Search Results for: Singapore

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE THUMBSCREWS are being turned on the world’s tax havens, preventing their banks hiding assets from tax investigators worldwide. A comprehensive communiqué from April 1 and 2s’ G20 meeting in London committed member governments "to take agreed action against those jurisdictions which do not meet international standards in relation to tax transparency."…

BY KARRYN MILLER

AUSTRALIA, as with the bulk of westernised nations, has classified butter as a staple food rather than a luxury item. Sales of the dairy spread have long reflected this and Aussie butter has enjoyed steady demand both locally and abroad.…

BY MARK GODFREY

THOUGH its top trading partners continue to stick with the fair value or mark to market principle set by the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), China remains unwilling to embrace the principle. Though Beijing, keen to nurture its companies into global corporate champions, has been bringing its Accounting Standards for Business Enterprises (ASBE) closer to the IFRS it won’t require listed firms to use the fair value approach – “not for the foreseeable future,” Dickson Leung, partner at the Beijing offices of Lehman Brown has told Accountancy Age.…

BY KARRYN MILLER

JAPAN’S 98th airport, Mt Fuji Shizuoka Airport, is set to open on June 4, 2009: despite the launch being delayed twice. The initial March opening was moved back because the owner of 150 nearby trees refused to chop them down or even shorten them.…

BY MARK ROWE

INDONESIA’S paint industry appears likely to weather the worst of the global economic downturn. Indeed, Indonesia may be one of the few major countries where sales of paint for industrial and domestic use will rise. In January 2009, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono forecast economic growth of 6.2% for the year in a budget that revealed capital spending plans that were 14.3% up on 2008.…

BY LEE ADENDORFF, in Lucca, Italy; PHILIPPA JONES, in Paris; DOMINIQUE PATTON, in Beijing; KARRYN CARTELLE, in Tokyo; and LUCY JONES, in Dallas

Where is the best cutting edge research for the textile and clothing industry? Which are the best design schools, the best fabric developers and the best industrial innovators in the sector?…

BY MARK ROWE

THE PSYCHOLOGY of colour has fascinated philosophers and scientists down the ages, so it is perhaps unsurprising that the world’s paint companies devote much of their time to working out why consumers prefer certain colours for certain everyday items – and why these tastes vary so much across the world.…

BY DINAH GARDNER

THERE has not been a military clash over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea since 1988 when China and Vietnam engaged in a brief naval spat over three reefs. Dozens of sailors perished in that conflict.…

BY WILLIAM BARNES

A WOMAN brushes past palm fronds into the pastel lights of a busy Bangkok salon. At the counter she turns what looks to be a flawless, ivory face towards a woman in a vaguely medical uniform: "Aiyee! I am getting so old.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

THE SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 attacks on the US resulted in a raft of regulations to curb terrorist financing, but seven years on Al Qaeda is still at large, has adapted to the new regulatory environment to raise funds, and morphed into an international terrorist Hydra.…