Asia Pacific

Just 50 days after signing a deal with the Indian government, Vietnamese automaker VinFast is set to officially start construction on a large electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu. Also Read: Thinking out loud: Are electric vehicles as sustainable as we believe? This $500 million investment is a significant move for VinFast's global expansion. With India's growing EV market, this factory aims to be a regional production center, producing up to 150,000 EVs per year. The factory plans to export EVs to South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. The project is expected to create 3,000 to 3,500...

Indonesia has introduced new incentives to boost sales of local and imported electric vehicles (EVs), aiming to establish itself as Southeast Asia’s primary EV market and manufacturing center. According to a Reuters report, the new regulations, announced on Tuesday, will eliminate luxury tax on EVs for the fiscal year 2024 and import tax until the end of 2025. Additionally, the rules will reduce the value-added tax from 11 percent to just 1 percent for EV buyers this year, extending a tax break that expired last year. These incentives are designed to increase domestic demand for EVs by narrowing the price...

Hong Kong security chief Chris Tang has criticized the London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch for its statement signed by 86 groups warning about the potential negative impact of the forthcoming security legislation on human rights in the city. The upcoming legislation, known as Article 23, aims to criminalize treason, insurrection, theft of state secrets, and other national security offenses. The government argues that it is necessary to close loopholes in the existing 2020 National Security Law. However, Hong Kong Watch and other organizations have expressed concerns that the bill's definitions of these crimes are vague and could lead to...

Two former nuns revealed on Wednesday that a renowned artist priest had forced them to participate in threesomes and watch pornography under the guise of spiritual growth. Slovenian mosaic artist Marko Rupnik, 69, has been accused of sexually and psychologically abusing at least 20 women over nearly three decades at a religious community in Slovenia. "He took me to pornographic theaters in order to help me 'grow spiritually'," said Gloria Branciani, a former member of the community until 1994, during a press conference in Rome. She explained that he claimed she would not spiritually develop unless she met his sexual...

In November, a year after ChatGPT’s release, a relatively unknown Chinese start-up leaped to the top of a leaderboard that judged the abilities of open-source artificial intelligence systems. The Chinese firm, 01.AI, was only eight months old but had deep-pocketed backers and a $1 billion valuation and was founded by a well-known investor and technologist, Kai-Fu Lee. In interviews, Mr. Lee presented his A.I. system as an alternative to options like Meta’s generative A.I. model, called LLaMA. There was just one twist: Some of the technology in 01.AI’s system came from LLaMA. Mr. Lee’s start-up then built on Meta’s technology,...

A provincial court in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's constituency has allowed a makeshift Hindu temple to come up in the cellar of a 17th-century mosque that is fast becoming the face of a new dispute between Hindus and Muslims, as the Babri Masjid did in Ayodhya some 35 years ago, finally giving way to a grand temple to the Hindu god … Read more Source link

Asian Scientist Magazine (Feb. 22, 2023) — A recent study has revealed that climate change in the South China Sea and its surrounding areas could have significant impacts on both local and global climate patterns. The South China Sea is a body of water bordered by Brunei, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam in Southeast Asia. The South China Sea and its surrounding areas (SCSSA), which encompass the Indo-Pacific Oceans, Southeast Asia, and the Tibetan Plateau, are crucial components of the global climate system. The interactions between the ocean, land, and atmosphere in this region make it highly vulnerable...

Among social media platforms, WhatsApp rarely attracts the same amount of advertising buzz as the likes of TikTok and Instagram. Likely because its end-to-end data encryption and primary function as a chat service rather than a content platform makes reaching audiences more difficult for marketers. However, on the eve of its 15th Birthday, the service remains very popular among consumers and attracts high levels of engagement from its users. In fact, according to data from customer engagement platform Twilio, WhatsApp is a top choice for personal interactions with friends (52%), family (54%) and work colleagues (36%). So, the question must...

HHI Greek broker Intermodal has identified Greek owner Evalend Shipping as the company behind an order for a pair of ammonia carriers in South Korea this week. HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (HD KSOE) announced earlier this week it had won an order for two very large ammonia carriers (VLACs). Costing $121m each, the 91,000 cu m ships will be built at HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, delivering to Evalend in 2027. HD KSOE, South Korea’s largest shipbuilding group, has won ship orders worth $4.77bn so far this year. Source link

Finance and technology professionals are generally better paid in Hong Kong than in Singapore, with investment-banking analysts earning 46 per cent more than in the Southeast Asian city-state, according to a report from Bloomberg Intelligence.Analysts make an average of US$92,149 a year in Hong Kong, compared with US$63,305 in Singapore, according to a BI report published Wednesday. The trend extends to associates, who make almost US$123,000 (HK$961,967), or 36 per cent more than peers in Singapore, BI said, citing figures from recruiting firm Michael Page. Executive directors at investment banks earn about 13 per cent more in Hong Kong.Despite Singapore’s...