Singapore: A company director charged with cheating on Tuesday ( Jan 7 ) was charged in court with the operation’s AI trading investment schemes. Ong Kai Min, 42 was the chairman of Singapore Index Trading Institute, Bookhero, OKM Holdings and C7 Merchants Vanuatu Limited,  , the police said in aContinue Reading
PUBLISHED: 7 Jan 2025 at 12: 00
A Bengal cat has been spotted in Kui Buri National Park for the first time in a long time.
On December 7, a cameras capture located close to the museum’s warrior system in the area of Khao Khan Hok and Khao Sam Chan caught it in the area of Khao Khan Hok and Khao Sam Chan.
The next time this excellent predator was seen in the playground was about ten years ago, according to the park’s personal Facebook page.
Atthapong Pao-on, garden manager, claimed the tiger sighting was the result of meticulous planning by all teams that placed wildlife cameras traps to track and determine the town’s health.
The return of the cat was a result of the presence of the Kui Buri forest, which was considerably aided by the tireless work of the park soldiers who patrolled  to stop forest invasion and other actions that threaten the atmosphere, according to Mr. Atthapon.
” Bengal tigers are not only powerful animals, but they are also the sign of the presence of nature”, he said.
SINGAPORE: There were 129 cases of murder, attempted murder, robbery, rioting and serious hurt involving knives from January to November 2024- and the figure is” comparable” to the number of cases in the past three years, Minister of State for Home Affairs Sun Xueling said on Tuesday ( Jan 7Continue Reading
After a significant disaster struck China’s rocky Tibet place on Tuesday night, according to Chinese state media, at least 32 people have been confirmed dead and 38 have been injured.
The earthquake that hit Tibet’s holy Shigatse city around 09: 00 local time ( 01: 00 GMT ) had a magnitude of 7.1 and a depth of 10 kilometres ( six miles ), according to data from the US Geological Survey, which also showed a series of aftershocks in the area.
In neighboring Nepal and parts of India, earthquakes were likewise felt.
Earthquakes are common in the area, which is situated close to a significant geographical wrong line.
Shigatse is regarded as one of Tibet’s most holy locations. The Panchen Lama, a significant figure in Tibetan Buddhism, whose moral authority is next only to the Dalai Lama, is buried here.
Chinese state media reported the earthquake as having a slightly lesser magnitude of 6.8, causing “obvious” tremors and leading to the damage of over 1,000 houses.
There have been several powerful waves and collapsing buildings are visible in social media posts.
” After a major disaster, there is always a gradual absorption procedure”, Jiang Haikun, a scientist at the China Earthquake Networks Center, told CCTV.
Although a further disaster of about scale 5 may also occur, Jiang asserted that” the likelihood of a larger earthquake is low.”
The damaged region, which is located at the foot of Mount Everest and is characterized by its low temperatures, has been evacuated by the Chinese air pressure.
Both the area’s power and water have been disconnected.
While tremors were felt in Nepal, no injury or fatalities were reported, a native national in Nepal’s Namche area, near Mountain, told AFP.
Tibet’s quake commission informed the BBC on Tuesday that they were still obtaining estimates for casualties because they were unable to provide quotes.
The place, which lies on a major problem line where the Indian and Asian tectonic plates collided, is home to numerous seismic activity. In 2015, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake near Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, killed almost 9, 000 people and injured over 20, 000.
As 2025 begins, some central banks classmates envy the tug of war facing Women’s Bank of China Governor Pan , Gongsheng.
Forex traders are pulling one area, predicting that Beijing will react to Donald Trump’s upcoming industry war with a weaker yuan. Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has previously opposed creating a lower transfer charge, is on the other side.
By setting the yuan’s regular reference rate even higher than the psychologically significant 7,2 per dollar level, Pan’s team once more signaled its support for a stable yuan this week. The yuan’s decline, which came after it was 7.3 % per dollar, caused it to decline.
Although the yuan is trading at its lowest level in 17 years, Beijing’s upward pressure on trade costs extends far beyond that region. Most major Asian region currencies fell on Monday ( 6 January ), as the US dollar traded at two-year highs.
” Trump’s business plan ideas are driving renewed anticipation of a stronger-for-longer US money”, writes BMI, a Fitch Solutions business, in a statement. ” This has the ability to deliver prices lower” in China.
Along with” Trump business” relationships strengthening the money, investors are responding to ideas from the US Federal Reserve that price reductions may be infrequent in 2025.
For one thing, US prices isn’t receding when fast as hoped. For one thing, the American labour market continues to have unmatched vigor yet as international repercussions increase.
Nothing is greater than the potent Chinese demand suffocating collapsing property markets. Depreciation is being caused by the resulting decline in confidence and retail sales.
” With deflationary pressures mounting despite expectations for more aggressive policy easing, the Chinese 10-year yield has dropped below 1.6 %, signaling a flight to safety”, says Carlos , Casanova, economist at Union Bancaire Privée.
This situation, Casanova adds,” could be similar to Japan’s experience in the early 1990s, with the potential for a considerable carry trade involving borrowing in renminbi to invest in higher-yielding U.S. assets,” which has significant implications for US risk assets, specially if policymakers permit the yuan to diminish in 2025.
The good news is that new statistics indicate that China is regaining some ground. Private business activity in the services sector reached a seven-month deep in December. The Caixin companies buying professionals ‘ index from S&, P Global rose to 52.2 from 51.5 in November.
However, challenges are intensifying, says Wang Zhe at Caixin Insight Group. The “external atmosphere”, the scholar warns, is poised to be “more difficult” in 2025, requiring “early” policy approaches and” sharp responses”.
Beijing officials met on Monday to comfort jittery investors selling Shanghai and Shenzhen stock. Leaders at both markets stressed that” solid fundamentals and resilience” support China’s US$ 17 trillion market. They likewise said they’re positively working” to solicit ideas and ideas” from international organizations.
Part of this effort, Casanova observes, is for many big cities to offer usage tickets. Coastal cities like Shanghai are focusing on companies such as dining and entertainment, while inland towns in Hubei and Sichuan are targeting industries like furniture, cars, and technology.
It’s tempting to observe Beijing show “greater determination to implement more measures”, he says.
One of them is the PBOC’s decision to increase funding for creativity. The plan, as the central banks puts it, is to devise ways to promote “high-quality international cash” to invest in China’s battered technology sector.
Above all, though, Pan’s team is pledging to keep the currency stable. According to the pro-PBOC publication Financial News, China’s central bank will “resolutely guard against the risk of exchange rate overshooting and maintain the fundamental stability” of the yuan.
It notes that past “experience of multiple rounds of appreciation and depreciation” proved , Pan has” sufficient” tools to keep the exchange rate “basically stable”.
Only time will tell. The yuan’s declines are frequently closely related to the yuan’s decline in China’s stock markets.
Since the beginning of December, Gavekal Research’s economist Louis Gave has noted that the US and China benchmark financing costs have increased by about 80 basis points.
This reinforces the market narrative of a remarkable — and likely inflationary — US economy that is about to enter a new growth phase, while China is scurrying over the threshold of a deflationary lost decade, according to Gave. The phrase “message from equity markets, with Chinese stocks having a funk the entire year” is what follows.
However, according to Gave, a “broader look at asset markets in China and the US tells a different story, as Chinese equities outperformed the seemingly all-conquering US stock market in 2024.” Heading into 2025, Gave notes that despite China’s challenges, underlying fundamentals may favor the valuations of Chinese equities.
That’s partly due to the PBOC’s increased commitment to stabilizing Asia’s largest economy.
As of now, says Mohamed , El-Erian, chief advisor at Allianz, the “implosion” of yields on Chinese government bonds is fueling “what could become self-fulfilling worries about the Japanification of the economy”. This “yield phenomenon has intensified” in recent days, he adds.
Fred Neumann, chief Asia economist at HSBC, notes that” after many fits and starts over the past year, greater evidence is needed that China’s economy is responding to stabilization measures“.
There are indications that more powerful action is in order. The annual Central Economic Work Conference last month gave stock and property markets a higher priority than it did last month.
Analysts at Goldman Sachs speculate that policymakers ‘ “pain threshold” regarding growth and asset prices may have been reached. However, policy implementation is required to increase equity in 2025.
There’s not a moment to waste, says Homin Lee, senior macro strategist at Lombard Odier. Lee notes that” the underlying momentum for China continues to be quite fragile,” and that it will take some efforts from the authorities to change the conversation about the country’s deflationary dangers in the medium term.
Of course, there’s ample reason to worry that the dollar’s best days are behind it as investors home in on Washington’s$ 36 trillion debt load. Meanwhile, Team Trump has made hints about plans to slack the dollar in order to gain a competitive advantage over China and the rest of Asia. Trump also has threatened to reduce the Fed’s autonomy, giving his White House a direct say in US rate decisions.
Even so, many economists believe a dollar reversal might take longer than the bears would like.
According to Kit Juckes, chief FX strategist at Societe Generale,” the dollar may be vulnerable, but only if the US data confounds market expectations that the Fed doesn’t cut rates more than once in the first half of this year, and not by more than 50 basis points throughout 2025 .”
Although” there’s a good chance of that happening,” Juckes asserts, “it seems very unlikely that cracks in US growth will appear early in the year; hence my preference is to take any bearish dollar thoughts with me into hibernation until the weather improves.”
The PBOC is a source of contention in part. There are a number of reasons why neither Pan nor Xi want to see the yuan decline sharply.
For one, a weaker yuan would make it more difficult for highly indebted individuals, such as property developers, to pay off their offshore debt, increasing the risk of default in Asia’s largest economy. Seeing# ChinaEvergrande or# ChinaVanke , trending again in cyberspace is the last thing Xi’s Communist Party wants.
For one thing, the monetary easing needed to keep the yuan’s declines could stymie Xi’s deleveraging efforts over the past five years. Beijing has made significant strides in lowering China’s financial woes and raising the national’s gross domestic product’s quality.
As a result, Xi and Premier Li Qiang have been reluctant to let the PBOC slash rates more assertively, even as deflation clouds China’s outlook.
The most significant reform accomplishment of Xi may be increasing the yuan’s use in finance and trade. In 2016, China won a place for the yuan in the International Monetary Fund’s” special drawing rights” basket joining the dollar, yen, euro and pound.
Since then, the currency’s use in trade and finance has soared. Excessive easing now might dent trust in the yuan, slowing its progression to reserve-currency status.
A weaker yuan could also lead to a wider Asian currency war that is not everyone’s best interest. Tokyo might be all-in on a much weaker yen, entice South Korea into the fray.
Memories of 2015 are clearly entering into Beijing’s equation. China’s decision to devalue the yuan by nearly 3 % a decade ago led to a destabilizing capital flight that still bothers Communist Party leaders. Over the next year, Xi’s team had to draw down Beijing’s foreign exchange reserves by$ 1 trillion to restore calm.
For now, the” PBOC is signaling that it wants a stable RMB, probably dashing the hopes of those betting that RMB will continue to devalue meaningfully against the US dollar”, says longtime China watcher , Bill , Bishop, who writes the Sinocism newsletter.  ,
Robin Brooks, economist at the Brookings Institution, says that “medium-term, this does raise the risk of capital flight out of China, especially if the US imposes tariffs”. Generally speaking, Brooks believes, a falling yuan won’t necessarily shake up the global economy because” the yuan is heavily manipulated and isn’t moving”.
Still, risks abound. China could become a more contentious issue in US politics as a scheinbar anti-China administration ascends to power.
They include hardliners like Peter Navarro, co-author of a book titled” Death by China”, as top trade adviser. Marco Rubio, criticized by China as Trump’s secretary of state, is also in the same boat. or adding Jamieson Greer and Robert Lighthizer to Trump’s team of trade negotators.
There’s hope that Trump’s pick for Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, can ensure that cooler heads prevail. Bessent, it’s believed, would represent the camp in Trump World making sure Trump’s tariff talk is merely a negotiating tactic to achieve a giant trade deal with Beijing.
Either way, Team Xi might want to avoid drawing Trump’s ire. These [risks ], in our opinion, indicate that the PBOC would like to control the rate of yuan depreciation against the dollar and prevent a sharp depreciation prior to the US tariff announcement, according to Goldman’s economists.
Only Pan and Xi know for sure, though. Asia’s markets will be glued to Beijing’s yuan policy for the entire year as it addresses both domestic and global risks in 2025.
Follow William Pesek on X at @WilliamPesek
Singapore Post domestic postal services were unaffected by the recent events that led to the firing of three top executives  in December, according to the government on Tuesday ( Jan 7 ).
In response to parliamentary inquiries, Tan Kiat How, Senior Minister of State for Digital Development and Information, said on Tuesday ( Jan 7 ) that the Infocomm Media Development Authority ( IMDA ) has determined that the incident was limited to international transshipment parcel delivery and did not have an impact on regulated domestic postal services.
” This is a matter of corporate governance, which the SingPost board is dealing with”, he said.
For allegedly falsifying e-commerce package data, SingPost fired its party chief executive officer Vincent Phang, team chief financial officer Vincent Yik, and mind of its international company unit Li Yu in December.
The three previous managers have stated that they will battle their dismissals.
Mr Tan said , SingPost’s committee has assured the state that post service businesses are not affected.  ,
” However, IMDA will continue to keep a close view to preserve the government’s interests”, he said.
” As the community post owner, we expect SingPost to meet its responsibilities for its governed postal companies. These include making sure that local notice delivery adheres to IMDA’s quality-of-service standards.
PUBLISHED: 7 Jan 2025 at 11: 19
The government’s worst air pollutants was detected in Bangkok on Tuesday night, with fine sand formation at “red” hazardous-to-health amounts in the funds and opposite provinces.
At 10 a.m., the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency ( Gistda ) discovered that particulate matter 2.5 micrometers and less in diameter ( PM2.5 ) was recorded at 88.6 microgrammes per cubic meter of air over the course of 24 hours in Bangkok.
The government-set secure level is 37.5µg/m³.
PM2.5 was at dark degrees in all 50 regions of the money. The worst,  , 96.7µg/m³, was in Bang Kho Laem city.
The opposite counties of Nonthaburi, Samut Prakan, Samut Sakhon and Pathum Thani also faced dark ranges of PM2.5- at 83.6, 80.9, 79.5 and 79.1µg/m ³ both.
Sixteen other regions were rated with healthy amounts of PM2.5, ranging from 24 to 37.3µg/m³. The state of Krabi, in the south, had the lowest rate.
The 15 different regions, mostly in the South, where heat was safe to breathe were Chiang Mai, Chumphon, Nan, Narathiwat, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Pattani, Phangnga, Phatthalung, Phayao, Phuket, Ranong, Satun, Songkhla, Trang and Yala.
Other regions were shrouded with peach ranges of PM2.5 ranging from 37.7 to 74.8µg/m³, a degree which starts to affect health.
The Singapore Medical Council ( SMC) will be contacted by the Ministry of Health ( MOH) in October to report 41 doctors who conducted teleconsultations for MaNaDr Clinic for potential professional misconduct because they had possibly violated one or more of the ethical standards set out by the council.
Dr Puthucheary said SMC’s assessment is already underway.
Speaking in Parliament, he said MOH received a total of 59 issues regarding healthcare last month, involving more than 20 licencees.
In response to a question from Mr. Sharael Taha ( PAP-Pasir Ris-Punggol ) regarding how authorities can stop telehealth abuse, Dr. Puthucheary stated that whether a clinical provider is being defrauded in order to obtain a medical certificate (MC) is not a telemedicine issue.
There are a variety of things we look at, including the metrics in terms of the numbers, the type of individual combination, and the justifications for the health certificate or any other medical treatment, because this type of inappropriate use can result in person as well.
” Unfortunately, has a proper assessment been provided? And is the treatment acceptable to the health condition that has been identified and properly documented, whether it is medication, investigation, or health certificate?
He reiterated the” great benefits” that telemedicine can bring to people, particularly those who are motionless, or doing normal follow-ups, adding that it makes care much more accessible and convenient to people.
” However, as in any new service delivery model, there will be potential for abuse and misuse, especially in the initial period of implementation, “he said.  ,
” MOH will take the necessary enforcement actions, so that over time, best practices become normalised.”
The general public should still contact MOH about the availability of telemedicine through the ministry’s website’s public feedback channels, he advised.  ,
According to the new Bill, the application of a racial content Restraining Order ( RO ) begins with the Minister for Home Affairs’s decision to impose one against a person or entity” for conduct that causes feelings of enmity, hatred, ill will, or hostility between different races in Singapore,” according to MHA.
It will list the specific actions that the individual is prohibited from engaging in and the RO’s maximum period of two decades.
They might be prohibited from delivering a particular market on a particular subject, or from disseminating or disseminating particular information or material.
The RO might even need them to “take all reasonable ways” to make sure that any particular information or fabric is no longer accessible to the general public in Singapore, according to MHA.
They could also be prohibited from publishing, processing, assisting or contributing to a specified publication, or holding company in its editorial table or commission.
” A version of the RO, as well as the basis, facts, and records supporting the RO, is given to the person, at which point it takes immediate impact”, said MHA.
The National Council for Racial and Religious Harmony (PCRRH) receives copies of those records at the same time.
Within 14 days of receiving the order, the RO’s recipient you submit written requests to the PCRRH, and the council had make a recommendation within 44 days of receiving the order regarding whether the RO may be canceled, confirmed, or modified.
The leader receives this suggestion in addition to the Cabinet, which furthermore provides its own guidance to the president regarding the RO.
The leader may operate at his own discretion in making the final decision if the Cabinet and the PCRRH disagree on matters. He must do so within 30 days of receiving the agency’s advice.
The Home Affairs Minister has the authority to grant Rose to specific racial-based organizations in Singapore.
These aim to “pre-empt, stop, or reduce overseas influence that may destroy cultural unity, and provide a threat to public peace and people get in Singapore”, said MHA.
For ROs would forbid a business from accepting donations from a specific international principal or any unidentified donation. They would have to gain or rid of any goods received.
They are also prohibited from forming or maintaining an involvement with a foreign director and from appointing specific folks to their governing body.
A fine of up to S$ 10,000 or an additional two years of imprisonment are the penalties for violating an RO.
PUTRAJAYA: Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong are holding a joint press conference , in Putrajaya on Tuesday ( Jan 7 ) as part of the , 11th Malaysia-Singapore Leaders ‘ Retreat. Following a formal meeting for Mr. Wong’s acceptance earlier in the morning as well asContinue Reading