Author: viking

By Tery Fredrickson Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha’s hopes of meeting Facebook chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg look to have hit the rocks as a Facebook spokesman said no such plans are on the drawing board. “There are no plans currently for any of our senior leaders to visit Thailand,” according to the statement by a Facebook spokesman. The government has yet to respond to the denial. On Tuesday, Gen Prayut told the media Mr Zuckerberg will visit…

India’s environmental watchdog shut down a coal-fired power plant and banned the use of diesel generators in New Delhi as air quality plummeted in the world’s most polluted capital on Wednesday, the start of the Diwali festival.
New Delhi experiences suffocating smog every year around Diwali, when farmers in north India burn the stubble left behind after the harvest and revellers let off firecrackers. The onset of winter aggravates the problem as the cooler air traps the pollutants…

Philippine law enforcement agents have arrested a woman who tried to spread radical ideas and recruit hundreds of foreigners to reinforce pro-Islamic State rebels occupying a southern city, the justice minister said on Wednesday.
Karen Aizha Hamidon, the widow of a former leader of a small extremist group in Mindanao, was arrested by special agents at her home in a Manila suburb a week ago and has been charged with inciting to rebellion, Vitaliano Aguirre told a news conference.
Hamidon is…

New frameworks for sharing data to be used by artificial intelligence (AI) tools should be developed to help grow AI in the UK, a government-commissioned review has recommended.

The new governor of Indonesia’s capital faced a barrage of criticism on Tuesday for remarks in his inauguration speech that some residents and politicians warned could stoke ethnic and religious tension in the Southeast Asian country.
Anies Baswedan, a former education minister, said in a speech only hours after he was sworn in on Monday that “pribumi” (native or indigenous Indonesians) should take back control of the country from “colonial” influences.
His…

Courts in the UK did not breach their obligation to protect a budding politician’s right to respect for his reputation when it dismissed his claim for allegedly defamatory comments published about him online, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has said.

A former Vietnamese lawmaker has been sentenced to life in prison for fraud after she pocketed US$16 million in down-payments from would-be homeowners when she was a real estate developer, a court clerk said Tuesday.
Chau Thi Thu Nga is the latest to be punished as part of a government anti-corruption sweep targeting current and former officials, bankers and executives in the communist state.
As chairwoman of the private Housing Group company, Nga sold hundreds of apartments to prospective…

North Korean propaganda has been found at the South’s presidential compound, officials said on Monday, with the discovery of leaflets praising Pyongyang, which once sent commandos to attack the complex.
Authorities in the nuclear-armed North and activists in the South regularly use balloons to carry leaflets across the demilitarised zone that has divided the peninsula since the end of the Korean war.
Seoul is only 35 miles from the DMZ, within artillery range, and the leaflets are…

The Court of Appeal (CoA) has issued a landmark judgment which clarifies the rights and obligations for issuers of bearer notes and investors in them.

An opinion poll released on Monday found that nearly nine out of 10 Filipinos support Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs and almost three quarters believe extrajudicial killings are taking place in the bloody crackdown.
Duterte’s signature campaign has killed thousands of people and caused international alarm, amid widespread claims by activists that police are executing suspected drug users and dealers.
Police reject that and say every one of the more than 3,900…