Singapore-based United Overseas Bank reported growing revenue from greater China in the first quarter despite a muted bottom line.

Net profit was S$1.5bn (US$1.1bn), in line with forecasts but down 2 per cent from the same period last year. Net interest income fell 2 per cent year on year to S$2.4bn.

Revenue from greater China, comprising the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan, rose to S$330mn, a 36 per cent increase over last year.

UOB also reported a 15 per cent year on year increase in wealth management income.

Shares in the company were down 1 per cent in early trading on Wednesday.

Anti-Israel protests linger across college campuses nationwide nearly three weeks after they first appeared at Columbia University.

In the chaotic weeks since April 18, more than 2,600 people have been arrested on 50 campuses. The protesters have said they want their schools to cut all ties with Israel over its war in Gaza. 

Administrators have shown mixed reactions with some universities like UT Austin and Emory University cracking down almost immediately, while others have shown more restraint. 

ANTI-ISRAEL ENCAMPMENTS SHARE COMMON TRAITS WITH MARXIST REVOLUTIONARIES, BLM AND THE KKK

But many colleges in the latter camp have started to lose patience amid the increasing combativeness of some of the protesters. Anti-Israel agitators at a George Washington encampment for instance, have called for the “guillotine” for school administrators. 

Campuses have tried tactics from appeasement to threats of disciplinary action to resolve the protests and clear the way for upcoming commencements.

Here is a look at some universities that are starting to change their tune. 

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

At the University of Chicago, hundreds of protesters gathered on campus for more than a week. Administrators initially adopted a permissive approach, but later said the protest had crossed a line and caused growing concerns about safety.

The protesters were warned Friday to leave or face removal. On Tuesday, law enforcement dismantled the encampment after a scuffle.

University President Paul Alivisatos acknowledged the school’s role as a protector of freedom of speech after officers in riot gear blocked access to the school’s Quad but also took an enough-is-enough stance.

COLUMBIA STUDENT LAUNCHES PETITION TO HOLD COMMENCEMENT ON CAMPUS: ‘WE ALL WORKED’ FOR THIS

“The university remains a place where dissenting voices have many avenues to express themselves, but we cannot enable an environment where the expression of some dominates and disrupts the healthy functioning of the community for the rest,” Alivisatos said in a message to the university community.

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, CHAPEL HILL

Officials at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, told deans and department chairs Monday that some students have been informed by instructors opposing the suspension of student protesters that they will withhold grades.

About 1000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators rally at the South Building after a “Gaza solidarity encampment” was removed by police early Tuesday morning, April 30, 2024, at UNC-Chapel Hill.  (Travis Long/News & Observer/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

The school provost’s office said it would support “sanctions for any instructor who is found to have improperly withheld grades.” 

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), protesters were given a deadline to voluntarily leave or face suspension. Many left, according to an MIT spokesperson, who said protesters breached fencing after the arrival of demonstrators from outside the university. On Monday night, dozens remained at the encampment in a calmer atmosphere.

A pro-Palestine protester holds a placard that says, “Israel out” during the rally.  (Vincent Ricci/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

MIT officials said the following day that dozens of interim suspensions and discipline committee referrals were in process, actions taken to ensure the “safety of our community.”

ISRAELI, AMERICAN FLAG DISPLAY VANDALIZED AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Some schools are still showing a permissive attitude to the protests, letting students hold demonstrations and organize their encampments as they see fit.

The Rhode Island School of Design, where students started occupying a building Monday, has affirmed students’ rights to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly and supports all members of the community. The school has said President Crystal Williams spent more than five hours with the protesters that evening discussing their demands.

The president of Wesleyan University, a liberal arts school in Connecticut, has commended the on-campus demonstration — which includes a pro-Palestinian tent encampment — as an act of political expression. The camp there has grown from about 20 tents a week ago to more than 100.

A student walks in the anti-Israel encampment on the Main Quad at the University of Chicago campus on Monday. (AP/Nam Y. Huh)

President Michael Roth said the university will “continue to make space” for the protesters “as long as that space is not disruptive to campus operations.”

But for some, this lax attitude is still not enough. A Wesleyan senior cited by The Associated Press, said: “even though our president has said, ‘Oh, I’m not going to call the cops. Oh, I’m not going to beat up students,’ that’s still not enough, and that’s not the bare minimum for us.”

And as Wesleyan’s May 26 commencement approaches, some protesters fear they will be forcibly removed from the center of campus, adjacent to the field where the ceremony is to take place.

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Batya Kline, a 22-year-old graduate student, predicted that the university’s “facade of laid back, hands off” will fall away the longer protesters remain on campus. 

“We know that the university does not want us here, and we know that they can change their pace at the drop of a hat without letting us know,” Kline said. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has a “misogynistic” and “insular” workplace whose head, Martin Gruenberg, may not be well suited to lead needed reforms, says a new report commissioned over complaints about widespread sexual harassment inside the US banking regulator.

The FDIC, which has almost 6,000 staff, commissioned the independent report late last year in response to press accounts of harassment and discrimination against female employees.

The report released on Tuesday described an organisation with deeply rooted problems, calling it a “good ol’ boys club where favouritism is common, wagons are circled around managers, and senior executives with well-known reputations for pursuing romantic relations with subordinates enjoy long careers without any apparent consequence”.

Gruenberg, who has served at the agency for most of the past two decades, including 10 out of the last 13 years as chair, came in for criticism as an angry boss who must change his own behaviour in order to fix the agency.

As recently as 2023, the report said, FDIC employees had experienced Gruenberg “lose his temper and express anger in ways that they felt were offensive and inappropriate”.

The subjects of the ire “left these meetings feeling verbally attacked personally and in an unfair manner”.

The report said that the given the duration of Gruenberg’s time at the top, as well as allegations about his temper “may hinder his ability to establish trust and confidence in leading meaningful culture change, and so too may his apparent inability or unwillingness to recognise how others experience certain difficult interactions with him.”

The report added: “For these challenges to be overcome, there must at least be a genuine and sustained commitment to lead a culture change, accompanied by a recognition and acknowledgment that such change is necessary because of failings of the past, including his own.”

A person close to the FDIC’s management, said the board has not held discussions as to whether Gruenberg should step down. The person was unaware of any dismissals tied to the report.

The report, produced by law firm Cleary Gottlieb, lifts the lid on widespread reports of sexual and racial harassment at the regulator and detailed fears of retribution among staffers who spoke out. The report was based on conversations with more than 500 current and former employees.

Gruenberg apologised to staff in an internal memo on Tuesday, describing the report as “sobering”.

He said the agency would take the report’s recommendations, including moving forward on appointing an internal person to lead the culture transition, and an outside auditor of progress.

“Hundreds of our colleagues reported painful experiences of mistreatment and feelings of fear, anger, and sadness,” Gruenberg wrote. “I accept the findings and recommendations of this report and thank the special review committee for their exhaustive work.”

He flagged the FDIC had taken action to begin addressing some of the complaints raised — providing more support to victims, in-person training for all of its employees, strengthening procedures for reporting, and improving accountability for anyone who is found to engage in misconduct.

“We will spare no effort to create a workplace where every employee feels safe, valued, and respected,” the chair said.