Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo allegedly offered to deliver a bag containing A$100,000 (US$67,300) to the state headquarters of an Australian political party after a 2015 fundraising event, a corruption inquiry has heard.Huang was in February stripped of his Australian residency and barred from returning to the country after his Communist Party ties came under scrutiny. He had been at the centre of several political interference concerns, having donated millions to Australia’s two main…
Drills between US and Asean nations kick off, will extend into South China Sea
Eight warships, four aircraft and more than 1,000 personnel from the US and 10 Southeast Asian countries will join maritime drills kicking off on Monday, as part of a joint exercise extending into the flashpoint South China Sea.The first Asean-US Maritime Exercise (AUMX) between the regional bloc and Washington lasts for five days, starting at the Sattahip Naval Base in Thailand and ending in Singapore.The drills coincide with stepped-up US engagement in the region and tensions between Beijing…
More South Korean women are filing for divorce, taking comfort in celebrity splits
Just days after the harvest festival of Chuseok, one of South Korea’s two major holidays, Kim Jin-ju decided she wanted a divorce.“I was just done living as a punchbag for my husband to let out his frustrations on,” the mother of two said.She is one of a growing number of women walking out of their marriages in the country, which now has the highest divorce rate in East Asia and ranks 14th among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) states for divorce, with China in 27th…
Half a century after Ho Chi Minh’s death, his embalmed body is guarded around the clock
The task of safeguarding the embalmed corpse of Vietnam’s revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh is gruelling: carefully selected riflemen work around the clock, watching over the communist nation’s founding father who died 50 years ago on Monday.Protecting him is the ultimate patriotic service for men in stiff white uniforms at Ho’s towering tomb in Hanoi, a monolithic shrine to a man who still pervades public life despite his fading relevance among the youth.The job is a “dream come true” for guard…
Nearly 2 million face statelessness in India’s Assam as controversial citizenship list published
Almost two million people in northeast India were left facing statelessness on Saturday after the state of Assam published a citizenship list aimed at weeding out “foreign infiltrators”, in a process the central government wants to replicate nationwide.A total of 31.1 million people were included in a final National Register of Citizens (NRC), but 1.9 million were deemed ineligible, according to a statement from the Assam government. Most of those excluded were expected to be Muslim.Abandoned…
Why Asean holds the edge in a digital future: it’s the youth factor
Today, Malaysia celebrates its 62nd anniversary of independence, led by the country’s 94-year-old but digitally savvy Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Singapore also celebrated its 54th National Day earlier this month, with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong speaking about how to prepare the city state for climate change. And, in marking the 74th anniversary of its independence, Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo announced an ambitious plan to move the capital from Jakarta to Borneo. Travelling…
How Singapore students above the age of 21 can sue their parents for educational costs
By Tessa Oh Last month, a Singapore judge ordered a father to pay part of his 22-year-old son’s education overseas. The ruling has cast the spotlight on a little-known law that allows people above the age of 21 to sue their parents for education-related expenses. What happened in the case? A Family Court judge ordered the father to pay 60 per cent of his son’s study expenses in Canada. The young man’s parents divorced when he was eight years old. The father, a businessman, has remarried and…
Chinese migrants in East Timor long for home but say Dili is better for earning a living
Walking through Timor Plaza, the largest shopping centre in East Timor, it’s hard to ignore the number of Chinese-owned stores – a sign of the steady increase in mainland migrants who started to arrive after China became the first country to officially recognise East Timor’s independence in 2002.One of the store owners is Ma Liyu, 54, originally from Ningde city in China’s Fujian province. She sells tea leaves and mobile phone accessories, with items in the store costing anywhere between US$13…
Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong was ‘wrongfully’ released from prison, Supreme Court rules
South Korea’s highest court on Thursday rejected a lower court decision that released the heir to the country’s top business conglomerate from prison last year, a decision that could send him back to jail.The Supreme Court dismissed as “wrongful” an appeal court decision that gave vice-chairman Jay Y. Lee, otherwise known as Lee Jae-yong, of Samsung Electronics a suspended jail sentence and released him from prison.“The court rejects the original verdict and returns the case to an appeal court …
Tokyo, Singapore among world’s safest cities but Hong Kong slides down rankings
Tokyo, Singapore and Osaka have once again been named the world’s safest cities by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in its third set of rankings based on urban safety and resilience.Hong Kong, on the other hand, dropped to 20th after ranking 11th in 2015 and ninth in 2017.Other Asian cities ranked even lower included Beijing (31), Kuala Lumpur (35) and Jakarta (53).In the Safe Cities Index 2019, released on Thursday, 60 cities from five continents were assessed on four factors: digital,…