SINGAPORE, Aug 18 (NNN-XINHUA) – Singapore’s Presidential Elections Committee, today issued eligibility certificates to senior investor, Ng Kok Song, former senior minister Shanmugaratnam Tharman, and Tan Kin Lian, former National Trades Union Congress Income chief.

Singapore Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, has issued the writ of presidential election, setting the nomination day on Aug 22.

HAVANA, Aug. 17 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian tourist Joao Oliveira drinks a bottle of water in Havana's Old Quarter to keep hydrated amid the blistering temperatures in the Caribbean.

The 32-year-old told Xinhua that traveling to Cuba had been a thrilling experience since he had learned a lot about the history and culture of the island nation.

"Cuban and Brazilian people have many things in common," he said. "People here are friendly. I am thinking of returning next summer."

WASHINGTON, Aug 18 (Reuters) - U.S. counterintelligence agencies on Friday warned the American space industry to guard against efforts by foreign intelligence entities to steal research and trade secrets as they try to boost their own countries' space programs.

"We anticipate growing threats to this burgeoning sector of the U.S. economy," a U.S. counterintelligence official told Reuters, adding that "China and Russia are among the leading foreign intelligence threats to the U.S. space industry."

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping has called for measures to mitigate the effects of this year’s disastrous flooding which has left scores dead and inflicted massive damage on crops, homes and infrastructure, including in and around Beijing.

JENIN, West Bank (AP) — Last month, after the biggest Israeli military raid on a Palestinian refugee camp in the occupied West Bank in years, Palestinians turned their wrath on their own security forces.

They unleashed gunfire, firebombs and pipe bombs at Palestinian security buildings in an outpouring of rage against the Palestinian Authority’s failure to protect them from the devastating July 3 raid and a long-running, deeply unpopular security alliance with Israel.

MOSCOW, August 18. /TASS/: Moscow has expanded its stop-list as a retaliatory measure barring 54 UK citizens from entering Russia, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

The list now includes Lucy Frazer, UK secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, "who is promoting Russia’s international sports isolation." Other UK nationals on the list include journalists from the BBC, Guardian Media Group, the Daily Telegraph, as well as Karim Khan, prosecutor with the International Criminal Court (ICC), involved in issuing an arrest warrant for the Russian leadership.

MADRID, Aug. 18 (Xinhua) -- The wildfire that began in the north-west of the Spanish holiday island of Tenerife late on Tuesday night continues to burn out of control and has doubled in size in just over 24 hours, devastating almost 3,300 hectares of forest in at least eight municipalities.

Around 7,000 residents have either been evacuated or told to stay at home as the perimeter of the fire has extended to 41 km from 22 km late on Wednesday night.

SANAA, Aug 18 (NNN-SABA) – An Omani delegation arrived in Yemen’s rebel-held capital, Sanaa yesterday, in a bid to persuade the Houthi group to accept a UN proposal, for resuming a truce with the Yemeni government, Houthi-run al-Masirah TV reported.

The delegation is scheduled to hold talks with top Houthi leaders in the coming hours, the television channel said, without elaborating further.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — North Korea is increasing its repression of human rights and people are becoming more desperate and reportedly starving in parts of the country as the economic situation worsens, the U.N. rights chief said Thursday.

Volker Türk told the first open meeting of the U.N. Security Council since 2017 on North Korean human rights that in the past its people have endured periods of severe economic difficulty and repression, but “currently they appear to be suffering both.”

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s foreign minister met Friday with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as part of his visit to the kingdom, a sign of how the two countries are trying to ease tensions after years of turmoil.

LONDON, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Top cryptocurrency bitcoin hit a fresh two-month low on Friday, breaking out of its recent tight range as a wave of risk averse sentiment swept through world markets.

On Thursday, bitcoin fell 7.2% in its biggest one-day drop since November 2022 when top exchange FTX collapsed.

It then slipped to a two-month low of $26,172 during Asian trading hours on Friday, its lowest since June 16 . By 0835 GMT, it had partly recovered to $26,441, down 0.8% on the day.

MOSCOW, August 18. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved the makeup of Russia’s delegation to the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). It will be led by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The corresponding order was uploaded to the official portal of legal information.