Asia

Asia's oldest bourse gets battle-ready under new chief

A surprise cut in oil production from OPEC+ is now setting the stage for other producers to vie for markets in Asia

If Washington is keen on a secure future at home and in Asia, it must treat India's G20 presidency as a wake-up call, writes Georgia Leatherdale-Gilholy in The National Interest.India is the world's largest democracy, and although its strain of nationalism may be at odds with many Western sensibilities, the foundations for a mutually beneficial relationship are far more plentiful than with China, the state the West has tiptoed into trade reliance on for decades.The G20 includes several Asian countries, and India's presidency will of course provide a platform for regional cooperation and collaboration with US-aligned states such as Japan and South Korea, said Gilholy.But while there is constant establishment fanfare over established alliances in East Asia, the reality is that the opportunity of such states pales in comparison to what India can offer going forward. It is time the United States looked toward better building new bridges than simply preserving old ones.With its recently ...

While bank shares in Asia and the US are trading at almost similar accounting book value-based valuations, the former is expected to boost earnings by 29% over the next 12 months

The World Health Organisation has fired its top official in the Western Pacific after the Associated Press reported last year that dozens of staff members accused him of racist, abusive and unethical behaviour that may have compromised the U.N. health agency's response to the coronavirus pandemic. In an email sent to employees on Wednesday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Dr. Takeshi Kasai's appointment had been terminated after an internal investigation resulted in findings of misconduct. Tedros did not refer to Kasai by name, referencing only his title as regional director in the Western Pacific. It is the first time in WHO's history that a regional director has been dismissed. This has been an unprecedented and challenging journey for all of us, Tedros wrote. He said that the process of naming a new regional director for the Western Pacific would begin next month, with the election to be held in October. The Japanese government, which supported Kasai's ...

The World Health Organization has fired its top official in the Western Pacific after the Associated Press reported last year that dozens of staff members accused him of racist, abusive and unethical behaviour that may have compromised the U.N. health agency's response to the coronavirus pandemic. In an email sent to employees on Wednesday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Dr. Takeshi Kasai's appointment had been terminated after an internal investigation found findings of misconduct. It is the first time in WHO's history that a regional director has been dismissed. This has been an unprecedented and challenging journey for all of us, Tedros wrote. He said that the process of electing a new regional director for the Western Pacific would begin next month. A summary of an internal WHO investigation presented at a meeting of the agency's executive board this week in Geneva found Kasai regularly harassed workers in Asia, including engaging in aggressive communicati

Women remain heavily under-represented at the top echelons in high-growth private businesses in the region, with only 848 of nearly 15,000 firms across the region led or founded by a woman

Air quality is particularly worrisome in regions such as southern Asia and eastern Asia, where more than 90% of days had PM2.5 concentrations above the 15 microgram threshold

Delhi airport has been adjudged as one of the best airports as well as the cleanest airport in the Asia Pacific region by international grouping ACI. The Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), operated by DIAL, has bagged the award for Airport Service Quality (ASQ) best airport for 2022 in the category of over 40 Million Passengers Per Annum (MPPA). It has also been named as the cleanest airport in the Asia Pacific region by the Airports Council International (ACI). ACI is a non-profit organisation of airport operators. Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) is a GMR Airports Infrastructure Ltd-consortium. "The ASQ programme is the world's leading airport customer experience measurement and benchmarking programme. This recognition is based on live research via surveys gathered at the airport direct from the traveller rating their satisfaction on the day of travel," DIAL said in a release on Monday. In a separate release, Airports Authority of India (AAI) said Tiruchirappalli

All central banks assert they move independently from the Fed. In practice, they tend to replicate broad trends in American credit

IMF added that the central banks across Asia need to stay 'alert' as the core inflation is still high, and the re-opening of China's economy may push inflation up due to higher demand

The USA holds the most power in Asia, followed by China and Japan

After China driving the initial demand growth, it is going to be India which will take the leading role in crude requirement, along with other Asian and African countries, as per an OPEC report

Southeast Asian foreign ministers are meeting in Indonesia's capital Friday for talks bound to be dominated by the deteriorating situation in Myanmar despite an agenda focused on food and energy security and cooperation in finance and health. Myanmar belongs to the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, but the annual ministers' retreat is being held in Jakarta without Myanmar's Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin. The absence was forced by the fallout over Myanmar's lack of cooperation in implementing a five-step agreement made in 2021 between ASEAN leaders and Myanmar's military leader, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. In the agreement, Myanmar's military leaders promised to allow a special ASEAN envoy to meet the ousted and jailed leader Aung San Suu Kyi and others to foster dialogue aimed at easing the crisis. Last year, when ASEAN was chaired by Cambodia, Min Aung Hlaing was not invited to the November meeting of ASEAN leaders in Phnom Penh after Myanmar declined to let a

Gautam Adani, the school drop-out turned billionaire who rose to become Asia's richest man, faces possibly the biggest challenge of his career after a US short seller cast doubts on his business

Just a handful of Chinese visitors were posing for photos and basking in the sun this week in the market and plazas near Chiang Mai's ancient Tha Phae Gate, one of many tourist hotspots still waiting for millions of Chinese travellers to return. The beaches and temples of destinations like Bali and Chiang Mai are the busiest they have been since the pandemic struck three years ago, but they're still relatively quiet. Still, Chanatip Pansomboon, a soft drinks seller in the Chinatown district of Chiang Mai, a scenic riverside city in northern Thailand, was upbeat. He trusts that with the number of flights from China steadily increasing, it's only a matter of time. If a lot of them can return, it will be great as they have buying power, Chanatip said. The expected resumption of group tours from China is likely to bring far more visitors. For now, it's only individual travellers who can afford to pay, with flights costing more than triple what they normally do, who are venturing ...

Growing numbers of people in Asia lack enough to eat as food insecurity rises with higher prices and worsening poverty, according to a report released Tuesday by the Food and Agricultural Organisation and other United Nations agencies. Nearly a half-billion people, more than eight in 10 of them in South Asia, were undernourished in 2021 and more than 1 billion faced moderate to severe food insecurity, the report said. For the world, the prevalence of food insecurity rose to more than 29 per cent in 2021 from 21 per cent in 2014. The COVID-19 pandemic was a huge setback, causing mass job losses and disruptions, and the war in Ukraine has pushed up prices for food, energy and fertiliser, putting an adequate diet out of the reach of many millions, it said. The report is the fifth annual stocktaking on food insecurity and hunger by UN agencies including the FAO, UNICEF, World Health Organisation and World Food Programme. Over those years, progress toward alleviating hunger and ...

India's Housing Development Finance Corp (HDFC) will return to bond market after a gap of two months, three merchant bankers said on Friday

Asia might not reach its full growth potential, argue the authors of The Connections World, thanks to the nexus between the state and selected private business enterprises in the continent

The problems with 'Connections World' model & the configuration of economic and political power that it has enabled are mounting