Singapore / AFP Singapore on Monday crushed and burnt almost eight tonnes of ivory confiscated over two years to try to deter smugglers as activists called for tighter enforcement. Over 2,700 elephant tusks weighing 7.9 tonnes were fed into an industrial rock crusher before incineration. It was the fist time seized ivory had been destroyed in Singapore, the Agri-Food …

  Islamabad / Bloomberg Pakistan is two months away from finally completing an International Monetary Fund program its government signed up to after more than 10 previous failures. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif won the $6.6 billion loan to avert a balance-of-payments crisis soon after taking power in 2013, and has since seen the pace of economic growth increase while deficits …

  Sydney / Bloomberg Australia’s government plans a A$1 billion ($736 million) fund to protect the Great Barrier Reef from the effects of climate change and declining water quality. Warming waters are bleaching the reef’s coral, while run-off from the land such as farm fertilizer is harming water quality, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said at a news conference in Queensland …