HONG KONG: The Chinese cities of Xian and Qingdao have been added to a travel scheme that allows residents to visit Hong Kong in a personal capacity, rather than in a tour group, as the financial hub struggles to revive its economy post-COVID. Tourism in the vibrant former British colonyContinue Reading
Victim had been beaten before and father says he urged her to end relationship
PUBLISHED : 23 Feb 2024 at 18:59
The husband of Chonlada “Noon” Muthuwong deserves capital punishment as he showed no remorse after confessing to killing her and burning her body, says the dead woman’s father.
Forensic tests have revealed that Chonlada, who was killed by her husband in the early hours of Sunday morning, had suffered blunt-force trauma to the head.
A DNA test on the burnt skeleton found at a rubber plantation in Sri Mahaphote district of Prachin Buri confirmed it was Chonlada’s, said Suphichai Limsiwawong, head of the Institute of Forensic Medicine.
A post-mortem examination showed that the deceased’s skull had cracks in the cheek expanding to the eye socket, nasal bone and mastoid bone on the right side. The cracks were caused by violent strikes using a blunt object.
Sirichai Rakthong admitted to killing Chonlada, 27, in Nonthaburi and then attempting to cover up the crime by cremating her body at a rubber plantation in Prachin Buri.
Chaiya Muthuwong, 49, told the media on Friday that his daughter had told him that Mr Sirichai had assaulted her in front of an elevator in 2020. The incident was captured by a security camera.
Mr Chaiya said he had urged his daughter to break up with Mr Sirichai and she promised that she would. But the couple reconciled because she found out she was pregnant.
Mr Chaiya said he never trusted his son-in-law as the man is deceitful and rude.
Before learning of his daughter’s death, Mr Chaiya said he thought his daughter might have been hiding somewhere for a few days after a quarrel with her husband.
“Judging from what he has done, I do not believe Sirichai was mentally ill,” he said. “Instead he was fully conscious and would have never admitted his guilt if her body had not been found.
“He deserves the death penalty as he did not show any sign of remorse.”
Chonlada’s remains are being returned to her family to conduct religious rites.
19-day Thai-US mission expected to shed light on cause of sinking tragedy
PUBLISHED : 23 Feb 2024 at 18:43
The nameplate of the sunken HTMS Sukhothai was retrieved on Friday morning — the second day of a 19-day operation by the Thai and US navies to salvage the ill-fated vessel.
Thai and US divers planned to make four dives on Friday, with the first two involving surveying the ship and removing the nameplate, and the last two involving the examination of a crack found in the bow and an inspection of the hatch and missile launcher at the stern.
HTMS Sukhothai sank in the Gulf of Thailand on Dec 19, 2022. Of the 105 people on board, 76 were rescued, 24 were found dead, and five remain missing. The salvage operation is expected to shed light on what caused the vessel to sink.
In the joint salvage mission, which is as part of the Cobra Gold multinational military exercise, the Thai navy is deploying 35 divers, two minesweepers and one medium-seagoing watercraft. The US has deployed its Ocean Valor, which serves as the mission base, and 14 divers.
The nameplate was the first item to be retrieved from the sunken ship but divers could not remove it on the first day after three dives.
The first five days of the limited salvage mission involve search operations for missing crew and photo documentation of the ship to be included in the investigation. The following 14 days will include the demolition of critical components and weapons.
Navy chief Adm Adung Phan-iam, who observed the first day of the operation from the Ocean Valor, said on Thursday that the information gleaned from the mission would be included in the investigation.
“The Thai public will learn what caused the sinking. The information must be clear and every question must be addressed,” he said.
The Navy chief also thanked the US Navy for its assistance, adding that a fund of 90 million baht allocated by the Thai government for the mission would be returned to state coffers.
The navy last month cancelled the awarding of a salvage contract to a local company that had proposed to use equipment from China after the US reminded Thailand of its obligations.
The Sukhothai was built in the United States in 1987, was equipped with advanced weapons systems and subject to end-use monitoring. In such cases, the selection of a salvage contractor is also subject to review by Washington.
“The primary responsibility of anyone in the medical profession is to care for the patient’s health and life,” said Tak Young-ran, the president of the Korean Nursing Association, urging the doctors to return to work. The growing pressure on hospitals spurred the government to raise its health alert to “severe”Continue Reading
Satellite imagery and video footage have emerged suggesting that Egypt is building what appears to be a large, concrete-walled enclosure which observers believe will be used to manage a major influx of Palestinian refugees flooding out of Gaza via the Rafah crossing on its eastern border.
As Israel’s planned military assault on the city of Rafah edges ever closer, it presents the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, with a potentially serious problem. The displacement into his country of potentially hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the afflicted enclave could seriously destabilize what is an extremely fragile political environment.
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For Egyptians, the potential for spillover of the Gazan conflict is a major concern. Plagued with Islamist groups mounting regular attacks on Egyptian military installments in the Sinai Peninsula since 2013, the last thing Sisi needs are enormous numbers of displaced and traumatized refugees.
Yet, with the Palestinian death toll now approaching 30,000 – approximately 70% of whom are reported to be women and children – and Israel planning on invading Rafah, where upwards of a million Palestinians are huddled, the prospect of refugees spilling into the Sinai looks more and more likely.
Sisi has roundly condemned Israel’s military assault on Gaza, and is fully aware of the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding just across the border. But two key issues are deterring him from making any hasty altruistic decisions in support of desperate Gazans fleeing hostilities.
For a start, Egypt is in no position to absorb large numbers of Palestinian refugees. Besides dealing with a decade-long insurgency in the very border areas that would have to host the refugees, the strong presence of Islamist groups ideologically close to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood would be very dangerous, given his unpopularity at home.
Despite winning the election in December 2023 with a reported 90% of votes, the ballot was widely seen as the most flawed to date. Opposition leaders were arrested and anyone criticising Sisi faced censure.
Accepting an influx of Palestinians, many of whom would be supportive of Hamas, could be hazardous for Sisi. Especially so given his brutal suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood since the 2013 military coup which ousted the then-president and Muslim Brotherhood leader, Mohamed Morsi.
Compounding this is Egypt’s broken economic model. It is now the second-largest debtor to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and is currently in talks to increase its loans.
Unemployment has sat at 7% for nearly a decade and as of the end of 2023, inflation was a staggering 38%. Egypt has neither the political will nor the economic capacity to handle a mass displacement of Gazan refugees across its border.
But it is possible that, with enough international support, Egypt could be persuaded to offer sanctuary, whether short-term or for a longer period, to displaced people from Gaza.
It has done similar before in a different context – last year, in return for 21 million euros (US$22.7 million) in funding from the European Union, Egypt took in 200,000 people fleeing violence in Sudan. The deal aimed to prevent migrant flows from reaching Europe.
Sisi could secure a deal on a similar premise, using the Gaza conflict in return for help from Europe or the US to deal with Egypt’s deteriorating economic situation. But this is not a sustainable solution.
Temporarily, more refugee camps could be provided. But given the damage to Gaza after Israel’s ground assault, the permanent settlement of these displaced people would need to be considered. It’s highly unlikely that Sisi would be prepared to accept this.
Sisi is not the only leader thinking of the “day after” – although, as the Rafah invasion presently scheduled for Ramadan edges ever closer, the problem looms ever larger. The US president, Joe Biden, has spoken about the need for the Palestinian Authority to be revitalized to facilitate negotiations for a new two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.
Although it’s difficult to foresee amid the trauma and violence among both populations, this long-term plan is something that Egypt could play an instrumental role in. Its intelligence services are known to have significant knowledge of the Hamas tunnel system, and it has been reported that many Egyptian army personnel are involved in the smuggling economy in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s longstanding position on Palestinian statehood, its decades-long normalization of relations with Israel, and its more recent reset of relations with pro-Brotherhood states such as Qatar (host of much of the Hamas leadership) puts it in a unique position to foster a plan for a two-state solution.
In December, Egypt and Qatar collaborated to develop a plan for a ceasefire, contingent on phased hostage releases and prisoner exchanges. While this plan broke down fairly quickly through Israeli intransigence, it could be a model to build on for an eventual end to the conflict.
If there is no sustainable ceasefire, Egypt faces the prospect of having to take on the responsibility of hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians. The Egyptian public, which is largely sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians, is likely to accept refugees on a temporary basis to prevent the humanitarian catastrophe from getting worse than it already is.
But Sisi will need to make some serious decisions for the long term or the bloody Israeli-Palestinian conflict could have dire consequences for his own country.
Gillian Kennedy is Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of Southampton
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Apart from the Budget debate, MPs have also filed questions on issues such as the erroneous charging of Goods and Services Tax (GST) by government agencies and the Singaporean businessman who was served a notice that the authorities will designate him as a “politically significant person” under a law to counter foreign interference.Continue Reading
Two years after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia is still facing an unprecedented number of economic sanctions. It has been excluded from major global financial services, and around 260 billion euros (US$281.4 billion) of its central bank assets have been frozen.
Russian airspace is closed to most Western planes and Western ports are closed to Russian vessels. A formal cap has been imposed on buying or processing Russian oil sold for more than $60 per barrel (world prices currently fluctuate between $80 and $100. And in theory, it is illegal to sell Russia anything that could be used by the military.
Sanctions have had some effects. According to the IMF, Russia’s GDP is around 7% lower than the pre-war forecast. Despite all of this, Russia’s economy has not collapsed. But it does look very different and is now entirely focused on a long war in Ukraine – which is actually driving economic growth.
In fact, the IMF expects Russia to experience GDP growth of 2.6% this year. That’s significantly more than the UK (0.6%) and the EU (0.9%). Similarly, Russia’s budget deficit (the amount the government needs to borrow) is on track to remain below 1% of GDP, compared to 5.1% in the UK and 2.8% in the EU.
One reason for this relative resilience is Russia’s strong, independent central bank. Since 2022, it has imposed massive interest rate hikes (currently at 16%) to control inflation (still above 7%).
This has been combined with government-imposed controls that make it almost impossible for Russian exporters and the many foreign companies still operating in Russia to take money out of the country. Together, these policies have helped to avoid a total collapse of the ruble, by keeping the currency flowing inside Russia.
Russian firms have also learned to sidestep sanctions, with the oil cap being a prime example. In theory, no Russian oil should be traded with the West above the cap, which would have a massive impact on Russia’s public finances.
In practice, it has been circumvented by a large “dark” fleet of uninsured vessels and the use of accounting loopholes. And while sanctioning countries are trying to tighten the rules, Russia’s public coffers have actually been flooded with oil money.
Many countries have also made money playing the role of intermediaries. Turkey, China, Serbia, Bulgaria and India are among those which have reportedly circumvented sanctions and carried on selling goods to Russia.
Those products are understood to often include dual-use goods such as microchips or communication equipment that are subsequently used by the Russian military. And despite recent efforts, a full regime of extra-territorial trade sanctions – which ban any foreign company from trading with Russia – is still far away.
But perhaps the most worrying reason for the Russian economy’s resilience is the war itself.
For a long time, the Russia’s economy has not been diverse, relying heavily on the export of natural resources such as oil and gas. And a major reason for the Russian government’s relatively high revenue today is precisely that the war has led to high energy prices.
Russia’s public spending is at unprecedented levels and around 40% of the government budget is spent on the war. Total military spending is expected to reach more than 10% of GDP for the year 2023 (the UK figure is 2.3%).
Military pay, ammunition, tanks, planes and compensation for dead and wounded soldiers all contribute to the GDP figures. Put simply, the war against Ukraine is now the main driver of Russia’s economic growth.
And it is a war that Russia cannot afford to win. The cost of rebuilding and maintaining security in a conquered Ukraine would be too great and an isolated Russia could at best hope to become a junior partner entirely dependent on China.
In the context of collapsing infrastructure and growing social unrest inside Russia, the projected cost of rebuilding the occupied area is already massive.
A protracted stalemate might be the only solution for Russia to avoid total economic collapse. Having transformed the little industry it had to focus on the war effort, and with a labor shortage problem worsened by hundreds of thousands of war casualties and a massive brain drain, the country would struggle to find a new direction.
Thirty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it has become clear that resource-rich Russia has become much poorer than its former Soviet neighbors such as Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Hungary, who pursued the route of European integration.
The Russian regime has no incentive to end the war and deal with that kind of economic reality. So it cannot afford to win the war, nor can it afford to lose it. Its economy is now entirely geared towards continuing a long and ever-deadlier conflict.
Renaud Foucart is Senior Lecturer in Economics, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
SINGAPORE: Consumer marketplace Carousell is moving to suspend the sale of Taylor Swift concert tickets ahead of her shows in Singapore, noting that ticket scams rise in the lead-up to her shows globally.
Ticket sales for her concerts will be suspended from Friday (Feb 23) to Mar 9. Existing listings will be removed by Feb 26, said Carousell.
The move affects Carousell’s platforms in Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan.
The US pop sensation has six sold-out shows in Singapore from Mar 2 to Mar 9 – her only stop in Southeast Asia.
“While a vast majority of ticket listings are from genuine sellers, given the unique case of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, Carousell has made the one-off exception to adopt this approach, and apologises for the inconvenience caused,” said the e-commerce company.
Although the sale of concert tickets is not prohibited on the platform, Carousell’s chief of staff Su Lin Tan said Swift’s concert is “unique in that we expect many overseas concertgoers who may not know how to adequately protect themselves from local scam tactics”.
“Additionally, we realise that the two weeks leading up to the Eras tour shows are prime for scammers taking advantage of last-minute panic buying of concert tickets,” she added.
Delays in weapons deliveries from allies played a part in the fall of the stronghold, and are jeopardising Ukrainian defences elsewhere on the battlefield, she added.
“Avdiivka is a clear testimony to the fact that the delay in assistance costs lives dearly,” she said. “We need more weapons to make progress and turn the tide.”
As dwindling foreign support and supplies threaten Kyiv’s hold on the fragile 1,000km frontline, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has appealed to his Western allies to speed up aid and plug a weapons shortage.
Ms Zelenko echoed her president’s pleas to replenish the overstretched and exhausted ranks, adding that if the world does not stand united with Ukraine, the conflict could snowball into a wider global security crisis.
“Our soldiers are committed to defending their country, they simply need the equipment to make it happen,” she said.
“We need to work together. Not a single country in Europe is capable of defeating an aggressor alone. Ultimately, it’s not only about Ukraine.”
Getty ImagesAlia Bhatt’s superstar appeal cannot be overstated.
At the age of 30, she has become a megastar in Bollywood. For certain people (your writer includes herself among them), she’s one of the hottest names out there.
If you’re not into Indian films, you might not have come across her – until recently, that is.
Last year, Bhatt made her Hollywood debut. All of a sudden, she was introduced to a global audience.
Now, she’s backing a new drama series about wildlife crime.
“People have the power to make a difference, whether it’s in this industry or any other,” she tells BBC News.
Bhatt was born into a Bollywood family, to a film-maker father, Mahesh Bhatt, and an actress mother, Soni Razdan.
Razdan was born in Birmingham, England, and Bhatt, though born in India, describes herself as British.
In an interview with Wired last year, she answered the most googled questions about her, one of which was: “Is she British?” Bhatt responded with a resounding yes.
Bhatt had her first leading role at the age of 18, and has starred in dozens of Hindi films since then.
She lives in Mumbai with her actor husband, Ranbir Kapoor, and their one-year-old daughter.
The pair are one of Bollywood’s power couples. It’s an industry that has always been ruled by family dynasties.
Bhatt starred in 2023 romantic comedy Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani, which was a smash hit at the box office.
Weeks later, she appeared alongside Wonder Woman actress Gal Gadot and 50 Shades actor Jamie Dornan in Netflix’s Heart of Stone, which got mixed reviews.
She’s not the first Bollywood star to break through to Hollywood – others such as Priyanka Chopra have as well.
But not all of them have. Shah Rukh Khan, also known as the “King of Bollywood”, has never ventured into Hollywood despite having fans around the world. At an event in Dubai last week, he said he had to “learn to deliver to the audience that likes me, instead of spreading myself too thin”.
When we meet, in central London, Bhatt is wearing a black velvet Sabyasachi saree. (Again, if you know, you know. Sabyasachi is one of the most sought-after fashion designers in India.)
Bhatt is in London to attend a preview of Poacher, the new crime drama series she is executive producing. Based on true events, the series tells the story of the largest ivory poaching ring in India.
A worldwide ban on ivory sales came into effect in 1989. But elephant poaching is still a major problem globally, fuelled by demand for ivory in parts of the world where it is seen as a luxury status symbol.
More than 40 elephants a day are killed for their tusks, according to a 2020 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Bhatt, who is an animal lover, was asked to get involved in the series by its director Richie Mehta.
“He showed me a couple of episodes, and I wanted more,” she says. “I’m just a lover of cinema or content in general that has the power to influence and really move you emotionally and physically.”
This is not the first time Bhatt has lent her voice to the cause of sustainability and conservation.
She has launched her own sustainable clothing brand, and last year she earned praise for re-wearing her wedding saree. She has also championed animal welfare before.
“We have to somehow as a society create our own conscience, things we want to passionately speak about, passionately support,” she says.
“I’ve always said I don’t have the answers but I have the questions,” she adds. “I’m not saying I do everything right, but there’s something within me that wants to know more.”
In Poacher’s opening scene, an elephant is shot dead, killed for its tusks.
It’s “upsetting” to watch, admits Bhatt. “But it should be upsetting, that’s when the stakes become really high.”
Mehta, an Emmy Award-winning director, adds that this is very much an international problem, affecting the UK too.
“If you pass through Heathrow Airport, when you’re waiting at customs, you see signs of what they’ve seized, the contraband they’ve seized. And it’s immense. It’s happening all the time,” he says.
Bollywood, India’s hugely popular Hindi film industry, produces hundreds of movies every year and has a massive following among Indians globally. The sway the films and the stars have on their fans’ imaginations cannot be overstated.
But it is often described as a man’s world.
It’s something that’s been talked about for a long time, with a study last year showing just how little gender equality there is – both on and off screen.
Over the years, many Bollywood films have been criticised for being regressive, promoting misogyny and gender biases.
Bhatt, who has made a career out of playing various troubled women – from a sex worker to a kidnapping victim – is keen to stress things are changing when it comes to representation in Bollywood.
She points to Poacher, which has a female protagonist, a forest officer called Mala Jogi, at the heart of its story.
Mala – played by Nimisha Sajayan – didn’t actually exist in real life, but Mehta added her in when writing the series.
“So here we have Nimisha at the heart of the show playing Mala Jogi, being absolutely outstanding, heroic, and doing all those things you’d see a man do, which you’re seeing a woman doing the same thing,” says Bhatt.
As for Bhatt herself, she has often been described as a trailblazer for up-and-coming young women in Bollywood and beyond.
“I would like to lead by example,” she says, “and be led by example, like we have been in this case.”
Poacher is available now on Amazon Prime Video.
Additional reporting by Zarghuna Kargar, Sadia Khan and Amrit Cheema.
