NEW DELHI: Many Indians are delighted at the prospect of Rishi Sunak becoming the first person of Indian origin to become British prime minister on Monday (Oct 24), just as Hindus across the world celebrate Deepavali. Boris Johnson pulled out of the prime ministerial race late on Sunday, boosting Sunak’sContinue Reading
“NO WORK LEFT” Many of the flood-displaced in southern Sindh province have sought shelter in urban centres, including tens of thousands recorded at relief camps and many more in the homes of relatives or rental properties. With homes and livelihoods washed away, some are expected to abandon their rural lives,Continue Reading
BEIJING: China named Guo Tingting as vice commerce minister, according to a statement by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security on Monday (Oct 24). Ling Ji, an official at the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and a former official at the commerce ministry, was appointed as the viceContinue Reading
TOKYO: Japanese authorities are relying heavily on psychological tactics to fight yen bears, which means keeping markets guessing about their foreign exchange intervention rather than overt attempts to arrest the currency’s decline to multi-decade lows. The battered yen has whipsawed in recent weeks, which analysts and traders attribute to governmentContinue Reading
MANILA: A Korean Air plane slid off the runway while landing at Cebu international airport in the Philippines, causing slight injuries and shutting down the country’s second busiest airport, authorities said Monday (Oct 24). All 173 passengers and crew of Korean Air flight KE631 from Incheon were evacuated safely afterContinue Reading
LOCAL INITIATIVES VITAL While the impact of hate speech online has already been documented in several Asian countries in recent years, analysts say that tech firms have not ramped up resources to improve content moderation, particularly in local languages. United Nations rights investigators said in 2018 that the use ofContinue Reading
YANGON: A group who used sex dolls to carry out “ritual incantations” in the car park of Myanmar’s holiest site will be prosecuted by the religious affairs ministry, state media said Monday (Oct 24). Around eight people attempted to bring two “lady dolls” into the towering, gold-plated Shwedagon pagoda inContinue Reading
DOHA: Security forces in Qatar arbitrarily arrested and abused LGBT Qataris as recently as last month, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Monday (Oct 24), in the run-up to hosting football’s World Cup which has put a spotlight on human rights issues in the Gulf Arab state. Homosexuality is illegalContinue Reading
ABANDONING THE SEA At Tasikagung fishing port in Rembang regency, fisherman Abdi said a decade ago he could catch 10 tons of fish in three days at sea. To bring in the same harvest today, he estimates he would need to be out for 15 days. “And only if theContinue Reading
BEIJING: The Communist Party Congress has laid bare the striking gender imbalance in the upper echelons of Chinese politics, with not a single woman making the 24-person Politburo for the first time in at least a quarter of a century. As Xi Jinping and his allies concentrated power over theContinue Reading