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A year since Singapore election, how has Lawrence Wong’s team fared?
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A year since Singapore election, how has Lawrence Wong’s team fared?

Wong and his team have to prove they are ‘more than equal’ to the task of helping Singapore navigate coming headwinds, analysts say Under the scorching midday sun at a lunchtime speech in the heart of the city, Singapore’s leader last April urged voters to re-elect his tested People’s Action Party (PAP), arguing that voting for the opposition would weaken his team’s ability to navigate coming headwinds. On top of surging oil and gas prices wrought by the ongoing Iran war, fears of an artificial intelligence revolution replacing jobs continue to weigh heavily on citizens and policymakers. “Wong has his work cut out for him given that he has to unequivocally demonstrate that he and his team are more than equal to the task of navigating Singapore through treacherous geopolitical waters,” said Eugene Tan, a political observer and associate professor of law at Singapore Management University. “For sure, the current polycrisis is a double-edged sword for the PAP government.” Singapore imports 95 per cent of its energy, with its status as a transport and business hub dependent on ensuring reliable and resilient energy supply.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s son asks France to help him locate mother in Myanmar
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Aung San Suu Kyi’s son asks France to help him locate mother in Myanmar

The son of Myanmar’s deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi demanded France’s help in seeking independently verified proof of his mother’s life after she was transferred to house arrest, her lawyers said. The country’s junta chief-turned-president Min Aung Hlaing on Thursday ordered the 80-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner to be moved, five years after putting her into detention in a coup. But her son, Kim Aris, says he has still not heard from his mother, who remains massively popular inside...

Boy, 13, shoots 2 dead at Brazil school
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Boy, 13, shoots 2 dead at Brazil school

Students tried to escape over a wall, but it was too tall and many were trapped on the school roof A teenage boy shot dead two staff members and injured two other people, including a student, at a school in northeast Brazil on Tuesday, prompting panicked students to try to escape over a wall, authorities and a witness said. A 13-year-old boy was arrested over the attack at Sao Jose Institute in Rio Branco, the capital of Acre state, the local government said in a statement. Eduardo Rodrigues Cavalcante, who works as a receptionist at a hotel next to the school, said that when the shooting began, some students tried to jump over a wall separating the school from the hotel. “The wall is six meters high, and only one person managed to jump over and take refuge here in the hotel. The other people were left on the school roof trying to escape,” the 19-year-old receptionist said, adding that he heard “gunshots and a lot of screaming”. Images released by a local media outlet showed a woman being evacuated on a stretcher and people crying and hugging each other outside the school. It was not yet clear whether the attacker was a current or former pupil at the school.

Trump admin sued over dumping of White House debris, tests show toxic metals
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Trump admin sued over dumping of White House debris, tests show toxic metals

The debris is coming from the East Wing, which is being demolished to build the US president’s ballroom Debris from the demolition of the White House East Wing that was dumped at a nearby public golf course has tested positive for lead, chromium and other toxic metals, the National Park Service said. An interim report by a Virginia engineering firm says the toxic metals, along with PCBs, pesticides, petroleum by-products and other chemicals were detected at levels above laboratory reporting limits in soil at the East Potomac Golf Links, a historic golf course that US President Donald Trump plans to renovate. The park service began dumping debris from the East Wing onto the golf course in October, and more than 30,000 cubic yards (810,000 cubic feet) of excavated soil had been transported to the site as of last month, the report by Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. said. The report was requested by the park service. The non-profit DC Preservation League has sued the Trump administration, arguing that the dumping was unlawful and possibly hazardous. The group also is challenging the Republican administration’s takeover of the golf course, about 3km (two miles) southeast of the White House, and others in the city.

Residents passed from pillar to post as warnings before fatal Hong Kong fire went unheeded
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Residents passed from pillar to post as warnings before fatal Hong Kong fire went unheeded

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China urges US to drop trade probe as key Trump-Xi summit approaches
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China urges US to drop trade probe as key Trump-Xi summit approaches

The White House’s Section 301 investigations were launched to identify structural excess capacity among 16 trading partners, including China “[It] lacks sufficient statutory basis and supporting evidence” and “circumvents several established multilateral mechanisms”, Michelle Zang, speaking on behalf of the China Chamber of International Commerce (CCOIC), a state-backed trade body, told the hearing. Tuesday’s hearing comes less than two weeks before Trump’s planned visit to China, where trade disputes are expected to feature prominently in talks with Xi. If the investigation finds unfair trade practices, defined as “unreasonable acts”, it could give the White House a legal basis to impose new tariffs on China and other major trading partners. ‘We have a deal’: Trump claims breakthrough after ‘12 out of 10’ talks with Xi Jinping “Excess capacity is an economic condition, not a government conduct,” Zang said. “We urge the investigation to accurately identify government conduct with specificity, not merely point to aggregate economic outcomes.”

How China-Gulf ties can turn energy vulnerability into sustainability
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How China-Gulf ties can turn energy vulnerability into sustainability

Hormuz tensions are a reminder to start building a better, more sustainable energy order before the next crisis hits; Hong Kong can help For China and the Gulf states, there should be a more ambitious energy deal: one that maintains a stable oil trade but eventually brings the cooperation focus back to renewables, storage, electric vehicles, industrial localisation and green finance. China and the Arab world are ready for such a transition. In 2024, China-Arab trade reached US$407.4 billion, making China the Arab world’s largest trading partner. Last year, China’s trade with Arab League nations hit a record high of US$241.6 billion in the first seven months. No longer based solely on oil, China-Arab relations now include infrastructure, information technology, ports and logistics, manufacturing and even green energy. Gulf states have incentive to speed up this shift. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and others are looking to diversify their economies from oil, attract hi-tech manufacturing and position themselves for a future where oil and gas no longer underpin national development. Can the Middle East war turbocharge China’s global EV ambitions?

ICC fugitive? Duterte ally’s paid Philippine Senate vanishing act draws fire
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ICC fugitive? Duterte ally’s paid Philippine Senate vanishing act draws fire

Ronald Dela Rosa has not reported for work since reports of him being targeted by the ICC as a co-perpetrator in Duterte’s deadly drug war Dela Rosa has, however, continued to receive his salary, prompting civil society groups and other critics to ask why an elected lawmaker can stay away from work and still be paid with public funds. As chairman of the Senate Committee on National Defence and Security, Peace, Unification and Reconciliation, he was supposed to sponsor the 2026 budget of the Department of National Defence and the Armed Forces of the Philippines. The plenary process was delayed due to his absence. Dela Rosa, who was re-elected last year, has not appeared in the chamber since November 11, after reports circulated that he could be arrested as a “co-conspirator” in the ICC case against Duterte. Last year, shortly after Duterte was arrested and flown to detention in The Hague, Dela Rosa said he was thinking of going into hiding.

Iran war putting China’s economy in a tight spot
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Iran war putting China’s economy in a tight spot

TOKYO – Amid all the smoke surrounding a Chinese slowdown, economists are getting a view of some serious fire this week. Case in point: exports grew just 2.5% year-on-year in March, a rate markedly below the previous few months. It’s the clearest ind…

US Hormuz blockade, tariffs jolt China
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US Hormuz blockade, tariffs jolt China

China has urged the United States and Iran to return to the negotiating table after Washington launched an operation to close the Strait of Hormuz on Monday and threatened to impose 50% tariffs on countries providing weapons to Tehran. US President D…

China’s Middle East billions still woefully reliant on US gunboats
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China’s Middle East billions still woefully reliant on US gunboats

China has staked roughly US$145 billion in investments and construction contracts across the Middle East, while Iranian oil alone accounts for 13–14% of its imports. Yet Beijing maintains no permanent military presence in the volatile region, with it…

Trump turning China’s yuan into world’s next safe haven
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Trump turning China’s yuan into world’s next safe haven

TOKYO — As US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and military adventurism chip away at the dollar’s credibility, the privilege may be all China’s. The reference here is to the phrase coined by France’s finance minister in the 1960s, Valery Giscard d&#8…