TOP OF THE NEWS
Asean 'split over S. China Sea'
China's "four-point consensus" with Brunei, Cambodia and Laos on the South China Sea issue points to foreign policy fault lines in Asean, analysts say. The agreement that territorial disputes over islands, rocks and shoals in the South China Sea are "not an issue between China and Asean" is seen as scuttling any joint approach to the issue by the South-east Asian grouping.
TOP OF THE NEWS
Banana supplies to Singapore are steady despite fears over a disease that is damaging the global crop. An outbreak of the Tropical Race 4 strain of the Panama disease has spread across Asia and parts of the Middle East, Australia and Africa.
WORLD
The heatwave in South and South-east Asia is hitting crops and livestock, exacerbated by the El Nino phenomenon that has caused widespread drought. Farmers in countries like Malaysia, Thailand, India, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos are staring at a prolonged dry season, topped with escalating temperatures that have crossed 40 deg C.
HOME
New Safra Punggol to hold land-and-water race
The new Safra Punggol club will organise a race that features kayaking, cycling, running and obstacles such as water slides in June to mark its opening. The five-storey club opened yesterday to serve some 80,000 national servicemen and their families in the north-east.
WORLD
Wealth disparities are now greater than at any other time in history, with the gap widening between the highly affluent and everyone else. This is clear on a new cruise liner, where a "haven" has been created for elite guests that most of the 4,200 passengers will never see.
OPINION
The interplay between Iran, Saudi Arabia and Russia will shape the region for years to come, and theirs will be a story of confrontation, punctuated by gestures of cooperation, one of marriages of convenience, says Europe Correspondent Jonathan Eyal.
HOME
The Chinese Development Assistance Council plans to step up efforts to inform the elderly about government schemes to help them. To do so, the self-help group plans to develop its pool of volunteers who are conversant in dialects.
BUSINESS
Singapore could be deploying its first two floating LNG units in the years to come as a means of meeting the country's energy needs. The Energy Market Authority has singled out two sites where floating storage and regasification complexes or other equivalents could be berthed.
SPORT
Responding to Tampines Rovers' request for advances on subsidies due to the club, Football Association of Singapore president Zainudin Nordin said teams must adhere to established processes and that there will be no special treatment. "The S-League," he explained, "has its processes that clubs must abide by."
LIFE
Seven-time Emmy winner Julia Louis-Dreyfus thinks political comedy Veep has become more true to life, given the current US political climate. The actress, who plays Selina Meyer, a bumbling but ambitious US vice-president, said: "Originally, when we started doing Veep, we thought of it as satire - and now it feels like a sombre documentary."
What it should have been
In last Saturday's report, "Enforcement and breach details", we said Challenger Technologies had wrongfully revealed members' names, membership numbers and points. It had wrongfully disclosed only members' names and points. We are sorry for the error.
