Oil prices seesawed in early Asian trade Wednesday, a day after a strong rebound from a major rout triggered by the start of a price war between Riyadh and Moscow. West Texas Intermediate fluctuated between small losses and gains, with the price hovering around $34 a barrel, while Brent crude was up around 0.5 percent […]

Malaysia has sent back 150 shipping containers of plastic waste to mostly wealthier nations, with the Southeast Asian country saying Monday it would not be the world’s “garbage dump”. The region has been flooded with plastic from more developed economies such as the United States and Britain since 2018, after China — which previously boasted […]

by Marlowe Hood The climate summit in Madrid earlier this month did not collapse — but by almost any measure it certainly failed. Five years after the fragile UN process yielded the world’s first universal climate treaty, COP25 was billed as a mopping-up session to finish guidelines for carbon markets, thus completing the Paris Agreement […]

Indonesia has filed a World Trade Organization lawsuit against the European Union over plans to phase out palm oil-based biofuel for cars, the trade ministry said. The action could escalate a trade dispute between Indonesia — the world’s top palm oil producer – and the EU, which plans to end its use of biofuels by […]

Oil prices tumbled Friday on expectations OPEC next week won’t take aggressive action to boost oil prices, while global equities pulled back on trade war worries.  Both the US and European benchmark contracts for oil fell ahead of the December 5 meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in Vienna where analysts expect […]

by Patrick Lee Malaysia’s mammoth palm oil sector faces a new threat after Indian traders were asked to halt purchases amid a diplomatic row over Kashmir, piling further pressure on the industry as Europe also plans cutbacks. The Southeast Asian nation is the second-biggest producer after Indonesia of the oil, used in everything from food […]

Tens of thousands of pieces of plastic littering the planet come from just a handful of multinational corporations, an environmental pressure group said Wednesday. Coca-Cola, Nestle and PepsiCo were named by Break Free from Plastics, a global coalition of individuals and environmental organisations, who warned the companies largely avoid cleanup responsibility. The coalition’s volunteers collected […]

Forest fires raging across Indonesia have sent air quality levels across Southeast Asia plummeting as they belch out emissions that aggravate global warming.  The country’s palm oil industry bears much of the blame for the out-of-control blazes critics say, as producers burn land to make way for their plantations.  The pulp-and-paper sector has also come […]

by Anuj Chopra / AFP Saudi Arabia said Saturday it was ready to respond to drone attacks claimed by Iran-aligned Yemeni rebels on two major oil facilities, which severely disrupted production as Washington blamed Tehran for the strike. The strikes sparked fires at the state-owned Aramco oil plants and prompted furious condemnation from the top […]

Malaysia on Thursday renewed the operating licence of a controversial Australian-run rare earths plant for six months despite concerns from green groups about the impact of radioactive waste it produces. Lynas hopes its plant, which has processed rare earths from Australia since 2012, can reduce Chinese dominance in the market for the materials. Rare earth […]