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This year's Asian Academy Creative Awards also saw several wins from Singapore media network Mediacorp.

Emerald Hill actress Ivory Chia won the best supporting actress award at this year's Asian Academy Creative Awards.

(Photo: YouTube/Asian Academy Creative Awards)

Nine-year-old child actress Ivory Chia nabbed the award for best actress in a supporting role (Asia-Pacific) at this year's Asian Academy Creative Awards (AACA) for her performance in the hit Mediacorp series Emerald Hill.

AACA 2025 was held on Thursday (Dec 4) night at the Capitol Theatre in Singapore.

Chia's win comes just two months after she clinched the title of best actress in a supporting role (Singapore), which qualified her to compete in the Asia-Pacific category.

Other nominees in the same category include Korean actress and Oscar winner Youn Yuh-jung (Pachinko 2), Taiwanese star Fang Wenlin (Though Dead, Still Alive), TVB actress Yoyo Chen (DID 12) and Chinese actress He Ruixian (Feud).

With this, Chia is also the youngest actor to ever win at the AACA, which just concluded its eighth edition.

Chia made a name for herself with her standout performance as young Xinniang (aka Tasha Low) – a child beggar raised by Chen Liping’s compulsive gambler Ah Zhu – in the 2025 The Little Nyonya spin-off. At the

ceremony, Chia arrived in a striking blue-and-pink floral sarong kebaya. When h

NEW DELHI, Dec 5 : India's government is reviewing a telecom industry proposal to force smartphone firms to enable satellite location tracking that is always activated for better surveillance, a move opposed by Apple, Google and Samsung due to privacy concerns, according to documents, emails and five sources.

A fierce privacy debate erupted in India this week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government was forced to rescind an order requiring smartphone makers to preload a state-run cyber safety app on all devices after activists and politicians raised concerns about potential snooping.

For years, the Modi administration has been concerned its agencies do not get precise locations when legal requests are made to telecom firms during investigations.

Under the current system, the firms are limited to using cellular tower data that can only provide an estimated area location, which can be off by several meters.

The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents Reliance's Jio and Bharti Airtel, has proposed that precise user locations should only be provided if the government orders smartphone makers to activate A-GPS technology - which uses satellite signals and cellular data - according to a June internal federal IT ministry email.

That would require location services to always be activated in smartphones with no option for users to disable them.

Apple, Samsung and Alphabet's Google have told New Delhi that should not be mandated, said three of the sources who have direct knowledge of the deliberations.

A measure to track device-level location has no precedent anywhere else in the world, lobbying group India Cellular & Electronics Association (ICEA), which represents both Apple and Google, wrote in a confidential July letter to the government, which was viewed by Reuters.

"The A-GPS network service ... (is) not deployed or supported for location surveillance," said the letter, which added that the measure "would be a regulatory overreach."

India's home ministry had scheduled a meeting of top smartphone industry executives to discuss the matter on Friday but it was postponed, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Floods across Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Malaysia have killed more than 1,500 people, with Indonesia bearing the brunt of the human loss.

Women walk in an area affected by a deadly flash flood following heavy rains in Aceh Tamiang regency, Aceh province, Indonesia, on Dec 4, 2025.

(Photo: Reuters/Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana)

TUKKA, Indonesia: Survivors in Indonesia were piecing back shattered lives Friday (Dec 5) after devastating floods killed more than 1,500 people across four countries, with fears of fresh misery as more rain looms.

Indonesia has borne the brunt, with its toll rising to 837 dead and 545 missing, authorities said, many in Sumatra's northern Aceh province where more than 800,000 people have been displaced.

Sri Lanka has reported 486 deaths, Thailand 276 and Malaysia two.

Many survivors in Sumatra were counting the cost of the deluge that started last week, leading to destructive flash-flooding and landslides.

"Our house was covered by soil up to the ceiling," said Rumita Laurasibuea.

"Around the house, there were piles of wood."

The 42-year-old government employee, now sheltering in a school, told AFP that recovering from the flood's impact "could take more than a year".

Passengers wait outside the IndiGo airlines' ticket counter after several flights were cancelled at Mumbai Airport Terminal 1 in Mumbai, India, on Dec 5, 2025.

(Photo: Reuters/Francis Mascarenhas)

MUMBAI: IndiGo will cancel around 500 flights on Friday (Dec 5) in India, with all departures from New Delhi grounded, amid a deepening crisis at the country's largest airline that has admitted it failed to plan for new flight duty timings imposed on pilots.

The crisis, in its fourth day, has jolted the airline, which has over 60 per cent market share and left thousands of passengers stranded across the country, in what has emerged as the biggest challenge for the carrier ever.

IndiGo plans to cancel 104 flights in Mumbai, 102 in Bengaluru, 92 in Hyderabad, airport sources familiar with the developments told Reuters.

They declined to be named because they were not authorised to share the information.

Delhi airport announced all IndiGo departures were cancelled for the day, a number a source put at 235 flights.

On Thursday, IndiGo told the regulator its operations would be fully restored by Feb 10.

It asked for relief from some provisions that limit pilot duty hours at night.

Indigo said the disruptions have arisen primarily from “misjudgment and planning gaps” in implementing the new pilot duty rules, which increased the amount of mandatory rest per week for pilots by 12 hours to 48 hours, effective Nov 1. In a

TOKYO, Dec 5 : Investors seeking clarity from the Bank of Japan on how much higher interest rates could go could be disappointed, former central bank officials say, as clear-cut estimates on neutral interest rates are too difficult and even counter-productive.

Governor Kazuo Ueda's hawkish signals on Monday have led markets to almost fully price in the chance of a hike in the BOJ's policy rate to 0.75 per cent from 0.5 per cent in December.

He also said the central bank will offer clearer guidance on how far its policy rate is from the neutral rate - or the level that neither stimulates nor cools growth - heightening attention to what signals he may drop on the future rate-hike path.

The BOJ's current estimates suggest Japan's nominal neutral rate of interest lies somewhere in a range of 1 per cent to 2.5 per cent.

As a hike to 0.75 per cent would bring the policy rate close to the bottom of the range, some analysts bet the BOJ will revise up the neutral rate estimate to tell markets that it can still keep hiking rates without hurting the economy.

While BOJ officials have been tight-lipped, former central bank officials doubt it will disclose any precise, new estimate of the neutral rate that meets market expectations.

"I won't expect too much to come out from the BOJ," said Seisaku Kameda, the BOJ's former top economist, predicting Ueda may indicate where within the wide range the neutral rate could be - but not give any further clarity.

"When there's so much uncertainty, you don't want to tie your hands by committing to a set figure.

You need constructive ambiguity to leave yourself policy flexibility," said Kameda, who was involved in drafting the BOJ's economic forecasts.

Ayako Fujita, also a former BOJ official who is now chief Japan economist at JPMorgan, expects the BOJ to stress that 1.0 per cent is just the bottom of the estimated neutral rate range, and that the actual rate could be higher.

FILE PHOTO: Amazon logo is seen in this illustration created on February 11, 2025.

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

ROME, Dec 5 : An Italian unit of e-commerce giant Amazon has paid compensation and scrapped a monitoring system for delivery staff, ending a probe into alleged tax fraud and illegal labour practices, sources with knowledge of the matter said on Friday.

In July 2024 the group's logistics services unit was accused of circumventing labour and tax laws, relying on cooperatives or limited liability companies that supplied it with workers, avoiding VAT tax and reducing social security payments.

At the time, Milan prosecutors seized 121 million euros from the unit.

The group has now paid around 180 million euros ($209.83 million) to the Italian tax agency as part of a wider 1-billion-euro settlement involving 33 companies that had been targeted by similar investigations in Milan, the two sources said.

These include Italian units of DHL, FedEx and Ups, and Italian supermarket chain Esselunga, they added.

News of the settlement was first reported by Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper.

Under the deal, the companies that were under investigation also agreed to directly employ more than 50,000 workers who were previously hired indirectly through the cooperatives, the paper and the sources said.

Our chief editor shares analysis and picks of the week's biggest news every Saturday.

Teenagers pose for a photo while holding smartphones in front of a TikTok logo in this illustration taken on Sep 11, 2025.

(File photo: Reuters/Dado Ruvic)

SYDNEY: TikTok said on Friday (Dec 5) it will comply with Australia's imminent ban on under-16s joining social media on the day it comes into force, but told users the changes "may be upsetting".

Australia's world-first legislation comes into effect on Dec 10, curbing the world's most popular social media platforms and websites, including TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.

Companies face fines of A$49.5 million (US$32 million) if they fail to take "reasonable steps" to comply.

TikTok will block under-16s in Australia on the day the law comes into effect, it said, meaning they will no longer be able to hold or create an account.

"Teens with an existing account will be notified that they will no longer be able to use their existing account, which will become inactive," it said.

"If they previously published content, it will no longer be available for others to view on TikTok."

The social media giant said youngsters who have been blocked can submit an appeal to prove their age, including by facial images, credit card authorisation or official ID.

Teens who fall under the law will have a choice of confirming their age, downloading their information, deleting their account, or asking for a reminder to recover their TikTok accounts when they turn 16.

On Friday (Dec 5), Google unveiled the 2025 edition of its annual Year In Search lists, which highlight the topics that captured the attention of Singaporeans in 2025.

Barbie Hsu and Ian Fang.

(Photos: Instagram/barbiehsu.fp, 8world)

On Friday (Dec 5), Google unveiled the 2025 edition of its annual Year In Search lists, which highlight the topics that captured the attention of Singaporeans this year.

Among the top 10 trending searches in Singapore this year are the late Barbie Hsu and Charlie Kirk – both of whom died this year. Th

e two ranked at number eight and number two, respectively. "S

G60 voucher" was another topic of interest for those in Singapore, coming in at number six. In

terestingly, a few unexpected terms made the top 10 list, including "COPD [Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease] treatment" at number four and "mortgage quote" at number three. Th

e number one trending search in Singapore is DeepSeek, the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company. He

re is the list of the top 10 trending Google searches in Singapore in 2025: 1.

Diving - World Aquatics Championships - Mixed 3m & 10m Team - Finals - OCBC Aquatic Centre, Singapore - July 26, 2025 Ukraine's Sofiia Lyskun in action REUTERS/Hollie Adams

Dec 5 : Ukraine's diving federation said it has stripped Sofiia Lyskun of her titles following her decision to switch allegiance to Russia.

The 23-year-old, who represented Ukraine at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the Paris Games last year, revealed the switch in an interview with a Russian newspaper earlier this week.

The federation said Lyskun had not informed them, her coaching staff or Ukraine's sports ministry about her decision.

"Such steps are categorically unacceptable," it said in a statement.

"They discredit not only an individual athlete, but also the entire team of Ukraine which every day selflessly fights for the right to represent our country in the international arena.

"The Diving Federation of Ukraine will also appeal to international sports institutions with a requirement to apply sports quarantine to this athlete in accordance with current international standards," it added.

Russian and Belarusian athletes were banned from World Aquatics events after Moscow's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but some of their athletes competed as neutrals in the Paris Olympics as the restrictions were eased.

There was no response from the Russia's federation to a Reuters request for comment outside normal business hours.

Lyskun told Russian outlet Izvestia that she made the decision to switch allegiance after realising she was no longer growing under her coaches in Ukraine and that they were "all gymnasts or trampoline athletes".

After the NBA’s blockbuster return to Macau, China is going all in - calling for foreign investment, boosting homegrown basketball talent, and setting its sights on the 2028 Olympics. BE

IJING: China has announced ambitious goals to further promote and develop basketball in the country following the NBA's recent successful return - which include prioritising talent, encouraging high‑quality foreign investment and also setting targets for its national teams to qualify for the 2028 Olympics. In a

statement released on Thursday (Dec 4), the General Administration of Sport of China (GASC) unveiled a series of guidelines and measures for provinces, municipalities and relevant associations, institutions and enterprises. Effo

rts will focus on “improving youth, grassroots, and professional basketball” while “encouraging open competition” and “promoting comprehensive development and pilot reforms”, GASC said, also calling for high-quality foreign investment and overseas leagues and training institutions to establish operations in China. It also set ambi

tious targets for Chinese national basketball teams. The men’s team s

hould ensure it qualifies for the 2028 Olympics Games and “features consistently” by 2035, GASC said.The national women’s team should reach “world-class status” and national squads should “advance to international levels”, it added. Long-term efforts will also focu

s on strengthening the youth basketball scene, the agency said. The number of Chinese youths pla

ying basketball should also be “significantly improved and increased” by 2030, GASC said, adding that Chinese basketball’s global influence should also be greatly enhanced. Despite official efforts to promote an

d nurture local football teams and talent, basketball remains immensely popular in China. The NBA is also hugely popular especia

lly among Chinese youths even despite previous political setbacks. In October, it returned to China after