Singapore got its first female president Wednesday, but the milestone was overshadowed by criticism that her selection was undemocratic after she was handed the job without a vote.

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has scrapped plans to attend the United Nations General Assembly later this month, her spokesman said Wednesday, as the Nobel laureate faces intense global scrutiny over the Rohingya refugee crisis.

Five sailors were missing after their dredger collided with a tanker off Singapore Wednesday, authorities said, just weeks after a deadly accident in the same area involving a US warship.

Apple laid claim to the future of the smartphone Tuesday with a 10th anniversary iPhone X, touting the device as the next generation of mobile computing.

Thousands of Rohingya Muslim refugees who fled violence in Myanmar in search of refuge could be forced to make their new homes on a barren Bangladeshi island that floods every year.

Millions of Florida residents were without power and extensive damage was reported in the Florida Keys but most of the Sunshine State appeared to have dodged forecasts of catastrophic damage from Hurricane Irma.

The United Nations Security Council will hold an urgent meeting to discuss violence churning through western Myanmar, after the UN's rights chief warned that "ethnic cleansing" appeared to have driven over 300,000 Rohingya Muslims from the country.

Some 270,000 refugees have fled Myanmar's violence-wracked Rakhine state and entered Bangladesh in the last fortnight, most from the Muslim Rohingya minority, the United Nations said Friday.

A powerful 8.2-magnitude earthquake rocked Mexico late Thursday, killing at least five people and triggering a tsunami alert in what the president called the quake-prone country's biggest one in a century.

More than 1,000 people may already have been killed in Myanmar, mostly minority Rohingya Muslims -- more than twice the government's total -- a senior United Nations representative told AFP on Friday, urging Aung San Suu Kyi to speak out.