YANSHANPU: Authorities in central China’s Henan Province were on Sunday (Jan 21) looking into the cause of a night-time fire that killed 13 schoolchildren as they slept in a dormitory. The inferno, which took place at the Yingcai School in Yanshanpu village, was reported to the local fire department atContinue Reading
SEOUL: Russian President Vladimir Putin showed his intention to visit Pyongyang soon, North Korea’s state media KCNA reported on Sunday (Jan 21). Putin also thanked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for his invitation to visit as he met North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui who visited Russia lastContinue Reading
SEOUL: North Korea’s top diplomat said her country is “ready to greet” Russian President Vladimir Putin, state media reported Sunday (Jan 21), in the latest sign of deepening ties between the two authoritarian states. Traditional allies Russia and North Korea have recently boosted ties, with Pyongyang’s leader Kim Jong Un makingContinue Reading
“It’s a big bonus,” he told me. “Unfortunately, it won’t last long. In the Philippines context, it may last one to two decades.” The benefit of a second dividend will come only if the country can make this group more productive by investing in the quality of workers.
While it’s time to jettison stereotypes about Filipinos having large families, there’s also a city-rural divide. The Manila area saw its total fertility rate decline to 1.2, well below the national figure, while it’s 3.1 in an autonomous region of the southern island of Mindanao.
“People are becoming more aware of their opportunities,” explained Carmela Aquino-Cabral, a fertility specialist at Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital, one of Manila’s largest maternity hospitals. “There’s more to life than being a mum.”
The ground war matters greatly. One recent morning, I accompanied a team of volunteers from the Likhaan Center for Women’s Health into the Tondo district, one of the capital’s most impoverished. The lanes were narrow and muddy. Satay and fish cooked on open-air stoves; children scampered about while parents or grandparents leaned out the windows of makeshift shops.
We were a few kilometres, and a whole world, away from the glass towers, fashionable cocktail bars and five-star hotels of the Makati enclave. It’s a regular beat for Cabello and her three colleagues.
These women are foot soldiers of a demographic revolution that’s gaining converts block by block – they hope. “I do share my own experiences, I am using the pill,” said Cabello. “In the long run, people will believe in us.”
There are no easy solutions for developed nations so reliant on imported labour. Strengthening tertiary education and vocational training is vital, as is addressing poor pay and working conditions for professions like nursing.
For its part, the Philippines must tread carefully – it still has a long way to go before it becomes an aged society, but there is always the danger of overcorrection and being left, like others in the region, with a labour shortage of its own.
Srettha has revitalised the idea with gusto, recycling arguments long trotted out by proponents of the Kra Canal.
First, by bypassing the increasingly congested Straits of Malacca, shipping companies will save three to four days sailing time, thereby reducing transportation costs by 15 per cent.
Second, construction of the land bridge will provide a 1.3 trillion baht (US$370 billion) boon to the economy, raising economic growth by 1.5 per cent and providing jobs for 280,000 workers. It would particularly benefit the economy in the south where the ruling coalition parties fared poorly in the May 2023 general election.
Third, the land bridge would place Thailand at the heart of Southeast Asia’s supply chains.
As with the Kra canal, critics of the land bridge have called into question the project’s economic viability. Bypassing the Malacca Straits may well reduce sailing times, they argue, but off-loading goods at one end, transporting them to the other end, and then re-loading them onto other ships could take just as long as sailing through the straits and would actually increase transportation costs.
In addition, the land bridge would have a negative impact on the environment, hurting southern Thailand’s tourism and fishing industries. Moreover, geopolitically, ownership of the land bridge might suck Thailand into the vortex of US-China competition, especially if Beijing was to fund its construction.
Undeterred by these arguments, Srettha has said he is determined to see the project through and has even proposed a timeline. Construction companies would bid for contracts in mid-2025 with construction slated to begin later the same year and completed by 2030, at a total cost of around US$30 billion.
SEOUL: Seoul’s chief of police has been charged with professional negligence over the deadly 2022 Halloween crush that killed nearly 160 people, prosecutors in the South Korean capital said. On Oct 29, 2022, tens of thousands of people – mostly in their 20s and 30s – had been out to enjoyContinue Reading
BEIJING: Thirteen people have died in a school dormitory fire in central China’s Henan province, the official Xinhua news agency reported Saturday (Jan 20). The blaze at the Yingcai School in Henan’s Yanshanpu village was reported to the local fire department at 11pm (1500 GMT) on Friday night, Xinhua said. ThirteenContinue Reading
Meanwhile, Mr Adnan of the DOF said that his department has been building artificial reefs at different locations around the country, with about 1,800 installed at more than 100 locations since 2016.
“These reefs help conserve marine resources by creating new areas for the growth of corals. This helps provide breeding areas for fish and other marine life, helping create new habitats and protected areas,” he said.
Beyond that, Mr Adnan said that the authorities have limited the catch for certain types of fishes to a particular season, such as the case of anchovies that are caught off the coast of Langkawi.
WWF-Malaysia told CNA that stakeholders in the fisheries and seafood industry need to work together to promote sustainable fisheries that emphasises the need for a science-based fisheries approach to sustain the marine resources.
The organisation said that this can be done through stock recovery, establishing a commercially and ecologically viable fisheries industry, while also protecting the fishing communities’ livelihoods.
“The seafood supply chain needs to reform; to adopt digitisation of catch data and traceability systems. Consumers need to rethink the consumption of seafood, to only choose sustainable options, and only choose seafood at a responsible consumption rate,” it said.
WWF-Malaysia warned that the increased fishing efforts over the past 50 years – as well as unsustainable practices in the industry – are pushing many fish stocks “to the point of collapse, with livelihoods dependent on fish adversely affected”.
“Fishers need to put in more effort to catch fish; they need to go further out to sea and spend more time harvesting, and in return they are catching smaller and lesser fish,” it said.
Mr Chia – the fisherman in the coastal town of Sungai Besar – told CNA that should the catch continue to be dismal and the situation persists, he may have “no choice” but to sell his 20-year-old fishing boat at a loss after the Chinese New Year celebrations in February.
He still has debts to pay while two of his children are still studying in university. But he will be in a twist on what he will do next.
“This is the only thing I know and have done since I was young. I never went to school. What else can I do?,” said Mr Chia.
In Pakistan, elections are scheduled for Feb 8 but risk being postponed amid political uncertainties and the military’s meddling in the elections.
Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan, who is currently in jail on various charges after being ousted from power in April 2022, has said the upcoming election could be a “farce”. Khan, widely seen as the country’s most popular leader, has accused the military of fixing the election by barring him from contesting.
Although Pakistan elects its civilian governments, the military has always wielded power and influence over the election process and elected governments. The army and Khan were on cordial terms before the 2018 general elections that brought him to power but the relationship soon soured.
After Khan’s ouster following his fallout with the military, Pakistan became embroiled in political uncertainty and chaos made even worse by a crippling economic crisis.
The tide has changed in 2024 and according to observers, the military is determined to prevent Khan and his party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), from forming the government. The exclusion of Khan from the election could increase the sympathy of those who consider him unfairly treated and worsen the popular discontent against the country’s powerful military.
More worryingly, Pakistan’s severe political problems in 2024 come amid militant attacks on the Pakistani military and police, having risen considerably in the previous year. The Islamabad-based Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) reported that 2023 was the “deadliest year” or the country’s “police and military forces in a decade”, with more than 500 security personnel killed.
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, is the biggest culprit, responsible for several high-casualty attacks. TPP is a close ally of, but is separate from, the Afghan Taliban, which returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021.
Pakistan officials have blamed the Afghan Taliban government for not doing enough to stop the TTP’s cross-border attacks. Still, the attacks are set to continue and possibly accelerate as TTP and other militant groups try to take advantage of Pakistan’s chaotic election.
KUALA LUMPUR: The Batu Caves Hindu Temple Management will build an escalator at the tourist attraction this year, as an alternative to the 272 steps for devotees and visitors to reach the Sri Subramaniar cave temple in Gombak, Selangor. The temple committee chairman, R Nadarajah, said the escalator is one ofContinue Reading