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by M JEGATHESAN PORT KLANG, Malaysia (AFP) — Hundreds of tonnes of imported plastic waste will be shipped back to where it came from, Malaysia said Tuesday, insisting the country did not want to be a global dumping ground. Around 300 million tonnes of plastic are produced every year, according to the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), with much of it ending up in landfill or polluting the seas, in what is becoming a growing […]
BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — A fire erupted on a cargo ship docked at a port in Thailand, triggering a blast and leaving at least 25 workers suffering from smoke inhalation and other injuries, officials said Saturday. The district around Laem Chabang deep-sea port in Chonburi province, located two hours south of capital Bangkok, has been declared a “danger zone”, said port director Yuthana Mokkhao. The fire broke out on Saturday at 6.35 am (23:35 GMT […]
by Tran Thi Minh Ha, with Jenny Vaughan in Tuy Phong VIETNAM (AFP) — Toothless and nearly blind, grandmother Pham Thi Ca refuses to leave her plot of land even after bulldozers demolished her house — an extraordinary holdout against communist Vietnam’s deepening addiction to coal. The 99-year-old was offered money to move as authorities hoovered up land for a planned $2.6 billion Japanese-funded coal plant in the remote Van Phong Bay she has called […]
JARATA, Indonesia (AFP) — Indonesian police fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators in downtown Jakarta early Wednesday after a rally opposed to President Joko Widodo’s re-election, an AFP reporter said. The country’s election commission on Tuesday released official results that confirmed Widodo, 57, had beaten retired military general Prabowo Subianto for the presidency in a poll held on April 17. Subianto has said he would challenge the results in court, and warned that his claims […]
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Indonesia’s Joko Widodo has won a second term as president, beating out rival Prabowo Subianto, a retired general, by a 55.5 percent to 44.5 percent margin, the elections commission said. “This ruling was announced on May 21… and will be effectively immediately,” the commission’s chair Arief Budiman said in a live streamed announcement that was broadcast on major media. The commission had been expected to announce the official results of the […]
MATARAM, Indonesia (AFP) — An Indonesian court Monday sentenced Frenchman Felix Dorfin to death for drug smuggling, in a surprise verdict after prosecutors asked for a 20-year jail term. “After finding Felix Dofin legally and convincingly guilty of importing narcotics … (he) is sentenced to the death penalty,” presiding judge Isnurul Syamsul Arif told the court in Lombok. © Agence France-Presse
by Sophie DEVILLER and AFP bureaus Agence France Presse BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — Southeast Asia is in the grip of a fresh surge of paedophile activity with predators orchestrating and watching abuse on live-streaming sites and via webcams, and paying for it with near-untraceable cryptocurrency, victims and children’s charities warn. With widespread poverty, lax laws, and creaking judicial systems, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and the Philippines have long been seen as soft spots by […]
HANOI, Vietnam (AFP) — Vietnam has sentenced 10 people to death for smuggling meth, ketamine and ecstasy across the country by train, state media reported Friday as the communist country deepens its crackdown on drugs. The gang shifted 300 kilograms (660 pounds) of drugs from northern Vietnam to the southern economic hub of Ho Chi Minh City between 2015 and 2016, according to state-run media on Friday. Five men and five women were given the […]
(Eagle News) – The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, in cooperation with the Embassy of Vietnam, has launched a campaign to further promote Vietnam as a tourist destination for Filipinos. Dubbed “Soulful Vietnam,” the campaign hopes to make Filipinos more aware of tourist spots in this Southeast Asian country which has seen increasing tourist arrivals in the past 10 years. “Last year, we had 150,000 Filipinos going to Vietnam. The Philippines is a very […]
YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) — A Myanmar pilot saved the day after his aircraft’s landing gear failed, safely putting the jet on the runway with no front wheels on Sunday, an official said. The nail-biting touchdown — in which no one was hurt — was the second instance of a malfunctioning flight in less than a week within the country. Myanmar Airlines flight UB-103 — an Embraer-190 model — touched the ground at around 9:00 am […]
YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) — Eleven people were injured as a plane slid off a runway while landing at Yangon airport in Myanmar Wednesday, police said, as a freak storm hit the city. Images on Facebook showed a crumpled Biman Bangladesh Airlines plane lying on the grass at the side of the runway. An AFP photographer saw an injured woman being carried to an ambulance on a stretcher. “One pilot, an air hostess and nine passengers […]
by Hla-Hla HTAY and Richard SARGENT Agence France Presse YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) — Two Reuters journalists jailed for their reporting on the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar walked out of prison on Tuesday, freed in a presidential amnesty after a vigorous global campaign for their release. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were mobbed by media as they stepped out of Yangon’s notorious Insein prison after more than 16 months in detention. Their December 2017 […]
