Sri Lankan authorities Sunday said they will sue the owners of a Singapore-registered cargo carrier which has burned for 11 straight days off the island's west coast and caused some of its worst-ever marine pollution.Police said a criminal investigation was also launched into the blaze aboard the MV X-Press Pearl, which was carrying 25 tonnes of nitric acid and a huge amount of plastic raw materials.The intense fire, still burning at the rear of the 186 metre (610 feet) vessel, has destr

Singapore's government has said there is "no truth" to an assertion by Delhi's chief minister that a new variant of the coronavirus has been detected in the city state.Delhi's chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had called for a halt to flights, saying a new "Singapore strain" was "extremely dangerous for children".He added that it could result in a third wave of the infection in India.Singapore's ministry of health has reacted strongly to the clai

They've been hailed as virus success stories – places that have seen virtually zero or single-digit COVID cases since the start of the year.But this month, Singapore and Taiwan have both seen a sudden and aggressive rise in cases – with Singapore logging 248 new cases just last week, and Taiwan 1,200 local infections.Both places have gone into a heightened state of restrictions, limiting the size of social gatherings and closing schools.By global standards, these numbers may seem small –

Singapore will close schools from Wednesday as authorities warned new coronavirus strains like the one first detected in India were affecting more children in the city-state.The government has been tightening restrictions following a recent rise in local transmissions after months of near-zero cases.At a virtual news conference late Sunday, authorities announced that primary and secondary schools as well as junior colleges would shift to full home-based learning from Wednesday until the end o

German firm BioNTech said Monday that the COVID-19 vaccine it developed with Pfizer does not require any modifications to work against variants of the virus, as it announced new plans to ramp up production of the jabs."To date, there is no evidence that an adaptation of BioNTech's current COVID-19 vaccine against key identified emerging variants is necessary," the company said in a statement.Nevertheless, in preparations for a need at some point to make tweaks to its current va

When Microsoft's Bill Gates said in 1994 that "banking is necessary, banks are not", financiers and analysts alike dismissed the claims as the wild musings of an over-imaginative techie.Fast forward a few decades and that vision is fast becoming reality.Grab is one of the most dominant super apps in Asia, offering rides, food delivery and now, financial services.That includes loans, insurance, payments and investments – all accessed through a mobile phone app.Launched in 2012 a

As ordinary Malaysians struggle to make ends meet as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of empty shop lots continue to grow all over the capital city of Kuala Lumpur displaying signs that say “available for rent”. With the growing importance of food self-sufficiency, now is the time for Malaysia to turn empty spaces into urban farms – tackling food security related issues besides making good use of the existing space.Urban farming is the practice of cultivating, processing

Seema Devgan has all but abandoned her day job, as she and a loose collection of overseas volunteers scramble to locate desperately needed supplies for COVID-19 stricken family, friends and strangers in India.From her apartment in Singapore, Devgan spends hours each day fielding frantic appeals for help on WhatsApp, phoning suppliers and scouting for desperately needed drugs and oxygen."It's so difficult," the 47-year-old said, briefly struggling to hold back tears in the face

COVID-19 vaccines protect people from the symptoms and more severe forms of the disease but are not designed to fully prevent them from being infected, experts said on Monday (12 April), following the case of a migrant worker who tested positive despite having both doses.Inoculation is vital because although those who have had the jabs may still catch the virus, they are much less likely to get seriously ill than those who are unvaccinated.The migrant worker, who was reported on Sund

A prominent Singapore minister stepped aside on Thursday as the successor to the premier, in a shock move that upended the tightly-controlled country's carefully planned power transfer.Finance minister Heng Swee Keat was in 2018 named to a key post in the ruling party that put him in pole position to take over when Singapore's founding family hands over the premiership. He was expected to replace Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, son of the late founding premier Lee Kuan Yew,