KUALA LUMPUR • Malaysia’s ruling coalition Pakatan Harapan (PH) needs to buck up as it is struggling to fulfil election promises and voters question its willingness to accept former Umno lawmakers into its fold, two prominent PH politicians have said. The views offered by Mr Rafizi Ramli, a senior ruling politician close to Parti Keadilan […]
MANILA — A Philippine congressman was shot and killed on Saturday, in an attack the police suspect could be politically related ahead of elections next year. The lawmaker, Rodel M. Batocabe, 52, an ally of President Rodrigo Duterte, was shot eight times during a gift-giving ceremony for older Filipinos in the eastern Albay Province, according […]
Prince Talal was a vocal supporter of reform in the kingdom and backed moves to give Saudi women more rights. Saudi Prince Talal bin Abdulaziz, a vocal supporter of reform in the kingdom, has died aged 87, the royal court said on Saturday. Prince Talal, the senior member of the al-Saud family and father of billionaire […]
At least 23 people died in Nepal when a bus carrying students and their teachers back from a botanical trip ran off a road and plunged 700m (2,300ft) into a ravine. Another 14 people were injured in the crash in Dang district, western Nepal. Most of the victims were students aged between 16 and 20, […]
SINGAPORE – A 28-year-old Malaysian man was caught smuggling a total of 5,055 sachets of chewing tobacco at the Woodlands Checkpoint on Thursday (Dec 20). In a Facebook post on Friday, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) said it uncovered the sachets of chewing tobacco hidden in the dashboard, side panels, floorboard and car seat […]
MANILA (AFP) – Row upon row of pigs on bamboo spits sizzle slowly over orange embers in Manila just days before Christmas, peak season for the Philippines’ pig roasting “lechoneros”. Smoke rises day and night from their cooking pits in the La Loma area, which brands itself a hub for producing one of the nation’s […]
JAKARTA (REUTERS) – At least 20 people died when a tsunami hit beaches around Sunda Strait in Indonesia on Saturday night (Dec 22), the government’s Disaster Mitigation Agency said in a statement on Sunday. It said 165 other people had been injured. “20 people died, 165 people were injured and two people are missing in […]
Two Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers who were filmed allegedly hitting a truck driver on Friday have been taken off operational duties pending police investigations. Footage circulating on social media shows two men in fluorescent vests seemingly confronting another man, who is sitting on the pavement. One of the men in vests appears to […]
Malaysia’s Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration is having a hard time keeping up with its election promises. Stuck with a RM1 trillion (S$330 billion) debt pile and populist pledges, the seven-month-old government recently backtracked on a promise to allow workers who took study loans from the government to defer payments if they earn below RM4,000 a […]
WASHINGTON (REUTERS) – Minnesota prosecutors will not charge the billionaire chief executive officer of China’s JD.com, Richard Liu, after he was accused of rape by a University of Minnesota student during a recent US visit, the authorities said on Friday (Dec 21). Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman said there were “profound evidentiary problems which would […]