SINGAPORE – Household residents will have to fork out more money for utility bills from Friday (Oct 1) to Dec 31 as electricity and gas tariffs continue to climb since the start of the year. Electricity tariffs will increase at an average of 3.2 per cent compared with the previous quarter, said national grid operator SP group […]
SINGAPORE – Encouraging retailers to impose a cooling-off period for goods and services sold is one of the measures that the new president of the Consumers Association of Singapore (Case) Melvin Yong hopes to achieve. For a start, he hopes that Case can work with hair, beauty and massage businesses to impose a five-day cooling-off […]
SINGAPORE – A 21-year-old man has been arrested for his suspected involvement in multiple loan-shark harassment cases involving fire. The police said on Thursday (Sept 30) that they were alerted to three cases of loan-shark harassment by fire at Housing Board flats in Jurong West Avenue 1, Boon Lay Avenue and Joo Seng Road on Monday […]
New Zealand politicians on Thursday passed a law that makes plotting a terrorist attack a crime, addressing a legal loophole that drew heightened scrutiny after a knife attack in early September. The new law had been months in the planning, but it was hurried through Parliament after an extremist inspired by the Islamic State terror […]
MANILA (REUTERS) – China has opposed a Philippines-led push for a review of its 70-year-old defence treaty with the United States, Manila’s defence minister said on Thursday (Sept 30), concerned that it could be seen in Beijing as an effort to contain its rise. The Philippines is keen to amend the 1951 Mutual Defence Treaty […]
BEIJING (AFP) – Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou’s return from Canada this week was lauded as a diplomatic triumph in China, but the celebrations left a bad taste in the mouths of the expat business community, already rattled by the threat of “hostage diplomacy”. That dread was based on the part of the story Chinese state […]
SINGAPORE – Covid-19 vaccinations will now become a simpler, less tedious process for nurses, with the help of a machine that can automatically fill injection syringes. The first of its kind in Singapore, the Automated Vaccine Inoculation Dispenser (Avid) system weighs less than 25kg and is able to fill six vaccine syringes in less than […]
KABUL (AFP) – The Taliban on Thursday (Sept 30) violently cracked down on a small women’s rights demonstration, firing shots into the air and pushing back protesters, AFP journalists witnessed. A group of six women gathered outside a high school in eastern Kabul, demanding the right for girls to return to secondary school after the […]
HANOI (REUTERS) – Vietnam’s commercial hub Ho Chi Minh City will start relaxing its coronavirus curbs from later on Thursday (Sept 30), officials said, allowing more business and social activities after four months of measures aimed at arresting a spiralling death rate. Policies will seek to spur the economy and restore some normalcy while coexisting […]
SINGAPORE – More treatments are now available here for Covid-19 patients, as Singapore continues to battle against a rising number of coronavirus infections. The latest addition to this arsenal of treatment options is a Covid-19 antibody cocktail, which was developed by Regeneron and Roche. It is expected to arrive here next month or so, the […]