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.
India's federal anti-terror agency said on Sunday it had arrested a resident of Kashmir who it accused of conspiring with the driver of acar that exploded in Delhi last week, killing eight people and wounding at least 20 others.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday Israel remained opposed to a Palestinian state after protests by far-right coalition allies over a US-backed statement indicating support for a pathway to Palestinian independence.
Ukraine is working to resume the exchange of prisoners with Russia, hoping for the release of 1,200 Ukrainians, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his Security Council chief said.
People granted asylum in the UK will have to wait 20 years before they can apply to settle permanently, under plans due to be announced by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood on Monday, the BBC reported on Sunday.
At least nine people were killed and 27 injured when a pile of confiscated explosives blew up at a police station in Indian Kashmir, the region's police chief said on Saturday, days after a car blast in New Delhi killed eight people.