Posted in Chess on Feb 29th, 2008
EVERY year, whenever the national age group chess championship comes on my radar screen, I feel a slight tinge of regret that I never started playing chess at a younger age. I only took it up in Form Three – old by today’s standards – while waiting for the public examination results. Today, players are [...]
Posted in NinaWang on Feb 23rd, 2008
The charitable foundation established by Nina Wang, the Hong Kong tycoon, fired its first shot in the battle for her $3.9bn (€2.6bn, £2bn) estate on Friday, taking aim at a reclusive businessman who also claims to be her heir.The Chinachem Charitable Foundation filed court papers in Hong Kong arguing that Ms Wang, who died last [...]
Posted in Chess on Feb 22nd, 2008
DO YOU know that in the early 1990s – I believe it could be sometime between 1992 and 1994 – there was a Chess Palace in Malaysia? Well, it was not exactly a palace in the real sense of the word, but a bungalow off Jalan Semarak in Kuala Lumpur that had been converted into [...]
Posted in Careers on Feb 21st, 2008
Would you know that in Australia, there is a maximum weight limit to their postmen and women? According to present regulations, these people who deliver letters – the Aussies call them posties – cannot be more than 90kg or otherwise it would be dangerous for them to ride on their 110cc motorcycles. The letters that [...]
Posted in Rockwills & Estate planning, Rockwills & Inheritance on Feb 16th, 2008
Singapore has abolished Estate Tax, inherited during the British era, with immediate effect (15 Feb 2008). The move is set to encourage Singapore to become an attractive wealth-management centre for building up wealth by Singaporeans and foreigners. In his budget speech, Singapore Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said: “Estate duty is a means to rebalance opportunities [...]
Posted in Chess on Feb 15th, 2008
IN MY 27 years of writing about chess, I’ve had many people – mainly non-chess players – asking me what is there in chess that continues to fascinate me. It is actually a difficult question to answer. There are so many things in chess that fascinate not only me but seasoned chess players in general. [...]
Posted in General on Feb 11th, 2008
This is an excerpt from a report by the BBC on its website last Friday (8 Feb 2008): Wider problems Meanwhile, China, India and other East and South East Asian economies have experienced break-neck growth over the past few years as current account surpluses and foreign exchange reserves have ballooned. But as the global credit [...]
It has been reported by Bernama that FlyFirefly Sdn Bhd, better known as Firefly, will take delivery of five ATR 72 aircraft in July this year. With the acquisition of the five planes, Firefly will add several new international destinations, including Acheh and Medan, for flights out of Penang. Presently, it flies from its northern [...]
Posted in Investment on Feb 6th, 2008
The second of new initiatives introduced by the Employment Provident Fund (EPF) on 1 Feb 2008 will see a lowering of the Account 1 investment withdrawal threshold. This move is expected to result in a significant flow of capital into the equity market. Last Friday, the EPF introduced its Beyond Savings initiative that links the [...]
