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Singapore: A Singapore court sentenced a 51-year-old woman of Indian descent to seven months in prison on Tuesday for defrauding an Indian man and his father of more than SGD 5,000 by posing as a younger lady on a dating website.

According to the TODAY newspaper, Maliha Ramu created a false profile on the Tamil Matrimony website for a 25-year-old single woman named Keerthana.

Maliha claimed she worked at an army base abroad and was forbidden from using a camera phone while avoiding video calls by using her relative’s photos instead.

She admitted admission to two counts of cheating on Tuesday, and the sentences for three other related crimes will also be considered.

According to CBC News, which cited persons with firsthand knowledge of the decision, Canada wants to abolish Covid-19 immunization mandates for domestic air and train travel, as well as outbound international travel. On Tuesday, an announcement is expected.

According to the CBC, if a new strain of the virus emerges, the government may reintroduce the vaccine requirement.

Conservatives and business groups have pressed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s administration to repeal vaccine mandates, and truckers’ demonstrations earlier this year slowed supply lines and caused the closure of several border crossings. Trudeau, who is fully vaccinated, tested positive for Covid after returning from the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, marking his second positive test this year.

China: China has warned the United States that any attempt to secede from China will result in armed action by Beijing’s army.

On the sidelines of an Asian security forum in Singapore, Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe met with his American colleague Lloyd Austin.

Mr Wei claimed that separating Taiwan from China would force the Chinese military to “fight at any cost.”

Later, Mr Austin described China’s military activity as “provocative and destabilizing.”

He said there were record numbers of Chinese aircraft flying near the island on a near-daily basis, which “undermine peace and stability in the region”.

Sri Lanka: President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has established two new ministries, one of which is an investment ministry, to deal with the island nation’s greatest economic crisis.

The new ministry of ‘Technology and Investment Promotion’ will also be responsible for encouraging foreign direct investment and private sector investment, as well as Sri Lanka’s economic potential.

Basil Rajapaksa, the former finance minister and intellectual cornerstone of the Rajapaksa brothers, resigned from Parliament on Thursday, prompting the creation of the new ministry.

China: China on Wednesday praised India for making “great efforts” to help Colombo to tide over its worst financial crisis even as it refuted Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s remarks that Beijing has shifted its strategic focus from South Asia including Pakistan to South East Asia, saying the region still remained its priority.

US: The United States House of Representatives has passed a succession of gun-control bills, but they are bound to fail in the Senate.

The new regulations would prohibit the sale of semiautomatic firearms to persons under the age of 21 and prohibit the sale of large-capacity magazines.

Despite heightened attention on gun regulation in the wake of a number of mass shootings in the United States, Republican opposition in the Senate means the bill has little chance of becoming law.

Survivors of the Uvalde school shooting offered poignant testimony to lawmakers only hours before the vote, bringing some to tears.

21 people were killed in the primary school shooting in Texan city, including 19 small children.