Category: Uncategorized

Senators in the Philippines are investigating how a drug company won government contracts worth billions of pesos to supply personal protective equipment, face masks and coronavirus tests despite its owner being wanted in Taiwan on suspicion of securities fraud.The government awarded Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation multiple purchase orders worth a total of 8.7 billion-pesos (US$173 million) between March 2020 and July 2021.The government continued to buy from Pharmally even after its owner…

Singapore said on Thursday that it would allow special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) to go public on its bourse starting Friday, as the city state hopes to become the go-to market in Asia for what has been one of the hottest fundraising trends globally in the past 18 months.The so-called blank-cheque companies have raised more than US$122 billion this year alone, primarily through listings in the United States. However, they have proven to be popular with Asian sponsors and target…

The construction industry faces many challenges related to Covid-19, and if it doesn’t take a co-operative approach and share risks then it could make the situation even worse.

Around 40 police officers sent to provide security at the Tokyo Paralympics have been sent home for drinking, brawling with members of the public and frequenting a brothel. The detachment from a special Yamanashi Prefectural Police security unit was in the Japanese capital to support local police at venues and to control traffic during the Games. The unit’s internal regulations stated that the men were not permitted to drink alcohol at their accommodation in Tokyo, but a number of the…

Singapore’s High Court on Wednesday awarded Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong a total of S$370,000 (US$275,000) in damages, after he won two separate defamation lawsuits against the chief editor and a writer from news website The Online Citizen.The lawsuits stemmed from an article published by the site in August 2019 about the home of his late father Lee Kuan Yew at 38 Oxley Road, that included references to a disagreement within the Lee family about what to do with the property.In a 60-page…

Singapore and the US have agreed to build a partnership and work on climate change, environmental governance, sustainable development and low carbon solutions.

Japan’s defence ministry is seeking an annual budget increase that will add to past years’ hikes to expand military spending over a decade by almost one-sixth, as it looks to counter the growing strength of neighbouring China.Since last year, Japan has identified China as its main national security threat, pointing in a July policy paper to a “sense of crisis” over Beijing’s threat to Taiwan, which lies close to Japanese islands along the edge of the East China Sea.The ministry’s budget…

Singapore’s count of daily coronavirus cases remained above 100 for the seventh consecutive day amid a surge in clusters at bus depots, testing its resolve to use one of the world’s best vaccination rates to continue reopening the economy.The city state reported 147 new cases of locally transmitted Covid-19 infections on Monday, according to data released by the Health Ministry. That level, about 26 cases per million people, is high for Singapore though well below levels seen in neighbours such…

Temporary adjustments to the process for checking individual rights to work in the UK will now end on 5 April 2022, the Home Office has announced.

Two Malaysians and an Indonesian linked to deadly bombings in Bali nearly two decades ago are expected to get their first day in court on Monday at the United States Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Indonesian Encep Nurjaman, also known as Riduan Isamuddin and better known by his nom de guerre Hambali, and Malaysians Mohammed Nazir bin Lep, 45, and Mohammed Farik bin Amin, 46, were to be arraigned on Monday before a military commission on charges that include murder, conspiracy and…