Singapore will do away with requirements to wear masks indoors starting August 29, as the country sees its COVID-19 situation stabilise further, the health minister said on Wednesday.
For the first time in more than two years, people in the Southeast Asian city-state will no longer be required to wear masks indoors except on public transport and in high-risk settings like healthcare facilities.
The health ministry also updated rules for non-vaccinated travellers, dropping a 7-day quarantine requirement starting next week.
Singapore, which is a major Asian financial and travel hub, lifted most pandemic curbs, including travel restrictions, earlier this year.
About 70 per cent of the city-state's 5.5 million population has already contracted COVID-19, Ong Ye Kung, the health minister said in a news conference, adding that the re-infection rate is so far "very low".
Singapore has vaccinated more than 90 per cent of its population and has among the lowest COVID-19 mortality rates in the world.
Foreign ministers from European countries, Australia and Britain on Friday jointly condemned Israel's plans to construct a settlement east of Jerusalem.
Famine has struck an area of Gaza and will likely spread over the next month, a global hunger monitor determined on Friday, an assessment that will escalate pressure on Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into the war-torn Palestinian enclave.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un lauded his country's "heroic" troops who fought for Russia in the war against Ukraine, in a ceremony where he decorated returning soldiers and consoled children of the bereaved with hugs, state media said on Friday.
Former Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who led the country during a devastating 2019-2024 economic crisis, was arrested and appeared in court on Friday over allegations he misused state funds while in office, police said.
The Arab League has strongly condemned the settlement plan approved by the Israeli government in the area known as E1 east of Jerusalem, stressing that it threatens the territorial continuity of Palestine.