World News by Wild Rose

The first apartment came up for auction and nobody moved. More than 60 people crowded into a room in Singapore to watch seven properties seized in one of the world’s biggest money-laundering cases go under the hammer. Their opening prices totalled more than S$43 million (US$33.6 million). But when bidding began for a luxury unit at Gramercy Park, an upscale condominium near the city state’s Orchard Road shopping district, not a single hand went up. Next came a 2,658 sq ft (247 square metres)...

Companies from the United States, Britain and Singapore have been among the leading sources of inbound foreign capital in Hong Kong so far this year, the city’s commerce minister has said, insisting that “money is money” despite geopolitical instability. In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with the South China Morning Post, Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Algernon Yau Ying-wah described 2026 as a very challenging year because of the geopolitical situation. Nevertheless, the...

Malaysia’s capital topped a global pollution ranking on Wednesday and nearby Singapore came in third, with smoke from wildfires in neighbouring Indonesia blamed for the unhealthy conditions. A milky haze has shrouded the cities for more than a month as smoke drifted from fires on Borneo and Sumatra islands. Kuala Lumpur was the world’s most polluted major city early on Wednesday, according to Swiss monitor IQAir, with an Air Quality Index (AQI) reading of 166. Singapore ranked third at 155. The...

Singaporean state-owned investor Temasek Holdings is expanding its operations across the Middle East, opening new offices in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates from 2027 as it ramps up investments across the region.

A 30-year-old man was charged on Tuesday over an AI-generated image of a crocodile at Pandan Reservoir in Singapore that prompted authorities to search for the reptile and suspend water activities there. Ye Lin, a Myanmar national, was handed two charges – one count of communicating a false message and one count of obstructing the course of justice. Speaking through an interpreter, he told the court that he intended to plead guilty, and would not be engaging a lawyer. On August 20, Ye Lin...

Singapore and China should look to the next phase of cooperation through potential projects in artificial intelligence and the green economy, after decades of economic ties anchored by industrial parks, eco-cities and transport corridors. Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong said on Friday that the relationship had “never been static”, arguing that the economic challenges of each era shaped the flagship developments of that time. At the FutureChina Global Forum held in the city state,...

The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) is looking into a social media allegation that dog meat was being sold illegally in Singapore. The screengrabs shared on the Facebook group Dogs Singapore appeared to show an advertisement in Vietnamese offering various cuts of dog meat. A check on Friday morning found that the post containing the screengrab had been deleted. SFA has not approved any source of dog meat, the agency said early on Friday morning. “All food imports must meet SFA’s requirements....

Singapore police have launched an investigation after a video of a man allegedly filming female students using smart glasses went viral, sparking concerns about privacy and safety. In the social media video, a man wearing black-rimmed glasses and a face mask is seen walking behind two female students wearing what appear to be uniforms from Raffles Institution, a premier school in the city state. The girls seem unaware of his presence. The man clutches his phone to his chest and presses what...

While starting salaries for fresh graduates and entry-level workers in Singapore continue to creep upwards, the number of people in entry-level roles is shrinking, according to new data, indicating an increasingly tough job market for those at the start of their careers. Data published last month by global professional services firm Aon showed a 2.5 per cent year-on-year salary increase for entry-level employees, alongside a 3.2 per cent drop in entry-level headcount. The findings come as...

Singaporeans are among the most open to allowing an artificial intelligence agent to shop for them, but they also want the strictest guard rails, research shows. The latest agentic AI study from Global Payments released on Wednesday indicates the hoops agentic AI will need to jump through to be trusted to make purchases without human intervention. The study, which surveyed seven countries including the United States, China and the United Kingdom, found 59 per cent of Singaporeans are open to an...

The rivalry between Hong Kong and Singapore to attract global talent is heating up again. Bloomberg's Venus Feng and Cindy Wang size up the merits of the Asian finance hubs. (Source: Bloomberg)

Property firm New World Development Co. is in talks to sell its 50% stake in a Hong Kong hotel to Singapore’s UOL Group Ltd., according to people familiar with the matter.

Verified footage appears to show a cargo ship colliding with a fishing boat near Singapore, with investigators still working to establish exactly when and how the crash happened.

When Jordan Seow joined OpenAI in June 2025, he became the company’s first locally hired forward-deployed engineer in Asia-Pacific, joining a Singapore office that then had fewer than 20 employees. The 29-year-old is now part of a fast-growing workforce built in Singapore by the world’s leading artificial intelligence companies. Experts say the city state is emerging as a regional hub – not for training the latest AI models, but for the increasingly crucial task of deploying and adapting them...

Waymo plans to launch its robotaxi service in Singapore in 2028, giving the US company its first foothold in Southeast Asia. Fully electric Jaguar I-Pace vehicles were due to arrive in the city state in the coming months, ahead of preparations for a commercial launch, the company said on Friday. From 2027, trained autonomous specialists will manually drive the vehicles to help Waymo adapt its technology to Singapore’s road layouts, monsoon conditions and other local features. The service is...

A diagnosed paedophile who sexually abused 11 girls over 33 years, with the acts ranging from molestation to rape, was sentenced by a Singapore court on Thursday to 21 years’ jail. The victims were as young as five, and included his daughter, granddaughters, nieces and students at an enrichment centre he ran with his wife. The judge noted that the jail term should not be crushing or amount to a life sentence for the 71-year-old man, who suffers from a rare blood cancer called myelofibrosis. At...

The BBC goes inside a fortified storage facility to view luxury goods seized by Singapore police in a $2.2 billion money laundering case that are now up for auction.

Singapore’s ministers are among the world’s highest paid, a system its leaders have defended as necessary to attract capable people into public service and reduce the temptation of corruption. Its latest salary review has once again put the spotlight on that approach, while highlighting a wider regional divide over how Asian governments value political leadership and public service. Under the city state’s formula, the prime minister’s salary is pegged at twice the benchmark for an entry-level...

Singapore’s most decorated chemist has confirmed he will leave his current position to join the fledgling Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT) in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, eastern China. Lu Yixin, a professor with the National University of Singapore (NUS), told the South China Morning Post that he plans to move to the private research institute in early 2027, in a full-time role. Lu is a fellow of the Singapore National Academy of Science and president of the Singapore National Institute of...

Singapore’s Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing is set to visit China from Tuesday to Thursday at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart Dong Jun and will speak at the Beijing Xiangshan Forum for the second consecutive year. His visit comes as defence analysts tell This Week in Asia that ties with Beijing are important for the city state’s balancing strategy with Washington. Singapore and the United States are close strategic partners with deep defence cooperation. Singapore’s defence ministry...

Singapore’s openness to chemical castration for sex offenders has cast light on the ethical questions surrounding the treatment, with the discussion centred on whether it would fill any gap left by existing legislation. Experts point to how safeguards would be set regarding who receives the treatment, the duration of the process and if resulting medical consequences would be proportional to the offence. The debate comes after Senior Minister and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam’s written...

Singaporean and Chinese students led the world in educational performance in 2025, according to an assessment by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, as average scores across OECD countries reached a record low. The 2025 Programme for International Student Assessment comprised 760,000 15-year-old students across 91 countries and economies, including OECD members and partners. This edition of the survey was the largest since the OECD first administered the triennial...

Singapore’s evolution from colonial trading port to high-tech financial center has been held up as an example to follow for decades. But does it still provide a blueprint in this era of rising protectionism, AI disruption, and geopolitical rivalry? In Emerging, Haslinda Amin sits down with Singapore Ambassador-at-Large Chan Heng Chee and Pushan Dutt, professor of economics and political science at INSEAD, to discuss what drove Singapore’s rise, why China and Vietnam successfully adapted parts of its model, and why many others including India have struggled to replicate that success. (Source: Bloomberg)

Four Chinese nationals, including a woman, claimed trial at the Sessions Court in Balik Pulau, Malaysia’s Penang state, on Thursday to charges of kidnapping a Singaporean man. The accused: Liu Ting Jun, 46; Huang Jin, 39; Wang Hao Yu, 32; and Guan Siqi, 24, pleaded not guilty after the charge was read to them in Mandarin before Sessions Court Judge Ahzal Fariz Ahmad Khairuddin. According to the charge sheet, the four are alleged to have acted jointly to abduct and wrongfully confine 72-year-old...

A 22-year-old man pleaded guilty on Tuesday to teaming up with friends to steal nearly a quarter-billion dollars in bitcoin from a Washington resident – one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts in US history – and then embarking on a wild spending spree with the laundered proceeds. Malone Lam, an eighth-grade dropout who came to the US from Singapore, faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years after pleading guilty to a federal racketeering conspiracy charge. US District Judge Colleen...

Singapore remains open to considering chemical castration as a measure to tackle sex crimes if there is clear evidence that it is effective in reducing crime, Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam has said. However, the evidence so far was inconclusive, he said in a written parliamentary reply on Tuesday. “We remain open to considering measures including pharmacological anti-androgen treatments, also known as chemical castrations, if it is clear that such measures are effective in bringing down...

Singapore’s ministers will receive progressive salary increases, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has announced. The entry-level ministerial salary benchmark will rise to S$1.8 million (US$1.4 million) from S$1.1 million, while the prime minister’s pay benchmark will increase to S$3.6 million from S$2.2 million, in line with recommendations made by an independent committee. Wong said during a ministerial statement in parliament on Tuesday that he would donate the increase in his salary to “suitable...

Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong warned against a recent spate of racist comments being made online, saying prejudice should not be allowed to become normalised in the multiracial city state. Wong said in a social media post on Sunday that an “uglier side” had emerged in recent online discussions, including remarks about Singaporeans caught in deadly floods in Nepal and debate over Singapore Airlines’ potential investment in Air India. “We can and should have robust debates,” he said. “But...

Global oil markets are showing fresh signs of strain after months of war, as conflict-weary traders, anxious buyers, and under-pressure executives huddle in Singapore for the region’s main industry gathering.