estimate for the second quarter had been a 1.4 per cent contraction. COVID-19...

Jesse Schoberg began plotting his escape from Elkhorn, Wisconsin, where he was born and raised, when he was a teenager. "It's your typical small town in the Midwest: small, quiet, not too much adventure," he tells CNBC Make It. "I always knew that I wanted to get out and explore the world." The 41-year-old entrepreneur has now been living abroad for 14 years, splitting his time among more than 40 countries — and he has no plans to return to the U.S. anytime soon. Schoberg bucked the traditional path of attending college and securing a 9-to-5 job, instead choosing to move to Madison when he was 19, sharpening his coding skills and helping businesses with their website design and development. By the time he turned 27, however, Schoberg began to feel restless. He decided to move to a new city...

WASHINGTON : More than 30 years ago, US Representative Nancy Pelosi angered China's government by showing up in Tiananmen Square and unfurling a banner honouring dissidents killed in the 1989 protests. On Tuesday (Aug 2), as speaker of the House of Representatives, Pelosi disregarded China's fiery warnings and landed in Taiwan to support its government and meet with human rights activists. Pelosi's trip to Taiwan capped her decades as a leading US critic of the Beijing government, especially on rights issues, and underscores the long history of the US Congress taking a harder line than the White House in dealings with Beijing. Second in line for the presidency after Vice President Kamala Harris, Pelosi became the most senior US politician to travel to Taiwan since then-Speaker Newt Ging...

TOKYO: Japan and the United States agreed on Friday (Aug 5) to work together on maintaining peace in the increasingly tense Taiwan Strait, amid unprecedented military drills by China including five missiles that landed in Japan's exclusive economic zone. US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi is in Japan on the last stage of an Asian trip that included a brief and unannounced stop in Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing considers its own, in the highest-level visit by a US official in 25 years. Her visit, during which she lauded Taiwan's democracy and pledged solidarity, infuriated China and touched off military exercises that a state broadcaster said would be the largest by China in the Taiwan Strait, including live firing on the waters and in the airspace around the island. ...

WASHINGTON: The US Federal Communications Commission rejected SpaceX's Starlink and LTD Broadband's applications for more than US$2 billion in internet service subsidies, the FCC said on Wednesday. In December 2020, the FCC tentatively awarded US$9.2 billion to over 300 bidders to deploy high-speed broadband from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. LTD Broadband won US$1.32 billion and SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet network won US$885.5 million in the 2020 auction. SpaceX, which is run by billionaire Elon Musk, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. "Starlink's technology has real promise," said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in a statement disclosing that the agency had rejected its long-form applications. But the FCC was hesitant to publicly subsidize Starlink...