Asian countries should study how emerging technologies fuel racism, a UN-appointed rights expert said on Thursday, after presenting a report highlighting technology’s role in alleged racial discrimination in China, India, Indonesia and Myanmar.E. Tendayi Achiume, UN special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, said considerable work still needed to be done to understand how new technologies could worsen racial inequality and…
US halts imports of Malaysia’s Top Glove over suspected forced labour
US Customs placed a detention order on imports of products made by subsidiaries of the world’s largest medical glove maker, Malaysia’s Top Glove Corporation on Wednesday, an action taken against firms suspected of using forced labour.The bar on Top Glove products comes at a time when demand for the medical gloves and protective gear has skyrocketed due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has hit the US harder than any other country.The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) website showed Top…
Sri Lanka Covid-19 ‘super spreader’ speaks of ordeal after being blamed for infecting 1,300
For months he’s been anonymous, but now Prasad Dinesh, linked by Sri Lankan authorities to nearly half of the country’s more than 2,600 coronavirus cases, is trying to clear his name, and shed some of the stigma of a heroin addiction at the root of his ordeal.Under President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a former army lieutenant colonel credited with helping end Sri Lanka’s long civil war in 2009 with a brutal military campaign against separatists, the Indian Ocean island nation has used the armed forces…
Xi’s call to Singapore: a subtle ‘reminder’ about the South China Sea?
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday said China would work with Singapore to “overcome distractions” to safeguard regional stability, in remarks some experts interpreted as a subtle “reminder” not to take sides as Washington and Beijing spar over the South China Sea and other issues ranging from trade to technology to human rights.The remarks, made to Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in a phone call, came a day after Washington rejected Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China…
Omar Maute’s widow, thought to control millions in cash and cryptocurrency, freed from Philippine jail
The widow of a slain pro-Islamic State (Isis) Filipino leader, Omar Maute, whose group seized control of Marawi city in southern Philippines in 2017, has been freed from prison. Indonesian Minhati Madrais, 39, was married to Omar Khayyam Maute of the pro-Isis Maute Group, which he led together with his brother Abdullah Maute. Remnants of the Maute Group are believed to be waiting for her release from jail as she holds the key to their financing. “Minhati was freed very recently and she is…
Malaysia election just around the corner, potential PM candidate says
Malaysia’s opposition is preparing for early elections after a crucial vote in the lower house this week showed Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin may lack a parliamentary majority, said Shafie Apdal, a potential rival for the premiership.Muhyiddin on Monday succeeded in his bid to replace the speaker of parliament’s lower house by a margin of two votes. But he fell one vote short of a simple majority with only half of the 222 lawmakers in the house voting for his motion.“It is not even a simple…
Surge in coronavirus cases triggers fresh lockdown for 250,000 in Manila
About 250,000 people in Manila will go back into lockdown, an official said Monday, as the number of new coronavirus infections in the Philippines surges.Residents in Navotas, one of 16 cities that make up the sprawling capital of 12 million people, will have to stay home for a fortnight, just six weeks after emerging from one of the world’s longest lockdowns.“I am not sure if this is a solution, but I am certain that if I do this the number of cases will not increase,” Navotas city mayor Toby…
Singapore’s Changi Airport was regarded as world’s best but how is it handling coronavirus pandemic?
Flying is often an afterthought when visiting Singapore’s Changi Airport. With its butterfly and orchid gardens, custom-made airport fragrance and glass-domed mall housing the world’s tallest indoor waterfall, the experience is considered the gold standard of international airports – a stark example of everything it’s austere American counterparts are not.But the airport crowned the world’s best eight years running has been humbled by the Covid-19 pandemic.Passenger traffic has plunged 99 per…
Philippines’ South China Sea arbitration win ‘non negotiable’, top diplomat says
The Philippines will adhere without compromise to a 2016 court victory that nullified China’s claims in most of the South China Sea, its top diplomat said.“The award is non-negotiable,” Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin said in a statement on Sunday. He was commemorating the fourth anniversary of a Permanent Court of Arbitration’s decision which ruled China had no historic right to resources within the seas falling within its “nine-dash line”.Locsin on Sunday also called on…
Coronavirus: Thailand eyes vaccine roll-out in late 2021 as it prepares for human trials
Thai researchers plan to begin human trials of a potential vaccine for the new coronavirus in November and are preparing 10,000 doses, a senior official said on Sunday, aiming for a vaccine that could be ready for use by late next year.Following favourable results in trials on primates, the next step is to manufacture doses for human trials, said Kiat Ruxrungtham, director of the Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University vaccine development programme.China’s military becomes world’s first to use…