Singapore will feel the impact of increasing global tensions with economic growth set to slow this year, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said in his budget speech in parliament on Tuesday. Wong, who is also finance minister, said the United States and China were locked in a contest for supremacy, and were prepared to take more assertive actions to advance their interests. Singapore's GDP accelerated to 4.4% in 2024 from a revised 1.8% in 2023, but the trade ministry expects growth in 2025 to moderate to 1.0% to 3.0%, a forecast Wong reiterated on Tuesday.
The leader of a cultlike group that has been linked to multiple killings, including the fatal shooting of a Border Patrol officer in Vermont last month, was arrested in Maryland on charges of trespassing and other crimes, authorities said Monday.
Israel's army has pulled out of southern Lebanese villages but remains in five positions, as a delayed withdrawal deadline expired Tuesday under a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah.Lebanese authorities have rejected any further extension of the withdrawal period, urging sponsors of the deal to pressure Israel to pull out.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is considering an unprecedented move to address Eric Adams’ future.
Japanese officials said senior Afghan Taliban officials were in Japan for talks, as part of Tokyo's efforts to help Afghanistan build a more inclusive political system and protect human rights. It's their first known diplomatic trip outside the Central Asia-Middle East region since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in 2021. The unidentified Taliban senior officials were invited by grant-making organization Nippon Zaidan and were also set to talk with Japanese Foreign Ministry officials, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters Monday.
Asian markets were mixed Tuesday with Hong Kong resuming its tech-led rally after a meeting between President Xi Jinping and China's top business leaders fanned hopes that a long-running crackdown on the private sector is coming to an end."This was seen as a strong signal that his crackdown on the tech sector is over and with forthcoming pro-business policies to help revive the economy," said National Australia Bank head of market economics Tapas Strickland.
A Delta Air Lines flight from Minneapolis crashed and turned upside down on the runway at Toronto Pearson International Airport while attempting to land on Monday, the latest in a string of passenger plane crashes since December.
South African lab technician Nozipho Mlotshwa was waiting for the test results for a potential HIV vaccine, which has eluded scientists for decades, when the order came from USAID to stop work. The first round of vaccines she and her colleagues made in Johannesburg had produced an immune response in rabbits, which was promising but not conclusive - so they tweaked the formula and sent off four new versions for pre-clinical tests. A trial of an earlier, separate vaccine candidate, which was about to be tested on humans in South Africa as well as Kenya and Uganda, is also on ice.
Stiff winds blew over Canada’s Toronto Pearson Airport Monday afternoon as a slim aircraft and its 80 passengers and crew drifted toward the snowy tarmac, cleared by air traffic controllers to make a landing. But within moments, the plane had inexplicably overturned and crashed into the runway, sending fire crews scrambling to extinguish the rising flames.
The Social Security Administration’s acting commissioner has stepped down from her role at the agency over Department of Government Efficiency requests to access Social Security recipient information, according to two people familiar with the official’s departure who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Faced with myriad problems including gridlocked traffic and a sinking earth surface in its current capital, Iran is considering a drastic solution -- moving it to an altogether different location on the Gulf of Oman.These include traffic snarls, water shortages, resource mismanagement, extreme air pollution, as well as subsidence -- the gradual sinking of land mass due to either natural processes or human activity.
Electric vehicle maker Tesla has begun hiring in India, with the company of tycoon Elon Musk issuing advertisements days after US President Donald Trump's right-hand man met with India's premier.India has long had steep import taxes for electric vehicles -- Musk once complained they were among the "highest in the world" -- which had prevented Tesla from making inroads in the absence of local manufacturing.
Myanmar authorities detained 273 foreigners from scam compounds along the border with Thailand on Monday, as a senior Chinese official visited frontier towns on both sides in a widening crackdown on illegal online operations. Hundreds of thousands of people trafficked by criminal gangs have been forced to work in scam compounds that have sprung up across Southeast Asia, including the border between Thailand and Myanmar, the United Nations says. Despite operating for years, the scam centres have only recently faced renewed scrutiny after the rescue and return to China of actor Wang Xing, abducted in Thailand after being lured there with the promise of a job.
Lawyers supporting Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte filed the first legal challenge against her impeachment at the Supreme Court on Tuesday, saying it had been unconstitutionally rushed through without proper oversight.There was no proper discussion," lawyer Israelito Torreon, one of 29 petitioners, said outside a venue near the court.
Senior officials from Russia and the U.S. met in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to begin talks on improving ties and negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine. Delegations led by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met at the Diriyah Palace in Riyadh.
Militants in Pakistan overnight ambushed security forces who were responding to an earlier attack on aid trucks in the country's troubled northwest, leading to a shootout in which four troops were killed, officials said Tuesday. The ambush happened hours after authorities dispatched reinforcements to respond to Monday's attack on a convoy of aid trucks in which a driver and security official were killed in Kurram, a district in the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Several trucks that were heading to Parachinar, the main city in Kurram, were looted and burned, authorities said.
German politicians make a lot of laws and regulations but on the campaign trail many rage against the country's notorious bureaucracy, labelling it a monster that needs to be slayed.Conservative poll frontrunner Friedrich Merz -- who once famously argued a tax return should fit onto a beer coaster -- has vowed to go to war against the "bureaucracy monster".
Vietnam plans to adopt rules that would allow Elon Musk's Starlink to provide satellite internet services in the country while maintaining full ownership of any local subsidiary, a draft of the regulations shows. The change paves the way for Starlink to launch in Vietnam and follows protracted talks with its parent company SpaceX, a government official said. It represents a sudden shift in stance and can be seen as "an olive branch" to SpaceX amid nervousness in Vietnam about tariff threats from U.S. President Donald Trump, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The move marks JICA's largest private sector fund in the region and the first with IDB Invest, which has prioritized leveraging financing through the "originate-to-share" strategy. The goal is to release capital for rapid reinvestment in new projects and to amplify impact, as Latin America and the Caribbean face an estimated $99 billion annual sustainable financing gap, according to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates.
Kathy Hochul said she will convene leaders Tuesday to discuss the path forward after four deputy mayors resigned.
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