Month: November 2021

Singapore’s Covid-19 outbreak may be slowing. The number of new local infections fell in the past week compared to a week earlier for the first time since mid-October, marking a key milestone that could lead to an easing of restrictions in the financial hub.The Southeast Asian city state is tracking its local caseload on a week-over-week basis to show how fast and in what direction the virus is moving.Called the weekly infection growth rate, the ratio is critical for Singapore’s reopening plans…

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Wednesday that local government officials will be punished for falling behind their targets for Covid-19 vaccinations as the country seeks to open up the economy.The Philippines, which has one of Asia’s worst coronavirus epidemics, has so far fully immunised a little over a third of 77 million people eligible for shots. But millions of vaccines remain unused as logistical bottlenecks and hesitancy slow inoculations.Duterte said there was no reason…

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade agreement will take effect at the start of January, according to the Australian government, with the deal to facilitate trade liberalisation and economic integration in Asia and the Pacific.The 15-member RCEP – the world’s largest free trade agreement despite the absence of the United States – will be Japan’s first trade agreement involving both China and South Korea.The pact can enter into force now that Australia and New Zealand…

Companies with over one million users in China would be required to go through mandatory security review before sending user-related data abroad under new proposals.

Japan is looking to loan a 358-year-old statue of a renowned Chinese Zen master to a temple in China as a symbolic gesture of goodwill, as the two nations prepare to mark 50 years of the normalisation of diplomatic relations in 2022.Under the proposed plan, the wooden statue of Yinyuan Longqi (1592-1673), known as Ingen in Japan, will be temporarily transferred from the Obaku-san Manpukuji Temple in Kyoto Prefecture to Wanfu Temple in China’s Fujian Province.Yinyuan Longqi was the chief priest…

US national Heather Mack, convicted as a pregnant teenager of helping to kill her mother at an Indonesian luxury hotel, was being deported on Tuesday along with her now six-year-old daughter, immigration officials said.Mack, 25, was released from a Bali prison last week, nearly three years early for good behaviour, and was set to be flown to the United States on Tuesday.“Yes, it’s true. [She’s] got the ticket already,” Bali justice ministry spokesman I Putu Surya Dharma told reporters when…

A Singapore employer and union task force has published recommendations to the government on how best to support local professional, managerial and executive workers (PMEs).

Last month, Canada sent a warship through the Taiwan Strait alongside the US for the very first time, amid an increase in Chinese military exercises in the self-ruled island’s air defence identification zone.The appearance of the Canadian frigate HMCS Winnipeg in waterways that are increasingly the staging ground for competition between major powers is one of several indications that just weeks after the release of two Canadians held by China – the ‘two Michaels’ – Ottawa is ready to join a…

Netflix has removed two episodes of an Australian spy show from its streaming service in the Philippines after Manila objected to scenes showing a map with Beijing’s claims to the disputed South China Sea.China has long used its so-called nine-dash line to justify its claims over most of the resource-rich South China Sea, where the Philippines has rival claims.The Department of Foreign Affairs said Monday it had lodged a complaint over the map which included the line – shown briefly in the…

China’s State Council issued the country’s action plan to ensure carbon emissions peak by 2030.