MELBOURNE (BLOOMBERG) – All it took was missteps in the handling of travellers returning from overseas and complacency in a handful of neighbourhoods to plunge Australia’s second-largest city into lockdown for the second time in four months. Even as life in most of the nation returns to normal with offices, schools and bars all open, […]
The 95-year-old woman who was found stabbed to death in her landed home off Upper Serangoon was a kind and gentle woman, said neighbours. The woman’s maid, a Myanmar national, has been arrested in connection with the killing. A neighbour – a woman in her 80s who wanted to be known only as Madam Tan […]
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States called on China on Tuesday (July 7) to free an outspoken professor who was detained after criticising President Xi Jinping over the coronavirus pandemic. Xu Zhangrun, a law professor at Tsinghua University, one of China’s top institutions, was taken from his home in suburban Beijing on Monday along with […]
TAIPEI (AFP) – Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen on Tuesday (July 7) warned of “countermeasures” should a sweeping security law China imposed on Hong Kong “damage” the island. The new law has sent chills through self-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing regards as its own territory and has vowed to one day seize, by force if necessary. Beijing […]
Good evening! Catch up on some of the main headlines on Tuesday, July 7. Every working Singaporean needs to be on ‘moving escalator’ of better skills and income: Tharman Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said the first order of business in the coronavirus pandemic is to stop unemployment from spiralling upwards. READ MORE HERE Coronavirus: More […]
SYDNEY (REUTERS) – Australia’s second-most populated state Victoria is considering a four-week lockdown after recording the biggest one-day surge in new Covid-19 cases, The Australian newspaper reported on Tuesday (July 7). The number of Covid-19 cases in the Victorian capital of Melbourne has surged in recent days, prompting the authorities to enforce strict social-distancing orders […]
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s coincident indicator index fell in May and the government kept its view on the index, signalling the coronavirus outbreak was hurting the economy. The index of coincident economic indicators, which consists of a range of data including factory output, employment and retail sales data, slipped a preliminary 5.5 points from the […]
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday (July 6) lashed out at what he called China’s “Orwellian” moves to censor activists, schools and libraries in Hong Kong under a new sweeping security law. The authorities in the financial hub have ordered schools to remove books for review under the new law, […]
An app update rolled out at the weekend allows TraceTogether to run in the background on iPhones to exchange Bluetooth “handshakes” with nearby devices for contact tracing. Previously, the app had to run in the foreground, which drained the battery and meant users could not use their handsets for anything else. Android devices do not […]
LONDON (Reuters) – Argentina’s new offer to bondholders got a tentative thumbs up from investors as they digested the details on Monday, though there was no sign yet of whether it would gain the blessing of the biggest bloc of creditors. Argentina’s government laid out an improved offer on Sunday that increased the amount creditors […]