Columns

Budget 2026: Scaling Singapore businesses’ global footprint amid rising risks

Navigating a more fractured trade environment requires a closer partnership between policy, capital and corporate enterprise

Singapore has laid the groundwork for data and AI safety, but we must now deepen these standards.

Small is beautiful: A precision playbook for Singapore’s next lap

How resilience, information hygiene and dispute resolution can turn into the city-state’s next competitive edge

As the World Population Review notes, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea top the list for plastic surgery among East Asians.
THINKING ALOUD

The coming brave new world of designer babies

Genetic testing and other genomic services will likely be a hit in Asia

Luckin, a coffee chain, successfully sued a business in Thailand that had opened cafes under the same name with an almost identical logo.
THE BOTTOM LINE

China once stole foreign ideas. Now it wants to protect its own

The country’s courts are inundated with intellectual-property cases

The fate of CapitaLand Investment's Reits will be closely watched should CapitaLand Group and Mapletree Investments merge.
HOCK LOCK SIEW

Handle with extreme care any Reit mergers should CapitaLand, Mapletree merge

Don’t risk destroying value of leaders CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust and CapitaLand Ascendas Reit  

The US dollar is unique among global currencies in that its value is driven not just by supply and demand, but also by its structural power.

Will ‘Sell America’ end the dollar’s hegemony?

State and market-led pressure to de-dollarise could become mutually reinforcing, accelerating the erosion of the greenback dominance

“We actively take on the world as it is, not wait for a world we wish to be,” said Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month. The logic of flexible multilateralism is straightforward: start with like-minded partners to build open and inclusive initiatives on issues where there is alignment.
NEW GLOBAL ORDER

Shaping flexible multilateralism for a world in flux

An incremental approach towards cooperation is a critical strategic tool for nations

Regulatory volatility and geopolitical uncertainty have brought to the fore concerns around data sovereignty.

Navigating geopolitics for control of data in the AI era

With AI advancing faster than rule books, measures that are now voluntary could become mandatory; it’s happening in South Korea

The Epstein files are not just about one man’s crimes, they are a mirror reflecting deeper problems with how power operates in society, and a test of whether accountability truly applies to everyone.
THE BOTTOM LINE

The Epstein files: Accountability and the question of elite impunity

Jeffery Epstein’s ability to operate for decades, despite credible allegations, points to failures across multiple institutions

Last year, foreigners poured around US$1.6 trillion into US financial assets, including nearly US$700 billion into stocks – both new records and significantly higher than the levels of recent years.

Bash all day, buy all night

Why foreigners keep pouring money into America