NewsLite

A 31-year-old man will be charged in court on Wednesday (July 15) with driving under the influence of etomidate, dangerous driving and other traffic offences after he was allegedly involved in seven traffic accidents.

In a statement on Tuesday, the police said the incidents took place between Oct 21, 2024 and Feb 6, 2025.

In the most recent case, at about 8am, police were alerted to an accident involving a car and a lorry along Punggol North Avenue.

Investigations found that the man, who was driving the car, had allegedly driven against the flow of traffic on a three-lane road before colliding head-on with the lorry. No one was injured.

SINGAPORE - The High Court on July 14 awarded Cabinet ministers K. Shanmugam and Tan See Leng each $230,000 in damages after ruling in their favour in the defamation suit they brought against news provider Bloomberg and its journalist.

The case arose from a Bloomberg article published on Dec 12, 2024, titled “Singapore mansion deals are increasingly shrouded in secrecy”, which mentioned transactions involving Good Class Bungalows (GCBs) in Singapore.

The article included the ministers’ property deals in 2023 – the sale of Mr Shanmugam’s former home in the Queen Astrid Park area to UBS Trustees for $88 million and Dr Tan’s non-caveated purchase of a bungalow in Brizay Park for nearly $27.3 million.

In a written judgment on July 14, Justice Audrey Lim found the natural and ordinary meaning of the article is that the ministers took advantage of the absence of checks and balances or disclosure requirements to conduct their property transactions in a non-transparent manner, and that they did so in order to hide their transactions and avoid scrutiny that might extend to the possibility of money laundering.

While the relationship between Singapore and Malaysia since independence has had its complications, the main story between the two neighbours remains one of cooperation across many fields, said President Tharman Shanmugaratnam on Monday (July 13).

He was speaking to some 150 Singaporeans living and working in Malaysia at a reception held at Singapore's High Commission in Kuala Lumpur.

President Tharman, noting that there are about 120,000 Singaporeans living and working there, said each one of them plays an important role towards bilateral relations.

Turning to the sense of "ease and familiarity" with being in Malaysia, the President suggested this comes from the two countries being immediate neighbours, and their common history – going back to before British colonial rule, and extending to the tumultuous 1960s and eventual separation.

Oil prices rose on Tuesday (July 14) to their highest in four weeks, after the US reimposed a naval blockade of Iran and renewed attacks between Washington and Tehran heightened concerns over energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz.

Brent crude rose to its highest since June 12 and WTI to its highest since June 16 — before the US and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding to end the conflict on June 17.

Brent crude futures were up US$3.17 (S$4.10), or 3.81 per cent, at US$86.47 per barrel at 9.41 am GMT (5.41pm SGT), while US West Texas Intermediate crude rose US$2.15, or 2.75 per cent, to US$80.29 a barrel.

"Despite signing the memorandum of understanding and having a deal, this did not last for even a few weeks. So that's the concern the market is trying to price right now," said ANZ analyst Soni Kumari.

BANGKOK — At first, only thick smoke billowed out of the front entrance of the bar in northern Bangkok. It was around midnight.

Within seconds, an intense horizontal plume of fire gushed out of the doorway leading to the street, according to a video posted on social media and verified by Reuters.

Screams and shrieks filled the air.

Outside for a cigarette, Usa Tadsree at first noticed the lights flicker inside and then spotted the smoke.

An elderly woman in China suffered four broken ribs after she was allegedly attacked by her daughter-in-law during a dispute over childcare.

The woman's husband, identified by his surname Jiao, accused his mother, Shen, of refusing to help care for his children, local media reported.

Videos of an interview circulating on Chinese social media platform Weibo show Jiao recounting the dispute. He said his son was feeling unwell and had told his mother that Shen refused to take his temperature.

The boy's mother then travelled from Henan to Shen's home via a high-speed train. The journey took about an hour.

BEIJING — China's foreign ministry on Tuesday (July 14) called the European side to be cautious in its words and deeds on the South China Sea and stop endorsing the "illegal ruling" to prevent impact on China-EU ties and co-operation.

"Europe is not a party to the South China Sea issue and has no right to comment on China's legitimate territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea," foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a daily press briefing.

The comments came after a joint statement issued on Sunday by countries including some European nations said China's expansive maritime claims in the South China Sea have no legal basis, followed by a relevant statement from the EU.

China has also summoned officials of the embassies of relevant countries in China and the EU delegation to China and lodged serious representations with them, Lin said.

Justin Baldoni has called on a judge to deny or "substantially reduce" Blake Lively's request for US$8 million (S$10 million) in legal fees.

The It Ends with Us co-stars were locked in a legal dispute since December 2024, when Blake accused Justin — who also directed the film — of sexual harassment and coordinating a smear campaign against her, prompting him and his Wayfarer Studios to hit back with a countersuit against the 38-year-old actress and her husband Ryan Reynolds, accusing the Hollywood couple of defamation and extortion.

In April, the couple reached an out-of-court settlement, but now the 42-year-old filmmaker has filed a request for a federal judge regarding her latest request.

Blake has called for US$8 million in attorney's fees, plus "US$539,514.01 in costs and expenses".

BEIJING — China's smartphone shipments fell 4.3 per cent to 66 million units in the second quarter from a year earlier, as many manufacturers hiked prices to reflect rising memory and component costs, research firm IDC said on Tuesday (July 14).

It was the fifth straight quarterly decline, and first-half shipments were down 4.2 per cent from a year earlier.

Huawei Technologies and Apple were the only vendors to post growth in the quarter, with shipments up 19.4 per cent and 24.4 per cent, respectively.

"Huawei and Apple held their prices steady while competitors were raising theirs, and that gave hesitant buyers a reason to go ahead and purchase in a quarter when most of the market was giving them a reason to wait," said Arthur Guo, a senior analyst at IDC China.

TOKYO — The development of AI will require investment of US$5 trillion (S$6.4 trillion) each year by 2040, and any talk of a bubble forming around the technology is "absurd", SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son said on Tuesday (July 14).

Over the past two years, the technology investment group has embarked on an expansive investment programme to establish itself as a core AI platform, putting tens of billions into OpenAI, financing data centres and investing in robotics firms.

"Every year US$5 trillion, or 800 trillion yen (S$6.4 trillion), you might think that's a lie, but I am confident that's what it will cost," Son said at SoftBank's annual corporate conference in Tokyo.

"The business model will be viable because by 2040, if AI revenue makes up 20 per cent of global GDP, spending 800 trillion yen a year is a rounding error," Son said.