Opinion & Features

When supply shocks outlast conflict

Markets brace for prolonged economic shock sparked by energy disruptions

 When Prime Minister Lawrence Wong met his Japanese counterpart, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in March, Japan and Singapore upgraded their relationship to a strategic partnership anchored in a framework to deepen and expand cooperation.

Singapore and Japan’s role in a changing Indo-Pacific

Renewed cooperation between both countries would remind others that respect for international law need not be defended through confrontation alone

Polls show a big shrinkage of working-class support for Trump, particularly among non-white voters.

Trump is not just sinking in the Gulf

As his poll numbers tank, the president’s trade and immigration agendas are encountering judicial resistance too

Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell intends to remain in his role until his successor is confirmed, but has not indicated whether he plans to remain as a Fed governor.
THINKING ALOUD

The clock is ticking on the Fed’s leadership change

A Senate impasse, criminal probe and unusual political pressure mean the transition may not be clean or quick

SGX made it compulsory for companies to disclose the exact remuneration of CEOs and directors in their annual reports for financial years ending on and after Dec 31, 2024
HOCK LOCK SIEW

Are CEOs paid too much? An NUS study offers insights that hopefully changes more than rules

Investors should look out for the shortcomings in remuneration practices highlighted by the study in the companies in which they own shares

Not all who choose not to have children are responding to the same constraints, say the writers.

Fertility is not a ‘single problem’

If the reasons for not having children are varied, the policy response must be too

From the Middle East to Greenland, US President Donald Trump’s persistent foreign policy brazenness has sapped the trust of longstanding allies.

Are Asia and Europe at ‘Trump tipping points’?

Developments in Greenland and Iran have fed into a wider reassessment of US power in key Asian and European nations

It is a world where the founding principles of the WTO, which were based on equal treatment and protection for the less powerful, are visibly ebbing away.
THE BOTTOM LINE

In trade’s ‘law of the jungle’, the winners are clear

It is China and the US that prosper when power sets the terms for global commerce

The 1953 Nissho Maru incident is largely forgotten, but prefigured the great geopolitical emergencies of subsequent decades.

A forgotten crisis explains today’s oil shock

With oil and gas supplies soon running out, Iran’s US$2 million-per-ship fee for safe passage to non-hostile nations seems pretty competitive

In the face of prolonged price pressures, households and businesses can do their part by saving energy.
COMMENTARY

With Iran war’s cost impact just beginning, Singapore must take energy saving seriously

Energy authority’s warning should prompt behavioural change, not merely calls for support