Category: x.straitsTimes

The US Department of Justice has stepped up its probe into Credit Suisse Group and UBS Group over suspected compliance failures that allowed Russian clients to evade sanctions, according to people familiar with the situation. What began as a series of subpoenas sent to a range of banks early this year has developed into a full-scale investigation focusing on Credit…

  BEIJING – In the gloom of China’s economy, one area of business is booming: cosmetics. After enduring nearly three years of mandatory masks and frequent lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic, many Chinese consumers, wary of big-ticket purchases like apartments, are now splurging on lipstick, perfume, moisturisers and other personal care products. But cosmetics companies from France, Japan, South Korea…

NEW YORK – United States federal prosecutors are looking into Tesla performance claims after Reuters reported the electric carmaker exaggerated the potential driving distance of its vehicles, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. Reuters reported in July that Tesla cars often fail to achieve their advertised range estimates and projections reported by the cars’ own equipment, citing experts who…

A European spy agency told the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) it knew of an Ukraine special operations team plan to blow up the Nord Stream gas pipeline three months before explosions damaged the undersea system last year, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

The newspaper cited US intelligence allegedly leaked earlier this year by a low-level US Air National Guard computer technician who had access to large amounts of highly classified materials.

The leaked documents indicated that an unnamed European intelligence body told the US spy agency in June 2022, four months after Russia invaded Ukraine, that Ukraine military divers reporting directly to the country’s military commander-in-chief were planning the attack.

PARIS – French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday described the shooting dead of a 17-year-old by police during a traffic stop near Paris as “inexcusable”, in rare criticism of law enforcement hours after the incident triggered riots. A police officer is being investigated for voluntary homicide for shooting the youth, who prosecutors say failed to comply with an order to…

JEDDAH – Two people were killed when an armed man exchanged fire with Saudi Arabian security authorities near the US consulate building in Jeddah, leading to the deaths of the gunman and a security guard, the US State Department said on Wednesday. No Americans were harmed in the incident, a State Department spokesman said in a statement. “A person in…

EL PASO, Texas – A federal judge on Friday sentenced a white supremacist to 90 consecutive life terms in prison for a 2019 shooting in which he killed 23 people and wounded 22 others at a Texas Walmart while targeting Hispanics, the El Paso Times newspaper reported. The sentencing by US District Judge David Guaderrama in El Paso adheres to…

TEXAS – Mr Daniel Piedra Garcia had been an Uber driver for three weeks when he picked up a rider on June 16 who was headed to the Speaking Rock Casino in El Paso, Texas. It was near the end of his work day, but Piedra had picked up the rider anyway, his family said. As they passed a sign…

COLORADO SPRINGS – A 23-year-old was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty on Monday to killing five people in a 2022 mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Anderson Lee Aldrich pleaded guilty in Colorado state court to five first-degree murder counts and 46 attempted murder counts, part of an…

VIRGINIA – The mother of a 6-year-old Virginia boy who shot and wounded his elementary school teacher was charged on Monday with two US firearms felonies, and her lawyer said she will plead guilty to both offences under a deal with federal prosecutors. Deja Taylor was charged with being a user of illegal drugs in possession of a gun and…

RICHMOND, Virginia – The mother of a 6-year-old Virginia boy who shot and wounded his elementary school teacher pleaded guilty on Monday to federal gun charges in a deal with prosecutors, according to court documents and her lawyer. Deja Taylor, whose son shot teacher Abby Zwerner at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News in January, pleaded guilty in federal court…

HONG KONG – A number of global investors including Warburg Pincus and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board are opting out of Ant Group’s proposed share buyback after the Chinese fintech’s valuation was slashed by more than 70 per cent, according to people familiar with the matter. Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC and Carlyle Group are also among top foreign shareholders…

SINGAPORE – Cryptocurrency firm Blockchain.com has been granted a licence in its South-east Asian headquarters of Singapore that will allow it to expand its services to global institutional and accredited investors. The company was granted a major payment institution licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Aug 1. This comes less than a year after Blockchain.com, a pioneer…

SINGAPORE – The manager of Lendlease Global Commercial Reit (Lendlease Reit) posted a distribution per unit (DPU) of 2.25 cents for the second half of financial year 2023 ended June, down 8 per cent from 2.45 cents in the corresponding period a year earlier. Distributable income rose 21.6 per cent to $52.2 million, from $42.9 million a year earlier, while…

SINGAPORE – DBS Bank has agreed to sell a 77.8 per cent stake in electronic payment services provider AXS to Tower Capital Asia, a private equity firm based in Singapore. The bank will retain a minority stake of 9.9 per cent in AXS, it said on Tuesday. It did not disclose the stake’s sale price. The deal is slated to…

NEW YORK – Standard Chartered is ramping up its bullish Bitcoin prediction, targeting as much as US$120,000 (S$161,000) by the end of 2024 – almost quadruple the current price – as increasingly cash-rich miners reduce their sales of the token. “Increased miner profitability per BTC mined means they can sell less while maintaining cash inflows, reducing net BTC supply and…