Finance and Economy
When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visits Beijing in October to mark the 40th anniversary of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the two countries, it appeared that Japan and China have put aside territorial disputes in the East China Sea as part of a new effort to improve ties. But all those efforts are about to […]
... written on Dec 12 2018PTPTN – National Higher Education Fund Corporation – is supposed to be a noble plan to extend loans to help students pursuing tertiary education in Malaysia. It was formed in 1997 during the Mahathir 1.0 era. Now that Mahathir 2.0 has returned as the prime minister for the second time, the PTPTN has become a […]
... written on Dec 07 2018Canadian authorities have arrested Huawei’s CFO (chief financial officer), Sabrina Meng Wanzhou, in Vancouver while she was transferring flights in the country. Sabrina, a leading contender to succeed her father, Huawei’s founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested on Dec 1 as she is facing extradition to the United States – according to the Canadian Department of […]
... written on Dec 06 2018Singapore shot to first place last year (2017) when Paraguay decided to remove visa requirements for those carrying Singapore’s passports. Armed with 159 countries that Singaporeans can visit “visa-free” or visa-on-arrival, the tiny nation located in the Southeast Asia became the first Asian nation to head the rankings as the most powerful passport in the […]
... written on Dec 05 2018Qatar’s Energy Minister Saad al-Kaabi dropped a bombshell on Monday (Dec 3) – Doha would leave OPEC on January 1, 2019. Clearly, it was a big news, considering that the small kingdom has been an official OPEC member since 1961. The timing of the announcement was suspicious – just days before OPEC and its allies are scheduled […]
... written on Dec 04 2018Wan Muhammad Azri Wan Deris, known as blogger “Papagomo”, has recently insulted ethnic Indians as “squatters” and urged for ethnic minorities to be stripped of voting rights. The notorious blogger, also the UMNO Youth Exco (Executive Council), was detained on Thursday (Nov 29) but released on Saturday (Dec 1) – before re-arrested again. However, […]
... written on Dec 04 2018Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) futures skyrocketed 463 points after the world’s two biggest economies – United States and China – agreed to a ceasefire on their bilateral trade war at the G-20 summit in Argentina. Stocks in Asia, as do commodities like oil and copper, also jumped higher on hopes a possible new China-U.S. […]
... written on Dec 03 2018The U.S. Senate took a dramatic step on Thursday, moving to block U.S. involvement in the Saudi war in Yemen and sending a powerful message to Riyadh – the US-Saudi relationship is on the rocks. For Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, life goes on as usual as he can’t bring the dead back to life, […]
... written on Dec 02 2018What do these 21 states – Texas, Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia – have in common? They have joined the US$1.99 club – where at least 1 station sells fuel at less than two bucks a […]
... written on Nov 30 2018When Beijing mouthpiece People’s Daily released a list of people that the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) plans to award, it raises billions of eyebrows. There were names like Yao Ming, a retired professional basketball player, and Lang Ping, a former Chinese volleyball player and the current head coach of China […]
... written on Nov 28 2018
