A five-year-old girl, Asiah, passed away after a six-vehicle pile-up along Jalan Kuching in Kuala Lumpur on Oct. 10.

The 24-year-old driver of a BYD Seal that police believe rear-ended the girl’s family car was later found at a private hospital in Damansara, where he was being treated for a concussion, as reported by China Press.

Five-year-old girl sustained severe head injuries

According to Malay Mail, the accident happened at about 3:45pm.

The BYD allegedly rear-ended a Perodua Bezza, which the girl’s 30-year-old father was driving.

A motorcycle was involved in the collision, and the Bezza spun into the right lane and collided with three other vehicles.

The girl, who was in the backseat, sustained severe head injuries and was subsequently pronounced dead at Kuala Lumpur Hospital.

Her father sustained injuries to his right hand, while the 33-year-old motorcyclist suffered head injuries.

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Driver found in hospital

The police were able to locate the BYD driver at a private hospital in Damansara after he allegedly fled the scene.

The driver was receiving treatment for a concussion and is under supervision of an investigating officer while hospitalised.

The case is being investigated under Section 41(1) of Malaysia's Road Transport Act 1987 for causing death by reckless or dangerous driving.

Police have appealed for witnesses to come forward to assist with investigations.

According to Utusan Malaysia, Asiah's uncle said that she was just discharged from hospital after a fall in the toilet a week before the accident.

He also said that the child was very close to the whole family, and that he had played with her about a week ago.

"That was the last time I could dote on and play with her," he said when contacted by Utusan Malaysia.

The father of a 23-year-old woman who died after being struck by a man who fell from an apartment building in Nagoya, Japan, is calling for the man to face a murder charge.

Tomoki Inaba was walking with a friend along a pavement in Sakae, Naka Ward, when 29-year-old Nobunari Taguchi fell from a building and struck her, according to TBS News Dig and Tokyo Reporter.

Taguchi was believed to have been attempting suicide.

He initially lost consciousness but later recovered.

Tomoki’s father, Kenji Inaba, said he was still struggling to accept her death and often wished it had not happened.

Arrested on suspicion of gross negligence

Taguchi was arrested in August on suspicion of gross negligence resulting in death.

The Nagoya District Public Prosecutors Office has since placed him under psychiatric evaluation until Jan. 13, 2027 to determine whether he can be held criminally responsible, according to TBS.

Kenji, however, believes the case should be treated as murder.

He argued that Taguchi was aware someone below could be killed but went ahead regardless.

Nearly 300 people passed area late at night

The area where the incident occurred remains busy even late at night.

Kenji said he staked out the area at 1am, the time of the incident, and counted nearly 300 pedestrians passing in under two hours, Tokyo Reporter reported, citing TV Asahi.

He has also visited Taguchi in detention three times.

According to Kenji, Taguchi apologised.

The father said he then asked whether Taguchi had acted despite not caring if someone below was harmed, and claimed that Taguchi agreed.

Neither TBS nor Tokyo Reporter included a comment directly from Taguchi about the father's account.

Murder charge difficult to prove

Legal experts, however, said proving a murder charge would be difficult.

Lawyer Yasuo Sawai said that proving murderous intent in such circumstances would be difficult, as it could be impossible to predict whether another person would actually be struck, per Tokyo Reporter.

Kenji nevertheless wants the case treated as more than an accident.

“I don't want this treated as just an accident,” he said.

Petition draws more than 40,000 signatures

On Sep. 21, Kenji launched an online petition calling for a murder charge.

TBS reported that it attracted more than 40,000 signatures in about two weeks.

Kenji said he hoped the campaign could lead to changes in how similar cases are handled in future and serve as proof that his daughter had lived.

Indonesia's President Prabowo Subianto has announced stepped-up measures to tackle the forest fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan.

However, he did not mention whether Indonesia would accept any offers of assistance from neighbours Singapore and Malaysia, who have also been affected by the haze emanating from the fires.

Stepped-up efforts

CNA reported that Prabowo ordered intensified firefighting efforts in the provinces of Central Kalimantan and South Sumatra.

Over 60,000 personnel have been deployed to support ground operations, including water bombing.

However, an Indonesia minister said that offers of assistance from Malaysia and Singapore were not discussed.

Previously, Singapore's Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu said Singapore stands "ready to assist" with Indonesia's efforts.

She added that she has been in touch with Indonesia's environment minister and said she is supporting any regional efforts to have discussions on cooperation on haze issues.

Singapore has also convened its Haze Task Force, and N95 masks will be distributed to vulnerable Singaporeans when the PSI hits the "unhealthy" range.

Malaysia says Indonesia hasn't responded to offer of help

Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi also revealed that the Indonesian government has yet to respond to Malaysia's offer to assist with fighting forest fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan.

As reported by Malaysian media Sinar Harian, Ahmad Zahid said he conveyed the offer of assistance during a previous official visit to Jakarta, Indonesia.

While there, he met with Prabowo and Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka.

Malaysia offered 55 firefighting personnel, three helicopters and one plane to help battle the blaze.

However, Ahmad Zahid said Malaysia has yet to receive a response from Indonesia, Indonesian media Kompas reported.

He added that officials in Malaysia's foreign affairs ministry and disaster response agency have sent letters to their counterparts to follow up, but have not received an answer as of Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026.

Ahmad Zahid said that Malaysia chose to be optimistic and assume that Indonesia did not need their help.

"We view this matter positively and assume that perhaps they do not need our assistance. As I said, we assume the best of them."

He also said that the haze crisis should not be seen as a conflict between Malaysia and Indonesia, but both countries should cooperate to tackle the forest fires.

Former Jurong GRC Member of Parliament (MP) Tan Wu Meng sent his well wishes to Sengkang GRC MP Jamus Lim following news that the latter had been hospitalised for pneumonia.

Writing on Facebook on Oct. 12, Tan said he had just seen news about Lim's hospitalisation.

"I remember our conversations over the years in the Members' Room, during my time serving in Parliament of Singapore," the former MP wrote.

Tan also shared that he and Lim would chat "from time to time" on a variety of topics, including young parents in politics.

"Get well soon, Jamus, and wishing you a swift and uneventful recovery!" Tan wrote.

The two had a brief exchange in the comments of Tan's post.

Lim responded to Tan's well-wishes, thanking Tan for the "kind words".

"I, too, recall your kind guidance as I was just starting as a freshman MP. Hope you're thriving in the next chapter of your journey," Lim wrote.

According to his LinkedIn, Tan is an oncologist at National Cancer Centre Singapore and a clinical assistant professor at Duke-NUS Medical School.

Tan replied, "Glad to hear from you, amidst the hospital admission. Please take care and rest well, and let's continue to keep in touch."

Sniffles

Lim, who represents Sengkang GRC in parliament, was seen sniffling and pausing to wipe his nose while delivering remarks in the House on Oct. 6.

Fellow MP Diana Pang was seen offering Lim tissues.

Lim shared on Oct. 12 that the sniffling developed into a "bad case of Influenza A" and then a "full-blown pneumonia".

He also shared he checked into a hospital as his blood oxygen level fell to the low 90s over the weekend.

Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid International Airport in Ridyadh was recently struck in a series of missile attacks, with the Yemeni Houthi militia claiming responsibility.

CNN reports at least 20 deaths and hundreds of injuries.

Saudi Arabia finds itself facing military challenges along two critical waterways.

In the east, the U.S. war with Iran has restricted the Strait of Hormuz, while in the south, recent advances by the Houthi militia have threatened to similarly restrict access through the critical Bab al-Mandeb, which connects the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.

This has a significant knock-on impact on the world, as the transport of energy supplies faces further difficulties.

Who are the Houthis?

The Houthis is the colloquial name of a group of fighters from northern Yemen, also known as Ansar Allah, according to a report written by the Council on Foreign Relations.

They have been fighting a rebellion against Yemen's government since around 2004, and in 2014, they took control of Yemen's capital, Sana'a.

They have continued fighting against government forces, slowly but successfully taking more and more land from government-controlled areas.

At present, they control at least one-third of Yemen's territory, roughly concentrated in the northwest of the country, along its Red Sea coast and the Wall Street Journal estimates they have around 350,000 fighters.

That region is the most densely populated part of the country, resulting in the Houthis governing over two-thirds of Yemen's roughly 34 million population.

How is it connected to Iran?

The Houthis and Iran are both Shia Muslims, but of different branches, and distinct from the Sunni Saudi Arabia.

The alliance between Iran and the Houthis appears to be geopolitically and ideologically related, although the Houthis have occasionally been called proxies of Iran; the Council on Foreign Relations says they are more accurately described as an 'informal partner'.

The CFR notes that, in contrast to other Iranian proxies such as Hezbollah, the Houthis' origin does not involve Iran, and they have, on occasion, taken action independently of Iran.

However, geopolitically speaking, the Houthis and Iran are very closely aligned and are hostile not just to the internationally recognised government of Yemen, but also to the United States and Israel.

Iran is known to have provided the Houthis with a significant amount of weaponry, including ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and modern drones such as the Shahed, as reported by the WSJ.

The Houthis have, in turn, used those weapons against their neighbours, such as Saudi Arabia.

In earlier conflicts, they used them to attack Saudi oil facilities, such as refineries and storage.

In more recent years, it has also used these weapons to attack shipping passing through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

The war with Saudi

While the Houthis' most notable international opponent is Israel, its longest cross-border conflict is with Saudi Arabia.

When the Houthis began to rebel against Yemen's government, allegedly with Iranian backing, the Saudi government was concerned that it would soon face hostile powers at two of its most critical waterways: Iran and the Strait of Hormuz in its east, and a Houthi-controlled Bab al-Mandeb in the south.

The Strait of Hormuz is a critical waterway for the Middle East Gulf states to ship out their supplies of oil and gas.

But in recent years, concerns about Iranian hostility and potential disruption of that strait have led to Saudi Arabia building a pipeline from east to west, allowing it to send out shipments of oil and gas from the Red Sea: either north through the Suez Canal to Europe or south through the Bab al-Mandeb into the Indian Ocean and Asia.

In 2015, concerned about a potential Houthi control of the Bab al-Mandeb, Saudi Arabia began a military campaign to fight the Houthis, largely consisting of airstrikes.

The military campaign was of limited efficacy and ultimately failed to meaningfully disrupt Saudi Arabia's concerns about Houthi control of Yemen.

But it was also a very violent campaign, resulting in a large number of civilian deaths that sparked a multi-year protest campaign against the Yemen war in the West, and Yemen, with many activist groups demanding that the United States stop supplying Saudi Arabia with weaponry.

While this protest campaign failed to change the minds of U.S. President Donald Trump's first administration, after Joe Biden won the presidency in 2020, one of his first actions was to pause U.S. weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, effectively ending its military campaign.

Strait talking

However, after the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, the Houthis showed that the Saudi concerns about their ability to restrict shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb were real.

In retaliation for Israeli attacks against Hamas and Gaza, the Houthis said that they would attack selected ships passing through the Bab al-Mandeb, particularly those aligned with Israel and its ally, the U.S.

This led many ships to avoid the Bab al-Mandeb entirely and therefore also avoid the Suez Canal, and instead choose to add weeks to their travel time by circumnavigating the continent of Africa, adding a significant amount of shipping cost to goods carried by those ships.

In the past few months, this situation has, if anything, worsened.

In recent months, the Houthis have managed to take a significant amount of territory from the Yemeni government, including more of the country's Red Sea coast and the island of Perim, also known as Mayyun, which sits at the heart of the Bab al-Mandeb.

This allows the Houthis even more control over the Strait, effectively controlling its narrowest point.

The Bab al-Mandeb is about 29 km wide at its narrowest point, compared with roughly 16–19 km for the Singapore Strait.

The Mecca Pact

The most recent attacks over the weekend targeted an international airport in Riyadh, but perhaps the more significant attacks are the alleged attacks on the holy city of Mecca, which the Houthis deny.

After a recent September attack, Saudi Arabia said attacking Mecca was a “red line” according to CNN, and unlike previous accusations from 2019 and before, the Saudis had an additional resource: the Mecca Pact.

The Mecca Pact, otherwise known as the Mecca Defence Alliance, was first signed in August 2026 between Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan, and was invoked barely two months later in October, in response to the alleged targeting of Mecca.

Al Jazeera reports that the pact is a mutual defence agreement, that an attack on one is an attack on all, and that the two other parties to the pact have agreed to a limited deployment of troops and military forces to Saudi Arabia, in keeping with the agreement.

This means that an additional two countries are being drawn into an ever-expanding military scenario in the Middle East, with no clear sign as to when that engagement will, if it even can, end.

A 26-year-old Chinese influencer known as Xiao Yue, who stood at 2.2m tall, has passed away.

Her husband, Zihao, announced her passing on social media, as reported by Red Star News.

She leaves behind her husband and her one-year-old son.

Xiao Yue reportedly suffered from pituitary gigantism, a rare condition caused by excessive growth hormones, as well as secondary diabetes.

Medical conditions

In July 2026, Zihao posted a video on Xiao Yue’s medical condition.

She has been diagnosed with a pituitary tumor and a meningioma, and her condition subsequently worsened, leading to severe hyperglycemia, kidney failure, and other complications, as reported by Yangste News.

Zihao brought his wife back to her hometown to let her rest and stabilise her blood sugar levels before proceeding with surgery to remove the tumor in her brain.

Doctors had told him that it would be a minimally invasive procedure.

However, she unexpectedly passed away before the surgery could take place.

She passed away before her child's first birthday.

Zihao said that he never imagined this disease would take someone’s life, and that Xiao Yue was a cheerful person who didn’t care what others said about her, as reported by Lianhe Zaobao.

The family will hold a simple funeral and will not have a memorial service, according to Xiao Yue’s wishes and the family’s opinion.

A man from Singapore spent about six hours searching for a hotel he had booked in China before paying to stay elsewhere overnight, according to Shin Min Daily News.

When he finally located the hotel the following morning, he was told it only accepted Chinese guests.

The 54-year-old security guard, identified as Mr Wu, had paid around S$30 through Agoda for a stay at Ruiping Hotel in Taiyuan from Sep. 28 to Oct. 2.

Searched for six hours

Wu said he arrived in the city after 8am but struggled to find Ruiping Hotel.

According to him, Agoda’s listing lacked a detailed address and telephone number, and his emails went unanswered.

After about six hours of searching, Wu tried to check in at Lixin Hotel instead. However, the staff allegedly told him they only accepted Chinese guests and could not accommodate him.

Eventually, he had to resort to staying at a third hotel nearby, paying an additional S$58 to stay overnight.

Turned away

At around 7am the following morning, Wu used another travel website to find Ruiping Hotel’s exact location.

He then found out it was near Lixin Hotel.

However, upon arrival, the staff at Ruiping Hotel also purportedly told him they could only accommodate Chinese guests.

The staff also told Wu that the hotel’s sign had no English wording.

He told Shin Min that Agoda’s booking page had not flagged that the hotel did not accept foreign guests and allowed him to book and pay for a room.

Agoda issued refund

After returning to Singapore on Oct. 4, Wu contacted Agoda’s customer service to report what had happened.

He was told the company would investigate and respond as soon as possible. Screenshots he provided showed that his refund request had been completed.

In repsonse to Shin Min's queries, Agoda said it deeply regretted the matter but could not disclose specific details of individual cases due to privacy protection rules.

Agoda said their customer experience team has contacted the customer to provide further assistance.

They also said they would continue to work closely with their accommodation partners to ensure accommodation information on their platform is clear, accurate and helpful to travellers.

Agoda also said that when concerns are raised about a property’s information or check-in requirements, it will review the circumstances and, where necessary, follow up with the accommodation provider and take appropriate further action.

A teacher in Singapore has been accused of recording a video of a female individual’s groin area in a school in 2023.

The 45-year-old man was charged with voyeurism on Oct. 12.

Chargesheets seen by Mothership did not indicate if the victim was a student or staff member at the school.

There is a gag order placed to protect the identity of the victim.

The man is expected to plead guilty on Nov. 30.

Suspended from duties

In response to queries from Mothership, a Ministry of Education (MOE) spokesperson said the man had been suspended from duties since June 2026 and is no longer teaching in any school.

The spokesperson added: "MOE takes a serious view of staff misconduct and will not hesitate to take disciplinary action against those who fail to adhere to our standards of conduct and discipline, including dismissal from service."

Those found guilty of voyeurism face up to two years’ imprisonment, a fine, caning, or a combination of these penalties.

More than 200,000 Singapore Airlines return tickets and over 180,000 one-way tickets on Scoot will be on sale from Oct. 23 to 30, during the annual Time To Fly promotion.

The tickets will be for destinations such as Bangkok, Hangzhou, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Seoul, and Sydney.

They will also include new Scoot routes to Belitung, Chiang Rai, Guiyang, and Okinawa.

The discounted SIA tickets can be used for travel between Jan. 1 and Sep. 30, 2027, from Singapore to 78 destinations, an Oct. 13 joint release by the two carriers said.

It covers the economy, premium economy, and business class flights.

The discounted Scoot tickets are for travel between Nov. 9, 2026 and Oct. 15, 2027, across ScootPlus and economy class flights between Singapore and 70 destinations.

These tickets will be available online through the SIA and Scoot websites and mobile applications, as well as appointed travel agents.

A three-day physical Time To Fly travel fair will be held from Oct. 23 to 25 at Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre, Halls 401, 402, and 403.

A man in southwestern China's Guizhou Province sparked controversy when he apparently held a wedding banquet and his baby's 100-day celebration with two different women on different floors of the same building.

The man, Wu, (transliterated), reportedly held his wedding banquet with his wife and the celebration for his baby he had with his ex-girlfriend, according to CTWANT.

Staff members at the scene called the police when the dispute occurred around Oct. 9, Sohu News reported.

Banquets signed by separate families

According to 163.com, the restaurant was unaware of this administrative issue before the incident as the contracts for both banquets had supposedly been signed by two separate families.

The dispute reportedly broke out after the families bumped into each other inside the premises.

It was recorded in a video posted online by @paluyyds on X, which garnered millions of views.

Not directly considered bigamy

While financial disputes between the parties involved have not been resolved, local authorities have apparently determined that this was not considered bigamy.

This is because Wu and his wife were said to be legally married after completing their marriage registration, CTWANT reported.

Despite having a child with his ex-girlfriend, the pair had supposedly never registered their marriage.