US: We expect huge things from Steven Yeun this year, and we can’t wait to see it all come together on the big screen again. Okja director Bong Joon-ho will be reconnecting with him five years after they worked together on the film, which was released in 2017. Yeun is the newest addition to the cast of the as-yet-untitled film …

MANILA: At its August meeting, the Philippines central bank is prepared to hike its policy interest rates by 50 basis points and follow up with further policy measures to manage inflation and fight currency depreciation, the country’s central bank governor said on Thursday. There are “strong depreciation pressures” on the peso spurred by a hawkish tone from the U.S. Federal …

US: Elon Musk’s $44 billion deal to buy Twitter fell apart late on Thursday (July 7), according to the Washington Post. Over concerns about what he sees to be an overabundance of phony accounts, the world’s richest man has already expressed reservations and even hinted that he would walk away from the arrangement. Although he was granted access to internal …

UKRAINE: Mechanic-turned-soldier Artchk helps shore up defenses in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk against an expected Russian onslaught while adjacent farmer Vasyl Avramenko bemoans the loss of crops replaced by mines. Kramatorsk and its twin, Sloviansk, are being bombarded with artillery shells as Moscow continues its onslaught in the heavily industrialized Donbas region. Their defenders are outgunned, but Ukrainians …

THAILAND: Adi Mohammad, a resident of Singapore and a lifelong motorcyclist, is an expert in his field. Until the COVID-19 outbreak made traveling abroad difficult, he spent the last two decades riding throughout the world. He was unable to travel to Thailand, his favorite vacation spot, for more than two years. A month on leave and COVID-19 guidelines that allow …

PAKISTAN: Javed Rahi’s Pakistani mountain village awoke to a tremendous boom and a torrent of water from the melting glacier nearby, accompanied by a dense cloud of smoke, as the sun rose over the horizon. It was the day before his nephew’s wedding that Rahi, a retired math teacher, was supposed to travel to Hassanabad to attend it. In May, …

US: When we first met Kyra and Vera Poh, the sister-and-sister record-breaking duo, we thought of the words “fun,” “easy,” and “carefree,” among others. In June, CNA Women interviewed the sisters at Sentosa’s iFly Singapore, where they had just returned from the 4th FAI World Cup of Indoor Skydiving 2022, which had taken place in Belgium just a few months …

INDONESIA: An Indonesian Foreign Ministry official urged the G20 to assist end the Ukraine conflict on Friday (Jul 8) at a summit that brought together some of the most vocal critics and Russia’s top ambassador. It’s been “business as usual” in the run-up to the Bali forum, with top Western and Japanese officials underlining that the war and its impact …

TAIWAN: Exports climbed in June, despite China’s slowdown, as demand for technology items remained strong amid concerns over Ukraine and inflation, and the government predicted a positive picture for the end-of-year holiday season. The Ministry of Finance reported Friday that exports grew 15.2 percent from a year earlier to $42.2 billion, the second-highest monthly sum on record and up for …

SHANGHAI: As reported by the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) on Friday, Tesla, the American electric vehicle manufacturer, sold 78,906 Chinese-made vehicles in June. Passenger car sales in China in June were 1.97 million, an increase of 22% over the same period last year, according to the CPCA. Despite restrictions to stop the spread of Covid in Shanghai, Tesla Inc.’s …