Author: Press Room

SEOUL: A South Korean court sentenced a man to 40 years in prison on Tuesday (Feb 7) for murdering a woman he had stalked for years, in a high-profile case that prompted calls for legal reform. Seoul’s Central District Court found 31-year-old Jeon Joo-hwan guilty of killing a former colleague in revenge after the victim reported him to the police for stalking. Over almost two years, Jeon followed and threatened the woman on more than 300 separate occasions but he was never detained despite her filing repeated complaints, as police deemed him “low risk”. On Sep 14 last year, a…

JAKARTA: Separatist fighters in Indonesia’s Papua region have taken a New Zealand pilot hostage after setting a small commercial plane alight when it landed in a remote highland area on Tuesday (Feb 7), a pro-independence group said in a statement. A police spokesperson in Papua province, Ignatius Benny Adi Prabowo, said authorities were investigating the incident, with police and military personnel sent to the area to locate the pilot and five passengers. “We cannot send many personnel there because Nduga is a difficult area to reach. We can only go there by plane,” he said. A military spokesperson in Papua,…

TOKYO: The popularity of Japan’s crisp powder snow among foreign skiers, surging back into the country, is luring more to seek the thrill of pristine backcountry slopes – sometimes with deadly impact. A rise in backcountry accidents comes as the Japanese government heavily promotes inbound tourism post-pandemic, having fully opened its borders late last year for the first time since early 2020. Japan’s snow, prized among skiers for dryness caused by local atmospheric conditions, is a big draw. There is no national data, but in the popular ski prefecture Nagano, in all of 2019, some 22 people were involved in…

KUALA LUMPUR: Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) has lodged a report with the country’s anti-graft agency against Pakatan Harapan (PH) and Barisan Nasional (BN), accusing the two coalitions of “lavish” spending during the recent 15th General Election (GE15).  Puchong Bersatu chief Mohd Shukor Mustaffa said that PH and BN had used large quantities of posters and flags during the GE15 campaigning period, on top of holding grand talks. Speaking at a press conference outside the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) headquarters on Tuesday (Feb 7), Mr Shukor also claimed that Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim had used a “luxury helicopter” while campaigning…

Sky News Investigations Reporter Jonathan Lea uncovers how much information the Chinese government is gathering from people’s cars and personal devices as its global technological influence expands.China’s domination around smart devices has led a Washington-based consultancy to call on consumers to wake up and ban the components in supply chains.Mr Lea said China is no longer an “automotive minnow”, with some of the nation’s state-owned companies controlling more markets than ever before.“The Chinese Communist Party and its intelligence agencies have a philosophy of collect now and decrypt later,” Liberal Senator James Paterson told Sky News Australia.“They are hoping to develop…

BANGKOK: Thailand’s prime minister is confident the country will receive more than 30 million foreign tourist arrivals this year as the economically vital tourism sector gathers steam, a government spokesperson said on Tuesday (Feb 7). Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has instructed relevant agencies to facilitate visitors with travel and ensure their safety, spokesperson Anucha Burapachaisri told a briefing. Initially, the government predicted more than 20 million foreign tourists this year and later increased that to 28 million, he said. “Most recently, the prime minister is confident that tourist numbers will even exceed 30 million,” Anucha said.   Source: CNA

However, the cards are not official documentation and are not recognised by authorities. They do not allow these refugees to legally work, study or seek medical help in government hospitals. They merely identify card owners as refugees and contain wordings appealing to the community to help them eke out a living while they temporarily reside in Malaysia, and until they are resettled in a third country. There are currently more than 180,000 refugees in Malaysia registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Of this, more than 80 per cent are from Myanmar, with children below 18 years…

BP’s annual profit more than doubled last year to an all-time high of nearly $28 billion, extending a record run of earnings for the world’s oil majors that is fueling calls for higher taxes on the windfall gains. The British energy company also announced Tuesday that it would invest more in oil and gas over the course of this decade, while reducing its carbon emissions by less than previously planned. BP said in a statement that underlying replacement cost profit rose to $27.7 billion in 2022 from $12.8 billion the previous year. The metric is a key indicator of oil…

SoftBank’s Vision Fund, the brainchild of the company’s founder Masayoshi Son, has faced a number of headwinds including a slump in technology stocks as a result of rising interest rates, a tough China market and geopolitics.Kentaro Takahash | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesSoftBank’s flagship investment arm the Vision Fund posted its fourth straight quarterly loss on Tuesday as a slump in technology valuations continues to hit the Japanese giant.The Vision Fund segment posted a pre-tax loss of 660 billion Japanese yen ($5 billion) for the December quarter. SoftBank’s Vision Fund’s loss on investments came in at 730.35 billion yen over the…

DEAD BODIES On a good day a picker can find trash worth 30,000 kyat (US$10), but more often the take-home pay is around US$3. “Before we started working there was lots of plastic, cans and bottles on the creek,” says Kyu Kyu Khine, 39, who used to collect trash from Yangon’s streets. The pickers try to time their working days with the tides – floating downstream in search of more trash when it ebbs and riding it back upstream at the end of a shift. But the tidal surges can be treacherous, says Ma Yu, who was knocked off her…