TOP OF THE NEWS
Fresh evidence of China's economic slowdown sent world stock markets tumbling yesterday, with Europe following Asia sharply lower in a gloomy start to 2016. Shanghai equities plunged 7 per cent, leading an Asian meltdown, as more weak factory data fanned fears about the health of the world's second-biggest economy.
TOP OF THE NEWS
Members of the public can now check a new register set up by the Life Insurance Association to see if it has listed policies with outstanding unclaimed maturity proceeds belonging to them or their dead kin. The proceeds are from thousands of small-value policies. As at end-September, there were 8,185 policyholders with payouts due to them.
WORLD
Afghan special forces (above) fought with insurgents barricaded in a house near the Indian Consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif city yesterday after an overnight attack that coincided with an assault on an Indian air base near the border with Pakistan. India is mulling over whether to go ahead with talks with Pakistan.
WORLD
China's Central Military Commission will get a higher profile if the newly announced military reforms are implemented by 2020. The move is to prevent any of the departments under the People's Liberation Army from becoming too powerful.
OPINION
Are single-bed rooms in nursing homes a luxury? Research on dementia care shows that patients who sleep in their own rooms stay better longer than those who live in institutionalised set-ups. This is a good time to talk about the kind of homes we want to live in as we age, say Gerald Koh and Philip Yap.
HOME
The widow of a taxi driver who died a year after a car rammed into the back of his parked taxi has settled her civil suit against the driver of the car for $240,000. Mr Mohamed Amin Abdul Manap, 56, died a year after the accident in 2013, which had left him paralysed.
HOME
S'pore leads in IB top scorers
Singapore accounted for more than half of the students with perfect scores in the latest International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma examinations conducted in November last year.
It had 48 students with the maximum score of 45 out of 81 top scorers worldwide.
BUSINESS
SIA ups offer price for Tigerair
Singapore Airlines has increased its offer price for Tigerair shares from 41 cents a share to 45 cents. This is its final offer, SIA said yesterday. The revised offer comes after SIA said on Dec 29 that it owns, controls or has agreed to acquire about 74.5 per cent of the budget carrier's shares - short of the 90 per cent required for the move to succeed.
SPORT
Super Rugby underdogs will take away hard lessons: Coach
It will be a near-impossible task for the debutant Sunwolves to qualify for the Super Rugby quarter-finals but the Japanese side will give it their best shot, said head coach Mark Hammett, a former All Black. And good results will aid the development of rugby in Japan, the next World Cup hosts.
LIFE
Come October, a brooding opera from legendary German composer Richard Wagner will be staged in full in Singapore for the first time. The Richard Wagner Association (Singapore) and OperaViva, in association with theatre firm The Finger Players, will present The Flying Dutchman, an 1843 opera about a captain cursed to sail the seas endlessly on a ghostly ship.
LIFE
Having vanquished Titanic (1997) and Jurassic World (2015), Star Wars:The Force Awakens has set its sights on Avatar (2009). The space opera sequel is moving up the all-time American domestic box-office charts at a record clip. It has generated US$740.4 million (S$1.1 billion) and should take the crown from Avatar next week.
