Swiber's move to wind up sends shock waves through market

Announcement stuns investors and analysts; news savages some O&M counters; DBS among banks with heavy exposure. Firm announces resignation of 3 exec directors

Most Asean countries ‘want to stay out of Beijing’s South China Sea dispute with the Philippines’

Most Asean countries want to stay out of the South China Sea dispute between China and the Philippines, says a diplomat with inside knowledge about the negotiations that went on before the bloc issued a joint statement on the matter this week.

Indonesian tax amnesty could spark outflow from Singapore wealth industry

Singapore's wealth management industry is likely to suffer a bad dent as rich Indonesians move some money back home to take advantage of a tax amnesty, but the exodus of funds isn't going to be as big as Jakarta is predicting.

If nothing else, at least Trump understands the folly of ‘empire’

Donald Trump gets a lot of things wrong, but there is at least one thing much of the rest of the world can agree on with him: the United States is in no position to lecture other countries about civil liberties or human rights.

South China Sea air strips’ main role is ‘to defend Hainan nuclear submarine base’

China’s underwater military strategy in the South China Sea, which remained concealed for the past two decades, suddenly emerged after an international tribunal rejected most of Beijing’s territorial claims in the hotly contested waters.

Americans too busy to stop wasting food

Americans say they feel bad about the 130 billion pounds (60 billion kg) of food that the nation wastes every year. But not badly enough to do anything about it.

A lack of respect for laws and the courts

The decision by bodies like the Hong Kong chapter of Amnesty International to criticise the convictions of Occupy activists casts groundless doubts on the integrity of the judiciary.

Japanese 'rent men' who are paid just to listen

AFP

The Philippine suit: A brilliant US machination?

Whatever the results of the Permanent Arbitral Court deliberations on the Philippine suit against China, which would be known after this column had been submitted, I can’t shrug off the suspicion that the US deftly played with President Aquino’s administration to file the case. For good or for bad.

RIGOBERTO D. TIGLAO is a Filipino diplomat and writer. He was formerly the Ambassador to Cyprus and Greece.

Will we be the West’s ‘tank man’ vs China?

I certainly hope we won’t, or President Duterte’s term will see an economic downturn, a year or so after what this overexcited Solicitor General Jose Calida called the country’s “crowning glory,” our victory in the UNCLOS case we filed against China at the Permanent Court of Arbitration. It’s a real possibility, though, that Calida’s crown of glory could be our crown of thorns.

Rigoberto Tiglao is a Filipino diplomat and writer. He was formerly the Ambassador to Cyprus and Greece.

'Wolf of Wall Street' sued as US seeks 1MDB-tied assets

The US Justice Department is seeking to seize more than US$1 billion in assets including real estate, art and proceeds from the "Wolf of Wall Street" movie that it says were illegally acquired through money diverted from the embattled Malaysian development fund known as 1MDB.

The South China Sea Case and China's New Nationalism

Putting Chinese nationalism in historical context.

Oil wrestling: US and Britain fought over Iraq’s assets in aftermath of war, Chilcot report shows

The US and British governments fought bitterly over control of Iraq’s oil following the toppling of Saddam Hussein, the UK Chilcot report into the war shows.

Chinese scholar says ‘new evidence in Japan proves Beijing’s sovereignty over South China Sea islands’

Zhu Jianrong, a professor at Toyo Gakuen University, said that he had found several pieces of evidence – including a telegram and newspaper clippings from the 1920s to 1930s – which could prove that the Japanese government at the time acknowledged China’s sovereignty in the Spratly and Paracel Islands, Xinhua reported.

The Hague ruling: 'Absurd award that contravenes procedural justice'

China views the Arbitral Tribunal as wrongly conceived, lacking jurisdiction to rule on territorial matters. But it remains open to negotiations.

Mountains out of Molehills: The Pentagon’s Big Lie About the South China Sea

By February 2016, the U.S. “discovery” of a surface to air missile (SAM) capability on one of the Paracel Islands has been fielded as a new political tool to cry foul against China for breach of its commitment “not to militarize” the Spratly Island disputes.

So far it’s been the US, not China, that has flouted international law

If the US were backed by international treaties rather than its maritime might, it might have a stronger case. Now it’s just a power play by a hypocrite.

Of Course China, Like All Great Powers, Will Ignore an International Legal Verdict

In ignoring an upcoming verdict on the South China Sea, Beijing is following well-established precedent by great powers.

Chilcot report criticises Tony Blair for leading UK into Iraq war based on flawed intelligence

A British inquiry into the Iraq war strongly criticised former Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government on Wednesday, saying they had led the country into war based on flawed intelligence that should have been challenged.

Britain's Iraq war inquiry delivers damning verdict on former PM Tony Blair

Former British prime minister Tony Blair took his country into a badly planned, woefully executed and legally questionable war in Iraq in 2003, according to the findings of a long-delayed inquiry published on Wednesday (July 6).