Month: January 2022

Singapore’s government is in talks with the US embassy after the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention described the city state’s Covid-19 situation as “unknown”, surprising experts who pointed out it had more frequent testing and tighter social distancing measures than the United States.In reclassifying its advisory for the Southeast Asian country, the CDC urged Americans not to travel there at all, prompting disbelief among online commentators given the relatively few cases in Singapore…

Chris Evans tells HRNews about a new product designed by Pinsent Masons to help avoid disputes over the payment of bonuses

It was early in the morning when a journalist in New Delhi clicked “download” on an image sent on WhatsApp on New Year’s Day. She assumed it was a New Year’s greeting but her heart skipped a beat when she saw her picture, alongside degrading comments, offering her for sale as the “Deal of the Day”.The photos of another 100 Muslim women featured in the fake auction on an app. For the woman, a journalist, it was a distressing repeat of what happened six months earlier when her name was listed…

Indonesian security forces killed a suspected militant accused of beheadings in a shoot-out on Tuesday that was part of a sweeping counterterrorism campaign against extremists in remote mountain jungles, police said.Provincial police chief Rudy Sufahriadi said Ahmad Gazali, 27, also known as Ahmad Panjang, a key member of the East Indonesia mujahideen network, was fatally shot by a joint team of military and police officers near Uempasa hamlet in Central Sulawesi province’s mountainous Parigi…

China’s short-term energy supply is under threat from Indonesia’s decision to ban thermal coal exports in January, but any long-term impact is “generally manageable” due to the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, analysts said.The Southeast Asian country – the world’s biggest exporter of coal for power generation – on Saturday announced a halt to exports this month to prioritise its own domestic supply and to avoid widespread blackouts.Due to Beijing’s ongoing trade dispute with Australia, China…

Cambodian police on Monday arrested 15 workers protesting against lay-offs at the country’s biggest casino run by a Hong-Kong listed firm, a union leader said.Thousands of workers have been on strike since last month in front of Nagacorp Ltd’s hotel and casino complex in Phnom Penh, demanding the reinstatement of 365 employees who were let go in April.The company says the strike is illegal and that it was implementing a “mutual separation plan” as part of efforts to improve cost efficiency…

A bus veered off a mountain highway in Nepal on Sunday, leaving at least seven dead and about a dozen injured, officials said.The bus was carrying mourners who were transporting the body of a relative back to their village, government administrator Shashi Dhar Ghimire said by phone.The bus had 35 people on board when it drove off a mountain near Laguwa village, some 300km (190 miles) west of the capital, Kathmandu.Police and villagers rushed to the scene to pull out survivors and recover the…

Despite the Philippines’ former dictator Ferdinand Marcos plundering government coffers and killing thousands during his rule under martial law, his son’s star continues to shine bright in the run-up to the country’s presidential election in May.The support for Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jnr, 64, is especially strong among Philippines’ 2.2 million overseas workers.Before the pandemic that forced thousands to return to the archipelago jobless, they remitted home US$33.5 billion in 2019,…

Twelve people were crushed to death in a stampede at an Indian religious shrine in the early hours of Saturday as tens of thousands of pilgrims massed to offer prayers, officials said.The disaster unfolded in darkness at around 3am on the packed route to the Vaishno Devi shrine in Indian-administered Kashmir, visited by millions every year as one of Hinduism’s most revered sites.“People fell over each other … It was difficult to figure out whose leg or arms were tangled with whose,” survivor…

Singaporean cuisine has long been the darling of cosmopolitan, well-travelled foodies – including more celebrity chefs than you can shake a fork at, the late Anthony Bourdain its loudest champion.But despite this cachet – as well as Singapore’s Unesco heritage list status and the occasional Michelin star for its street food – the island’s polyphonic, melting-pot cuisine remains fairly niche abroad.Even in places with sizeable Singaporean expatriate populations – San Francisco, New York and…