Category: Asia

Wed 14 August 2019: India’s domestic passenger vehicle sales in July dived at the steepest pace in nearly two decades, an auto industry body said on Tuesday, as a financing crunch deepened a crisis in the country’s autos sector and triggered large-scale job losses. Sales of passenger vehicles to car dealers plunged 30.9% to 200,790 […]

Tue 13 August 2019: An elderly Indian couple set upon by masked burglars armed with machetes chased their attackers off with nothing but ordinary household objects in an epic battle caught on CCTV, earning them much respect from the internet. One sword-wielding masked miscreant creeps up on 72-year-old Shanmugavel as he sits in front of […]

Mon 12 August 2019: Singapore will ban the domestic trade in ivory from September 2021, the government said on Monday, shutting the door to an important end-market for poached elephant ivory. Demand for ivory from Asian countries such as China and Vietnam, where it is turned into jewels and ornaments, has led to a surge […]

Mon 12 August 2019: Nandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was a livewire in Sri Lanka’s military campaign to end a long civil war but faces allegations of human rights violations, was nominated Sunday as the opposition’s candidate for the presidential election to be held later this year. Gotabaya, a brother of former strongman President Mahinda Rajapaksa, was […]

Sun 11 August 2019: India’s opposition Congress party selected past president Sonia Gandhi as its interim leader on Saturday, while it searches for a successor to her son Rahul Gandhi, who quit following a crushing election defeat by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Congress Working Committee (CWC) unanimously decided to appoint Sonia Gandhi as “interim […]

Sat 10 August 2019: While the world focuses on the ongoing trade war between China and the U.S., another spat has been brewing between commodity giant Indonesia and the European Union. Indonesia, the top producer of the world’s most-used vegetable oil, is seeking to raise import tariffs on EU dairy products to 8%-18%, according to Enggartiasto Lukita, the trade […]

A member of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) swings a baton at a Jamaat-e-Islam activist on February 5, 2013, during a day-long strike in Dhaka.  © 2013 Reuters Fri 09 August 2019: A U.N. human rights body called on Bangladeshi authorities on Friday to investigate credible allegations that police and security forces routinely torture detainees […]

Thu 08 August 2019: US firms’ Q1 manufacturing investments more than triple whole of last year’s The United States is set to supplant China as Malaysia’s top source of investment, amid an increasingly bitter trade war between the two superpowers that has reconfigured global supply chains, especially in developing South-east Asia. Malaysia has lost out […]

Wed 07 August 2019: Sri Lanka’s prime minister on Tuesday told a parliamentary committee investigating the Islamic State-inspired Easter Sunday bomb attacks that the country should prepare itself for new types of terrorism. Existing policing, investigative agencies and laws had experience with ethnic Tamil separatists during Sri Lanka’s civil war, but Sri Lanka must now […]

Tue 06 August 2019: Sushma Swaraj, India’s former external affairs minister and a leader of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, died Tuesday at a hospital in New Delhi. She was 67. Swaraj died of a heart attack and was rushed to the emergency ward of All India Institute of Medical Science hospital, the […]