Singapore's Budget for 2012 will focus on investing in the country's longer-term future.

Philippine activists picketed the US embassy on Saturday and burned a cardboard American flag and mock stealth bomber, vowing to launch a campaign opposing a plan to allow more US troops in the country.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde called on Friday on Japan and the United States to set debt reduction targets as their contribution towards lifting the world out of the economic crisis.

A new Arab and European bid to secure UN action over Syria's crackdown on dissent hit immediate Russian opposition even as the death toll spiked, with activists reporting 120 people killed in two days.

Victoria Azarenka won her first grand slam title and became the new world number one when she thrashed a disappointing Maria Sharapova in the Australian Open final on Saturday.

Twitter, championed as a tool of free expression during the Arab Spring, was facing censorship charges on Friday after announcing it can now block tweets on a country-by-country basis if legally required to do so.

Delicate work to restore a Leonardo Da Vinci masterpiece, to be unveiled in March, has turned into a headache for the Louvre, after experts accused the Paris museum of putting the precious oil work at risk.

Actress Demi Moore was convulsing and "burning up" after taking an unidentified drug when emergency services were called earlier this week, according to the 911 call released on Friday.

Want to know what's in store for 2012? Who will win the US election? Will the eurozone implode? China's feng shui masters tackle the big issues with their predictions for the Year of the Dragon.

The days of one-way mass production, mass advertising and mass ignorance are over. The Expectation Economy has arrived.