
AFP
17931 articles published since 08 Mar 2022
17931 articles published since 08 Mar 2022
The founder of a failed Singapore oil trading company was sentenced Monday to nearly 18 years in jail for cheating banking giant HSBC out of millions of dollars in one of the country's most serious cases of fraud. State prosecutors had sought a 20-year jail term, saying "this is one of the most serious cases of trade financing fraud that has ever been prosecuted in Singapore".
In what claims to be the only woman-run cafe in the capital of Indonesia's most conservative province, owner Qurrata Ayuni says she and her baristas provide an alternative to rowdy, smoke-filled male haunts. "I feel more connection if I ask something with a woman barista," said 21-year-old student Meulu Alina.
Asian markets were mixed Monday following a sell-off on Wall Street as investors scale back their bets on Federal Reserve interest rate cuts owing to worries Donald Trump could reignite inflation. After Trump's victory at the start of the month, markets had already been winding back their expectations for the number of rate cuts the Fed would announce next year.
G20 leaders gather in Brazil on Monday to discuss fighting poverty, boosting climate financing and other multilateral initiatives that could yet be upended by Donald Trump's impending return to the White House. - Taxing billionaires - The summit will open on Monday with Lula, a former steelworker who grew up in poverty, launching a "Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty."
The founder of a failed Singapore oil trading company will be sentenced Monday for cheating banking giant HSBC out of millions of dollars in one of the country's most serious cases of fraud. Prosecutors said he tricked HSBC into disbursing nearly $112 million by telling the bank that his firm had entered into oil sales contracts with two companies.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping said he was seeking to "further enhance" ties with Brazil as he arrived Sunday for a state visit and a G20 summit, state media said.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said Sunday "the devil is always in the details" as she spoke of a budding South America trade deal that France has vowed to block at all costs. But it "won't proceed without political agreement" among the bloc's member states, one official in von der Leyen's entourage told AFP. Von der Leyen was to meet Sunday with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday defended France's resistance to a much-touted trade deal between the European Union and South American countries in talks with his Argentine counterpart Javier Milei in Buenos Aires.
Suffocating under a mountain of debt to China, communist Laos is struggling to tame rampant inflation, with food prices rising so sharply that a growing number of households are resorting to foraging. A growing number of households are so desperate for food that they are now having to forage to supplement their diets, according to a World Bank household survey earlier this year.
AFP
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