Month: September 2021

Australia on Monday sought to assuage regional anxieties over its plans to acquire nuclear-powered submarines through a joint arrangement with Britain and the United States, with Canberra’s envoy to Asean saying the agreement was “not a defence alliance or pact”.In a statement, Will Nankervis said the arrangement would not change “Australia’s commitment to Asean nor our ongoing support for the Asean-led regional infrastructure”.Canberra was committed to continuing to foster a “peaceful, secure…

A new Japanese law permits private companies to claim ownership of resources from outer space, the latest development in an international space race fuelled as much by national pride as the growing need to harvest resources from beyond Earth’s atmosphere. The new legislation coincides with increased interest and investment in space ventures by both private companies and the government-funded Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), which in July completed the first test in space of a next…

Boxing star Manny Pacquiao on Sunday said he will run for president of the Philippines next year, after railing against corruption in government and what he calls President Rodrigo Duterte’s cosy relationship with China.Pacquiao accepted the nomination of his political allies during the national assembly of the faction he leads in the ruling PDP-Laban Party, days after a rival faction nominated Duterte’s long-time aide, Senator Christopher “Bong” Go, as its presidential candidate.That faction…

Nueva Vizcaya, a landlocked province in the Philippines with a population of about 460,900, is home to some of the biggest vegetable producers in the country.An agricultural region eight hours’ drive from the nation’s capital and known as “the salad bowl of the north”, it supplies most of its vegetables to Manila despite not having an airport of its own. Vegetables travel by trucks daily from the upland green plots to the tables of the capital’s residents.But when the coronavirus pandemic hit…

A two-day international conference convened by the Russian government in the city of Khabarovsk in early September to re-examine the war crime trials that took place in the city in December 1949 has angered Japan’s conservatives who have accused Moscow of magnifying the imperial army’s atrocities to seek geopolitical gains. Back then, 12 men from Japan’s notorious biowarfare research base known as Unit 731 – based in northeastern China during the Sino-Japanese war – were found guilty of…

Singapore’s primary schools will shift to home-based learning for 10 days ahead of a key national examination, the education ministry said on Saturday, as the city state reported 935 new Covid-19 cases the previous day, the highest since April last year.Primary 1 to 5 students will move to home-based learning from September 27 to October 6.Primary 6 students will go on a study break for a few days from September 25 before sitting for the national examination to minimise risk of school-based…

The governments across the UK and local authorities should consider reducing burdens, and extending supportive measures, for the hospitality industry to support its fragile recovery from the coronavirus crisis.

Users of Singapore’s PayNow and India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) will be able to transfer money between the countries with the linking of the countries’ two real-time payment systems by July 2022.

From meatball vendors to clothes stores, small business owners in Thailand have reported a rise in sales on the back of the success of Thai-born Blackpink member Lalisa “Lisa” Manoban’s first solo single. The K-pop star last Friday released the music video for LALISA, a hip-hop track featuring scenes from her culture and hometown, to the delight of fans in Thailand and elsewhere. Dressed in a shimmery Thai silk dress while donning a traditional golden headgear, known as a chada, Manoban…

China’s market regulator the State Administration of Market Regulation (SAMR) has proposed some amendments to the existing e-commerce law.