Two Singaporean men lost their positions in the armed forces after they were convicted of having sex with a 15-year-old boy. Former army captain Chaw Chia Jun, 41, was sentenced to 17 months’ jail on Tuesday, while his co-accused Owen Toh Wei Song, a former navy cook, was jailed for 12 months on September 22, according to CNA. Singapore’s Ministry of Defence has confirmed that both were suspended after their arrest in 2024 and were no longer in the military. “The Singapore Armed Forces holds its...

A country need not run out of money to find itself in a debt crisis. It only has to run short of US dollars to pay for its energy. At the recent International Monetary Fund-World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok, the IMF, which expects global economic growth of 3.1 per cent this year and 3.4 per cent the next, cautioned that energy-importing and lower-income economies face a harder road, even as those riding the artificial intelligence boom fare relatively well. According to the World Bank’s...

Betagro has taken majority control of Freshket, the Bangkok platform that supplies ingredients to hotels, restaurants and caterers, through its venture arm Betagro Ventures. Neither side disclosed the price, the stake size or what happens to Freshket’s venture backers. This is less a courtship than a marriage after a long engagement: Betagro Holding, the listed group’s […] The post Ecosystem Roundup: Betagro buys control of Freshket as Thai corporates close in appeared first on e27.

On 14 October 2026, e27 hosted Borderless Innovation: X-HUB Tokyo-Singapore Demo Day 2026 with X-HUB TOKYO, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s global startup accelerator, run by Deloitte Tohmatsu. This is the third year e27 has partnered with Deloitte Tohmatsu to bring Tokyo’s startups to Southeast Asia, and this year’s cohort arrived with a clear focus: technology […] The post What 9 Tokyo Deep Tech Startups Learned About Southeast Asia’s Appetite for Japanese Innovation appeared first on e27.

The pitch for agentic payments usually goes like this: software that negotiates, pays, reconciles and optimises cash while the finance team sleeps. A new report from UOB Global Economics & Markets Research is a reminder that a payment involves more than moving the money. Someone also has to answer for it. The bank’s argument is […] The post Banks want AI agents to move money, as long as someone is accountable appeared first on e27.

Calls to boycott a Malaysian Chinese-owned coffee-shop chain over its omission of Malay text from its menu have reignited arguments over race and national identity, as political parties jostle to court the country’s majority ethnic group ahead of the next general election. The Oriental Kopi boycott marks the latest saga fuelling ethnic grievances that politicians have been seen to capitalise on by portraying themselves as defenders of Malay identity. It comes ahead of the November 14 election in...

Universiti Malaya student Ummi Umairah Bakhit, who went viral recently for questioning the donation of money to former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, has spoken out against what she described as cyberbullying, political obsession and emotional loyalty. The youth stood by her criticism of donating money to the former prime minister, saying she would not apologise for raising the issue. In a social media post, Ummi Umairah said the response to a question she raised at the International...