Myanmar quake: SMART team to return home Monday, says Foreign Minister

NAY PYI TAW (Myanmar): The Special Search and Rescue Team of Malaysia (SMART) to assist earthquake victims in Myanmar will end its operations and return home on Monday. Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan said that apart from the search and rescue (SAR) operation by SMART having ended, it needs to be stopped because no more survivors...

Indonesia and Malaysia coordinate response to US tariffs, emphasising Asean unity

JAKARTA,(Xinhua): Indonesia's Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs has announced that Indonesia was working closely with Malaysia to respond to new reciprocal tariffs imposed by the United States. According to a press release issued by the ministry Friday, the announcement came following a series of high-level meetings between Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto and senior...

Five people confirmed killed, nine others injured after van falls into ravine in the Philippines

MANILA (Bernama-Xinhua): A van carrying tourists plunged into a 50-metre ravine in the northern Philippines, killing five passengers on board and injuring nine more, police said Saturday, reported Xinhua. The police said the accident happened around 10 pm local time on Friday in Sadanga, a town in the Mountain Province, north of Manila. According to the investigation,...

Trump administration appoints junior officer to oversee US Foreign Service – sources

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration has appointed a national security lawyer who entered the foreign service just four years ago as the top official overseeing the State Department's global workforce, according to three sources familiar with the matter and an internal email seen by Reuters. The hiring of Lew Olowski to run the department's Global...

Bushfire triggers evacuation order in Southeast Perth

SYDNEY: (Bernama-Xinhua) An out-of-control bushfire burning in the suburbs of Perth, the capital city of Australia's state of Western Australia (WA), has prompted an emergency evacuation warning, reported Xinhua. Residents of parts of the suburb of Ferndale, 10 km southeast of central Perth, were on Thursday (April 3) morning advised to leave immediately due to the...

Wall Street set to plunge as Trump tariffs rout dollar

LONDON: World stocks, the dollar and oil all tumbled on Thursday as President Donald Trump’s drastic new U.S. trade tariffs stoked fears of a global recession and led investors to seek safe-haven assets like bonds and the yen. A new baseline 10% tariff on imported goods plus some eye-watering reciprocal tariffs on dozens of countries that...

Russia and Ukraine trade new accusations on breaches of energy truce

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia and Ukraine accused each other on Wednesday of launching new attacks against each other's energy facilities, in violation of a U.S.-brokered moratorium. Both sides said they were providing details of the alleged violations to the United States, which persuaded Moscow and Kyiv to agree to the limited truce last month as a hoped-for...

Soccer-Man City’s Haaland sidelined for up to seven weeks, says Guardiola

(Reuters) -Manchester City striker Erling Haaland will be out of action for up to seven weeks after suffering an ankle injury, manager Pep Guardiola said ahead of Wednesday's Premier League home game against relegation-threatened Leicester City. The 24-year-old Norway international, who has scored 30 goals in 40 matches in all competitions this season for City, picked...

Over 30 arrested, close to S$1mil seized in Singapore’s islandwide blitz against impersonation scams

SINGAPORE: More than 30 people were arrested and over 240 bank accounts were frozen following an islandwide police operation against government official impersonation scams. In a statement on Tuesday (April 1), the police said 27 men and seven women - aged between 17 and 46 - were nabbed during raids targeting suspects who gave their bank...

Four Chinese nationals who removed files from collapsed Thai building charged

BANGKOK: Authorities have charged four Chinese nationals for illegally removing 32 files of documents from the collapsed 34-storey State Audit Office (SAO) building, which was destroyed by an earthquake on March 28. A legal officer from the Chatuchak District Office’s municipal affairs division filed a complaint at Bang Sue Police Station against five Chinese individuals accused...