SINGAPORE – In this digital age where anyone can be an amateur artist with the help of painting and drawing apps designed for smartphones and iPads, local illustator Lee Kow Fong remains steadfast increating his watercolour artworks by hand. The children’s picture book writer, who goes by the pseudonym Ah-Guo, said in Mandarin: “I like […]
Thousands of Indians thronged the streets to greet Priyanka Gandhi as she made her first public appearance after formally joining politics last month. She arrived with her brother, main opposition Congress party president Rahul Gandhi, in the northern city of Lucknow to cheering supporters. Analysts say she will infuse fresh energy into the Congress campaign […]
Thailand’s election commission on Monday disqualified the king’s sister from running for prime minister, formally putting an end to a candidacy that had briefly upended the nation’s political landscape. King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun, 66, had publicly opposed the candidacy of his elder sister, Ubolratana Rajakanya Sirivadhana Varnavadi, 67, effectively taking the decision away from the […]
SHANGHAI – A Singapore cultural organisation has brought the country’s distinctive Chinese New Year practice of tossing raw fish or lohei to a shopping mall in downtown Shanghai. The Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre (SCCC) marked the seventh day of the new year by serving multiple plates of yusheng on a long table inside the mall, […]
JAKARTA (THE JAKARTA POST/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) – Four residents from Maron district in Probolinggo, East Java, were poisoned after eating a pufferfish, killing two of them and leaving two others hospitalised. Maron Police general crime chief Sugeng Supriyantoro told kompas.com last Friday (Feb 8) that Mr Baidowi and his wife Suhaina, with their two sons […]
A court in Thailand on Monday approved a government request to drop the extradition case against a soccer player who faced being sent back to his native Bahrain, where he said he would most likely be jailed and tortured. The move paves the way for the player, Hakeem al-Araibi, to return to Australia, where he […]
BLUE BLOOD AND RED LINES Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya’s stunning bid hijacked all the headlines but she was only one among 51 candidates nominated as prime minister for the March 24 elections. The rules allowed each of Thailand’s 33 political parties in the fray to field up to 3 candidates. The Election Commision must decide by […]
SINGAPORE – A youth with medical issues was so afraid of sustaining injuries during national service training that he fled Singapore in 2014. Singaporean Zaley Cheng Xi Xiong later obtained his bachelor’s degree in Australia and returned here only on Aug 30, 2017. Court documents did not reveal details about his medical issues. Cheng, 25, was […]
BANGKOK (REUTERS) – Thailand’s election panel on Monday (Feb 11) disqualified the sister of the king from running for prime minister, putting an end to a stunning, short-lived candidacy by echoing King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s words that royalty should be “above politics”. The Election Commission released the official list of parties’ candidates for prime minister without […]
BEIJING (BLOOMBERG) – Apple’s Chinese smartphone shipments plummeted an estimated 20 per cent in 2018’s final quarter, underscoring the scale of the iPhone maker’s retreat in the world’s largest mobile device arena against local rivals like Huawei Technologies. The overall Chinese market contracted by 9.7 per cent in the quarter, but Apple declined at about […]