World

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...

Side hustles are becoming increasingly popular. Nearly half, 40% of Americans currently have one, according to a May 2022 Zapier survey of 2,032 U.S. adults. That's up from 34% of Americans in December 2020. And while making some extra cash may be the most obvious reason to pick one up, there are other reasons to consider doing so as well. Depending on what you choose to do, your side gig could actually help you sharpen the skills you need for your nine-to-five. Picking up outside work teaches you "how to actually manage your workload without someone else micromanaging you," says Daniella Flores, founder of side hustle blog I Like To Dabble, as an example of one advantage. Here are three side hustles to consider that could make you better at your job. Tutoring One skill it's always good ...

WASHINGTON: China's war games around Taiwan have led Biden administration officials to recalibrate their thinking on whether to scrap some tariffs or potentially impose others on Beijing, setting those options aside for now, according to sources familiar with the deliberations. President Joe Biden has not made a decision on the issue, officials said. His team has been wrestling for months with various ways to ease the costs of duties imposed on Chinese imports during predecessor Donald Trump's tenure, as it tries to tamp down skyrocketing inflation. It has considered a combination of eliminating some tariffs, launching a new "Section 301" investigation into potential areas for additional tariffs, and expanding a list of tariff exclusions to aid US companies that can only get certain supp...

MANILA: The volatile geopolitical situation and fallout from US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan underline the importance of the US-Philippine relationship, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said on Saturday (Aug 6). Marcos, meeting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the presidential palace in Manila, said his visit was timely, but he believed Pelosi's trip "did not raise the intensity" of a situation that was already volatile. Blinken is the highest-ranking US official to travel to the Philippines since the inauguration of Marcos, the son of the late strongman who Washington helped flee into exile in Hawaii after a 1986 "people power" uprising. He assured Marcos the United States would honour its commitments to their decades-old joint defence pact. "The allianc...