Singapore Budget 2015: Govt not going for 'Robin Hood' strategy, says Tharman
Budget 2015 is not about taking from the rich to give to the poor, but about everyone sharing in the "collective responsibility" of building a better Singapore for the future, said Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam on Tuesday.
Among the highlights of Monday's Budget was a move to raise taxes for the highest income earners, partly to fund new social spending such as the Silver Support Scheme, which will give cash payouts to the poorest elderly folk.
But while it is "fair" that extra aid for the needy is paid for by those who can most afford it, the Government is not embarking on a "Robin Hood" strategy, Mr Tharman said in an hour-long "live" discussion aired on Channel 5 last night.
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Eight dead in gun rampage at Czech restaurant
An apparently unstable armed man burst into a restaurant in an eastern Czech town on Tuesday, killing eight people before committing suicide, officials said.
The interior minister ruled out terrorism as a motive for the rampage at the "Friendship" restaurant in the town of Uhersky Brod, which saw panicked diners flee through a back door as two dozen shots rang out.
Nerves are running high in Europe after the deadly Islamist attacks in Paris in January that left 17 people dead, and the Copenhagen shootings earlier this month that claimed two lives.
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Fifty Shades of Grey movie inspired Chicago sex assault: prosecutors
Prosecutors in Chicago say a college student accused of sexual assault was inspired by the newly-released movie version of Fifty Shades of Grey.
Mohammad Hossain, 19, was detained on US$500,000 (S$681,230) bail after he appeared in court on Monday, the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday.
Prosecutors said he told police that he and his alleged victim were re-enacting scenes from Fifty Shades of Grey in his dorm room last Saturday.
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British police believe missing schoolgirls have crossed into Syria
British police said on Tuesday they believed that three London schoolgirls who travelled to Turkey in an apparent effort to join Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants have now crossed into Syria.
Friends Amira Abase, 15, Shamima Begum, 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16, flew to Istanbul from London on Feb 17.
The girls' plight has prompted widespread concern in Britain, with Prime Minister David Cameron urging social media firms to do more to deal with online extremism, saying the girls appeared to have been radicalised "in their bedrooms".
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007 gets licence to eat in Rome
Daniel Craig has been taking advantage of new James Bond movie Spectre being shot in Rome to sample the local cuisine in between high-speed car chases around the Eternal City.
The famously super-toned 007 star has reportedly been spotted in a number of the local eateries, whose menus rarely offer much succour to the diet conscious.
The British actor was snapped coming out of one of them, Dal Bolognese, with the button of his jacket apparently under some strain from a well-filled stomach, an image that helped win him praise from the Italian media for his "aBONDant" appetite.
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