Asian time difference

- A + A (Aug 4): Shortly after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi landed in Taiwan for her provocative visit on Tuesday night, the Xinhua News Agency announced that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) would conduct a series of live fire military drills from Thursday to Saturday in six different areas that encircle the island from all directions. Some people have been questioning why the PLA decided to kick off the drills two days after her arrival. A military expert explained that the arrangement shows the PLA's rational and responsible attitude as it leaves time for domestic and foreign civilian ships and airlines to evacuate their ships and adjust their flights. Zhang Junshe, a senior research fellow at the Naval Research Academy of the People's Liberation Army, told the Global Times on Wednesday that the drills include long-range live-fire shooting and conventional missile test launches. Per international conventions, areas of military drills have to be … [Read more...] about Global Times: PLA to start live fire drills 2 days after Pelosi’s visit, leaves time for ship evacuations, airline adjustments

Maroon 5 American pop-rock band Maroon 5 is set to hold its sixth concert in Manila on Dec. 8 at SM Mall of Asia Arena. Mounted by Live Nation Philippines, the upcoming show is part of the Grammy-winning group’s 12th world series “2022 Tour” (also previously known as “2020” and “2021”). The Philippines is one of five countries included in the recently announced Asian leg, which will conclude the tour. “We look forward to seeing you at the end of the year!” the band said in an Instagram post. General public ticket-selling goes on sale on Aug. 6 at 10 a.m. via the SM Tickets website and outlets; call 8470-2222. Meanwhile, members of Live Nation Philippines will have a chance to purchase tickets earlier through an exclusive online window on Aug. 5 at 10 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. at www.livenation.ph. The tour—which kicked off in Mexico City on Feb. 2020, in support of Maroon 5’s seventh album, “Jordi”—was postponed the following month because of the COVID-19 pandemic, before … [Read more...] about Maroon 5 set to rock PH fans for 6th time in December

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin For MedTrans Go CEO and Co-Founder Dana Weeks, equity, inclusion, and belonging have always been driving forces, but she also thought heath equity could mean better business. Frustrated by a healthcare industry hurting patients and businesses alike, she saw an opportunity and got to work. “The reason I love my job so much is because I can have positive impact on people, while contributing to solutions to healthcare industry problems, and simultaneously growing a successful business.” —Dana Weeks, CEO and Co-Founder, MedTrans Go Jessica Pliska: I often start these columns asking executives about their early life influences that persist today. What can you tell me about yours? Dana Weeks: My story starts when I was an orphan in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. I was adopted by an American family when I was one-and-a-half years old. I don’t know the full story because some of the paperwork about me … [Read more...] about Building Healthcare Equity, One Ride At A Time

Consumers shop at a Walmart supermarket in Nanjing, Jiangsu province. PHOTO/China Daily Much has been written about the pandemic’s impact on Asian consumers: how they embraced new ways of shopping, as well as how retailers and consumer goods companies were forced to quickly adapt their business models. Now, the focus has shifted to whether many of these patterns and preferences will endure once the pandemic abates, and whether today’s geopolitical and macroeconomic instability will slow a full spending recovery. The current phase is accompanied by no small amount of uncertainty and potential disruption. Recent infection spikes serve as a reminder that the world is not yet in the clear. Macroeconomic factors such as rising inflation and an economic slowdown, and geopolitical disruptions such as the war in Ukraine—which has resulted in a massive humanitarian and refugee crisis; soaring prices for essentials; a rotating energy policy; threatened food security; an intensifying … [Read more...] about What makes Asian consumers tick?

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin American Dreamers is a series of conversations with leading Asian American entrepreneurs and business leaders in which they open up about everything from their startup stories and company building to confronting racism and making it in America. Andy Fang is one of the co-founders of DoorDash, everyone’s favorite food delivery app. Andy and his co-founders, Tony Xu and Stanley Tang, started the company in 2013 while they were students at Stanford. Eight years later, DoorDash is the largest local logistics company in the U.S., servicing hundreds of thousands of merchants and tens of millions of consumers, with over $3 billion in revenues in 2021. DoorDash went public in 2020, making Andy, who’s not yet 30, a billionaire. Not bad for his first job out of college! In these edited excerpts from my conversation with Andy, he tells me about his upbringing, how he and his co-founders started DoorDash, good and bad surprises … [Read more...] about American Dreamers: Andy Fang, Co-Founder Of DoorDash, On How A Class Project Turned Into A Massive Food-Delivery Service In America

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin The dragon craze is about to reach new levels. Yes, we might be in the year of the tiger, according to the Chinese zodiac, but the dragon symbol has returned to mainstream fashion, too, thanks to pop culture. The new HBO Max original show House of the Dragon —expected August 21—is already selling a ton of merch, most recently at the Comic-Con in San Diego. Just this weekend, the stars of the show spoke on a panel about shooting scenes on a mechanical buck that will represent the dragons. And as part of this Game of Thrones prequel series prelaunch , they’re selling limited-edition dragon bomber jackets in a capsule collection on the WB Shop , as well as jersey shirts, tees and more. The limited-edition bomber jacket has a series of dragons on the back, and inside the jacket, as well as the show’s logo and the quote: “Dreams didn’t make us kings, dragons did.” The show is also offering a free AR … [Read more...] about How The Dragon Symbol Returned To Fashion

Representational image The dollar is strong and getting stronger, hitting 20-year highs relative to a basket of other currencies. As my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Tyler Cowen recently noted , this is a vote of confidence in the US. But history demonstrates that it’s also likely to be a harbinger of hard times for much of the rest of the world. When the dollar appreciates, the cost of servicing debt in other countries, particularly emerging markets, can easily become unsustainable because their debts aren't denominated in their own currencies; instead, they owe in dollars, or in earlier eras, gold or pounds sterling. As those instruments gain in value, crisis and collapse often follow for the debtors, and have for a century-and-a-half. Economists Barry Eichengreen, Ricardo Hausmann, and Ugo Panizza have dubbed this problem “original sin”. In a series of now-famous articles, they showed how the dependency on foreign-currency borrowing — and dollar-denominated debt … [Read more...] about A strong US dollar always clobbers developing nations

Many of us likely forgot one of the most striking things about the last great college sports scandal - not the illegal early recruiting stings, not the under-the-table payments to incoming athletes and their parents, and not even the many perverts caught in the locker and training rooms. It was a revelation from the Varsity Blues scandal, where fancy, famous, and affluent parents bribed coaches and other admissions officers and used fake resumes to get their mediocre offspring admitted to prestigious colleges through the locker room door by claiming that they were serious jocks. As the stories slowly unfolded, what became apparent is that some of the kids involved didn’t even want to go to college. In each case, the main driving force was a clever con artist named Rick Singer , who combined his mastery of the college admissions process with his ability to manipulate and stroke the pathetic parents’ egos, their competitive social concerns, and their desperate need for bragging … [Read more...] about Why Your Kid Isn’t Going to Princeton and a Bunch of Other Top Schools

This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly, on July 25, 2022 - July 31, 2022. - A + A A rising interest rate environment is always perceived as bad news for everyone (except for interest-earning banks, of course) amid concerns about higher borrowing costs. Case in point: the overnight policy rate (OPR) increase of just 50 basis points (bps) this year has reportedly kept over-leveraged Malaysian households awake at night, as everything from monthly mortgages to personal loan payments are creeping up. This, coupled with accelerating inflation and a weak ringgit at a time when some business and economic activities are still below pre-pandemic levels, has weighed on sentiment. The corporate sector is highly leveraged, too. Where the latest (end-2021) household debt-to-GDP figure moderated at 89%, corporate debt-to-GDP went from 99.1%, or RM1.5 trillion, in June 2019 to 108.1% in June 2020 and further to 109.8% in December 2020. How will the … [Read more...] about Cover Story: Debt crunch unlikely

- A + A Shankar Kanabiran, Malaysia financial services consulting leader and partner of Ernst and Young Consulting. KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 4): Digital banking offers its users a wide range of value propositions. The commonly listed benefits are the speed of operations, convenience, and transparency and support. These value propositions apply to both developed and developing countries with the focus on promoting financial inclusion and benefiting end-users. “If value propositions are not tailored to customers whether in a developed or developing country, you are not going to see success. We see [that] digital banking, in both developed and developing countries, is enabling access to credit,” says Shankar Kanabiran, Malaysia financial services consulting leader and partner of Ernst and Young Consulting. “Small and medium enterprises, which are sometimes left out by conventional banks because of stringent credit assessment and policies, are able to gain access to … [Read more...] about Inclusivity in the new era of banking