Colombian police arrested 11 gang members suspected of using human mules to smuggle narcotics to Asia, charging four of them with murder after a courier died of a cocaine overdose, officials said Wednesday.

Authorities said capsules of narcotics were ingested or strapped to the bodies of the mules who were sent to Hong Kong, China, Singapore and Thailand.

Singapore's High Court ruled Friday that an activist defamed Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong by accusing him in a blog of misappropriating state pension funds.

In the first such ruling in the city-state over a purely online article, a judge issued a summary judgment against Roy Ngerng, a 33-year-old former government employee. 

Citizens of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone will need a visa to enter Singapore as part of measures against the spread of Ebola, the city-state's health ministry said Monday.

The three West African countries are the worst-hit by the Ebola epidemic that has killed more than 4,900 people.

Singapore's President Tony Tan took a walk on the wild side Friday with a trip to the Royal Botanic Gardens in London as he wrapped up his state visit to Britain.

Tan toured the gardens, the world's largest collection of living plants, at the end of a historic four-day visit, during which he stayed with Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.

Air pollution in Singapore rose to unhealthy levels Monday, blanketing the city-state's skyline with clouds of smog from fires raging across giant rainforests in the neighboring Indonesian island of Sumatra, officials said.

Singapore's National Environment Agency said the pollutant standards index (PSI) reached a high of 111 at 7:00 am (2300 GMT) before easing to 80 a few hours later.

Armed pirates commandeered a Thai tanker off Malaysia's east coast and pumped out its cargo of oil, a maritime watchdog said Friday, adding to a series of hijackings that has raised fears of a growing Southeast Asian piracy menace.

The incident took place Thursday near the Malaysian resort island Tioman in the South China Sea as the tanker was travelling from Singapore to Thailand, the International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Center said.

Australia and Singapore vowed Friday to enhance intelligence sharing in the face of growing fears about the threat posed by jihadist citizens returning home after fighting in Syria and Iraq.

A hijacked Singaporean oil tanker carrying 21 sailors was released on Sunday a week after being seized by pirates in waters off Ghana in west Africa, Seoul's foreign ministry said.

The 3,200-ton tanker, carrying a South Korean captain and chief engineer, was hijacked on July 26 off the southern coast of Ghana, the ministry said.

A Singaporean businessman was jailed for three years on Thursday for providing prostitutes to three Lebanese football referees in a match-fixing attempt that has put the spotlight on the city-state's role in global sports corruption.

Nightclub owner Eric Ding Si Yang, 32, was refused bail while he appeals the ruling, and state prosecutors said they would file a motion before a higher court to demand a harsher punishment.

Singapore's trade-reliant economy unexpectedly contracted in the second quarter, the government said Monday, as weak global demand weighed on the key manufacturing sector.

Gross domestic product (GDP) shrank an annualized 0.8 percent on-quarter in the three months to June, according to advance trade ministry estimates that were below market expectations.