Malaysia to Look Into Claim 1MDB Fugitive Jho Low Is in China
The country has not received information on the whereabouts of Low, better known as Jho Low, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said on Saturday, state news agency Bernama reported. Anwar said he would need to check with the home ministry, which didn't respond to calls early Monday.
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News24
28 minutes ago
- News24
Myanmar junta air strike on ruby mine hub kills 13
A Myanmar junta air strike on Mogok killed 13 people, including civilians like a monk and a father and son. Civil war has raged since the 2021 military coup, with rebel forces seizing territory like Mogok, a ruby mining hub. The junta plans December elections but faces boycott and criticism as opposition groups call it a 'fraud' to maintain power. A Myanmar junta air strike on a rebel-occupied ruby mining hub killed 13 people on Saturday, according to a resident and a spokesperson for an armed opposition group. Civil war has consumed Myanmar since the military seized power in a 2021 coup, sparking resistance from pro-democracy guerrillas who found common cause with long-active ethnic armed groups. Their scattered forces initially struggled to make headway, but a combined offensive starting in late 2023 seized swathes of territory, including the town of Mogok - the centre of the ruby trade. Myanmar is rich in precious stones and rare earth elements coveted by all factions and sold off, mostly to neighbouring China, to boost war chests. A junta spokesperson could not be reached for comment. However, a local who declined to be named for security reasons said the strike took place around 08:15 am (0145 GMT), killing seven instantly, with six dying later of their wounds. READ | Myanmar military offers new truce in bid to 'protect the towns and people's lives' He said among the dead were a Buddhist monk collecting alms and a father and son who were riding the same motorbike. "A car passing through the area was hit, too," he added. "Seven people were wounded, including the driver." A spokesperson for the Ta'ang National Liberation Army, which has occupied Mogok since last summer, matched that death toll but gave a figure of 14 wounded. "It was in the morning time when the airstrike hit a public area," said spokesperson Lway Yay Oo. There were a lot of people walking in the street; therefore, a lot of people were killed. The military was initially backfooted by the rebels' combined offensive but has enacted conscription to boost its ranks. Its troops recently retook several key settlements in central Myanmar, including the gold mining hub of Thabeikkyin, which it seized late last month after a year-long battle. The junta on Thursday ended the state of emergency it had declared after toppling the government of Aung San Suu Kyi more than four years ago, and has touted elections in December as an off-ramp for the conflict. However, with Suu Kyi still jailed, opposition groups, including ousted lawmakers, are boycotting the poll. A UN expert in June described the exercise as a "fraud" designed to legitimise the junta's continued rule.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Amazon CEO on Tariffs: ‘It's Impossible to Know What Will Happen'
The jury may be still out on the impact of tariffs on Amazon's business, but its customers kept spending throughout the second quarter. Rehashing some of the narrative from the company's first quarter earnings call, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that despite the tariffs, the e-commerce giant has not seen diminishing demand or meaningful price appreciation in the first half of the year. More from Sourcing Journal Study Shows American Fashion Firms Unilaterally Challenged by Trade Upheaval, Tariffs Resetting Asia's Apparel Map With a New World Sourcing Order Trump Announces Dozens of New Reciprocal Tariff Rates But Jassy left room for all outcomes for the remainder of the year. 'That could change in the second half,' Jassy said. 'There are a lot of things that we don't know.' Although Jassy said tariffs' effect on retail prices and consumption has often been 'wrong and misreported,' the CEO also acknowledged 'it's impossible to know what will happen,' particularly when it depletes pre-tariff inventory. Jassy was also wishy-washy on the ensuing costs from the tariffs, noting that the company is unsure at who's going to end up absorbing the higher expenses. He noted that with 2 million sellers on its marketplace, there is a range of differing strategies on whether to pass on the higher costs to consumers. The earnings call occurred hours before President Donald Trump announced new tariffs on several U.S. trade partners ahead of Friday's deadline to conjure up new trade agreements. Those tariff rates are expected to kick in Aug. 7. Higher tariffs on goods from China face an Aug. 12 deadline. More than 70 percent of Amazon sellers and brands say they source their products from China, according to a survey conducted last year by Amazon seller software platform Jungle Scout. The tariffs that have been embedded since April have not slowed down sales at the Big Tech firm. Amazon's second quarter showed strong growth, with net sales increasing 13 percent to $167.7 billion in the second quarter, up from $148 billion in the year-ago period. Net income increased to $18.2 billion in the second quarter, or $1.68 per diluted share, compared with $13.5 billion, or $1.26 per diluted share, in second quarter 2024. Jassy highlighted some wins across Amazon's logistics operation, particularly as the company continues to restructure its inbound fulfillment network of warehouses near major ports to cut ground transportation expenses. According to the CEO, Amazon increased the share of orders moving through direct lanes—where packages go straight from fulfillment to delivery without extra stops—by over 40 percent year-over-year. 'We've also reduced the average distance packages traveled by 12 percent and lowered handling touches per unit by nearly 15 percent,' Jassy said. 'We've made progress on order consolidation with more products positioned locally, we're able to pack more items into each box and send fewer packages per order. That has helped drive higher units per box and improved overall cost to serve.' On the delivery end, which includes the company's $4 billion commitment to expanding same-day services in 4,000 rural communities, Amazon delivered 30 percent more items same day or next day in the U.S. than during the same period of last year. The faster deliveries have helped push Amazon's third-party sellers to an all-time high of 62 percent of units sold in the quarter, according to Jassy. Amazon's recently unveiled generative AI model for its warehouse robotics, Deepfleet, also got some shine in the call. Jassy said the model improves robot travel efficiency by 10 percent. 'At our scale, it's a big deal. DeepFleet acts like a traffic management system to coordinate robots' movements to find optimal paths and reduce bottlenecks,' Jassy said. 'For customers, it means faster delivery times and lower costs.' Although the firm's second quarter was strong on the surface, investors were not too impressed with Amazon's overall results. Stock declined nearly 7 percent in after-hours trading Thursday, largely due to cash cow Amazon Web Services (AWS) underperforming competitors. Despite forecasting third-quarter sales ahead of Wall Street estimates, Amazon issued a soft operating profit guidance of $15.5 billion to $20.5 billion in the period ending in September, compared with an average analyst estimate of $19.4 billion. Sales are forecast to be $174 billion to $179.5 billion, the company said Thursday in a statement. Estimates, on average, were $173.2 billion. The third quarter will include statistics from Prime Day, which took place from July 8-11—the longest iteration of the event Amazon has held. Jassy said the four-day shopping extravaganza drove records across sales, number of items sold and number of Prime signups in the three weeks leading up to the event.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Ukraine says it uncovers major drone procurement corruption scheme
By Max Hunder KYIV (Reuters) -Ukraine's anti-corruption bodies said on Saturday they had uncovered a major graft scheme that procured military drones and signal jamming systems at inflated prices, two days after the agencies' independence was restored following major protests. The independence of Ukraine's anti-graft investigators and prosecutors, NABU and SAPO, was reinstated by parliament on Thursday after a move to take it away resulted in the country's biggest demonstrations since Russia's invasion in 2022. In a statement published by both agencies on social media, NABU and SAPO said they had caught a sitting lawmaker, two local officials and an unspecified number of national guard personnel taking bribes. None of them were identified in the statement. "The essence of the scheme was to conclude state contracts with supplier companies at deliberately inflated prices," it said, adding that the offenders had received kickbacks of up to 30% of a contract's cost. Four people had been arrested. "There can only be zero tolerance for corruption, clear teamwork to expose corruption and, as a result, a just sentence," President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram. Zelenskiy, who has far-reaching wartime presidential powers and still enjoys broad approval among Ukrainians, was forced into a rare political about-face when his attempt to bring NABU and SAPO under the control of his prosecutor-general sparked the first nationwide protests of the war. Zelenskiy subsequently said that he had heard the people's anger, and submitted a bill restoring the agencies' former independence, which was voted through by parliament on Thursday. Ukraine's European allies praised the move, having voiced concerns about the original stripping of the agencies' status. Top European officials had told Zelenskiy that Ukraine was jeopardising its bid for European Union membership by curbing the powers of its anti-graft authorities. "It is important that anti-corruption institutions operate independently, and the law adopted on Thursday guarantees them every opportunity for a real fight against corruption," Zelenskiy wrote on Saturday after meeting the heads of the agencies, who briefed him on the latest investigation. Solve the daily Crossword
