When Alibaba kicks off its Singles Day extravaganza on Monday (Oct 24), it will for the first time in years not be headlined by its two mega sales stars, casting a pall over China's biggest shopping event and leaving brands guessing how well they will do. The event, which the e-commerce giant has built up from a...
A cyclone roared into the Bangladesh coast on Tuesday (Oct 25), killing at least 9 people, destroying houses, uprooting trees and disrupting road, power and communication links, officials said. Mass evacuations before Cyclone Sitrang made landfall on the west coast helped save lives but the full extent of the casualties and damage would only be known...
A Russian TV presenter apologised on Monday (Oct 24) for calling for Ukrainian children to be drowned, as Russia's state Investigative Committee said it was probing his remarks. In a show last week on state-controlled broadcaster RT, presenter Anton Krasovsky said Ukrainian children who saw Russians as occupiers under the Soviet Union should have been "thrown...
Standard Chartered on Thursday (Oct 20) announced the appointment of James Lye as its global head of international banking with effect from Nov 1. In this newly created role, Lye will be based in Singapore where he will lead the group's international banking team and drive "focused execution to turbocharge the bank's international banking business". He will...
Malaysia will hold a general election on Nov 19, its election commission said on Thursday (Oct 20), in a contest that the ruling graft-tainted party hopes would strengthen its hold on power. Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob dissolved parliament on Oct 10th and called for snap polls, saying an election would end years of political instability. Candidates will have to file...
China’s capital Beijing has dialled up measures to stop Covid-19, strengthening public checks and locking down some residential compounds after a quadrupling of its case load in recent weeks, just as a key Communist Party congress entered full swing. The city of 21 million people on Thursday reported 18 new locally transmitted cases for the previous...
Fifteen out of 100 people here with Covid-19 have been infected previously, and this could amount to another wave if the number of cases climbs in the coming days. Giving the figures on Monday (Oct 10) night, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said the authorities are monitoring whether the nation is experiencing another big wave of...
Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob called for an early election on Monday (Oct 10), to win a stronger mandate and stabilise a rocky political landscape that has persisted in the wake of the multi-billion dollar 1MDB scandal and covid crisis. Here are the key issues that will determine how Malaysians vote: Economy & inflation Rising prices and economic...
The love story of a Chinese couple kept apart for a decade by money and distance has trended online after the pair revealed they had run into each other by chance and married at last. The woman, surnamed Weng, shared her story on Douyin earlier this month and said that her two children from her previous...
The neediest in Japanese society have muddled through the last couple of years, enduring the economic insecurity that has accompanied the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on jobs with the help of the nation's food banks. With Japan – and the rest of the world – apparently headed into recession as a result of the Ukraine war, there...
