A visit to your neighbourhood supermarket should be a routine if mildly enjoyable activity. However, for a number of minorities in Australia, stepping out to buy groceries can end in racial abuse and profiling.This month, two video clips emerged showing Asian shoppers being targeted by fellow shoppers at separate Woolworths stores. Woolworths is Australia’s largest supermarket chain, and along with Coles, controls over 60 per cent of the grocery market.Unfortunately, these are not isolated…
US fugitive working as porn actor arrested in Bali
Authorities on the Indonesian resort island of Bali have arrested an American fugitive accused of investment fraud in the United States involving hundreds of thousands of dollars, police said on Friday.Bali police chief Petrus Reinhard Golose said the suspect, Marcus Beam, had been making and selling sex videos in Bali to support his living expenses there.He said Beam apparently escaped from the US by using a passport with a different name and entered Bali in January. Beam was arrested with his…
Japan reports record number of coronavirus cases at start of four-day weekend
Japan reported on Thursday more than 830 new daily coronavirus infections, marking a record for a second straight day in a resurgence since the government lifted a state of emergency about two months ago.The figure brings the nationwide tally to more than 28,700, including some 700 cases from the Diamond Princess, the cruise ship quarantined in Yokohama in February, with the death toll reaching 1,005.Concerns over the worsening outbreak have grown stronger in Japan as a four-day holiday began…
Thailand cremates Chinese immigrant serial killer Si Quey after body displayed for decades
For decades, some parents in Thailand warned their naughty children that if they did not behave, Si Quey would come eat their livers.If the threat of a ghostly visit from the executed child killer, long called a cannibal, proved ineffective, those children could always be taken to see Si Quey. His mummified corpse – gnarled and blackened – for years stood on display in a glass case in the Forensic Museum at Bangkok’s Siriraj Hospital.In recent years, however, doubts were raised about whether…
South China Sea: ‘no sense’ in pushing Philippines’ case at UN summit, Locsin says
The Philippine foreign secretary on Wednesday rejected a call for Manila to press its South China Sea dispute with Beijing at the United Nations General Assembly this September.Teodoro Locsin Jnr said it wouldn’t “make any sense” to revisit the 2016 ruling of a UN arbitral court that sided with Manila against China’s territorial claims as “we won it already”.“Why would you want to re-litigate something that you won? You don’t like you won?” asked Locsin, referring to a suggestion by the former…
Ex-Malaysian PM Najib Razak ordered to pay US$400 million in unpaid taxes
A Malaysian court on Wednesday ordered former prime minister Najib Razak to settle 1.69 billion ringgit (US$397.41 million) in unpaid taxes over seven years while he was still in office, according to a report by national newswire Bernama.Defeated in the 2018 general election amid widespread outrage over allegedly rampant graft in his government, Najib is facing multiple charges of corruption and abuse of power linked to billions of dollars Malaysian prosecutors say was siphoned off from state…
Kangana Ranaut: brave woman in Bollywood or ‘mad and psychotic’?
Bollywood has never known anything like it. It has been accused of cruelty to talented outsiders trying to break in, abuse of power by the dominant film families, bullying, intimidation, and mafioso behaviour. And actress Kangana Ranaut is only warming up. Ranaut, 33, has never been shy about accusing directors and producers of favouritism, but her latest tirades against her fellow celebrities in a series of tweets and interviews have left the Indian film industry paralysed with shock. …
Singapore reviews penalties after outcry over sentencing of NUS student in strangling case
Singapore authorities on Tuesday pledged to review sentencing guidelines for cases involving violence against women, following a public outcry over the relatively light sentence meted out to an undergraduate who attempted to strangle his girlfriend last year.In a rare rebuke of a court ruling by the establishment, female MPs from the long-ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) issued a statement expressing dismay over a sentence they described as “disproportionate to the offence” committed by 23…
Singapore dentistry student who strangled, injured ex-girlfriend suspended from NUS
A student from the National University of Singapore (NUS) who was convicted of strangling and pressing the eye of his ex-girlfriend has been suspended and barred from entering the campus while the university conducts disciplinary proceedings. In a statement uploaded on its Facebook page on Monday, NUS said it did not have the jurisdiction to investigate matters beyond the university. “As such, NUS had to wait for the completion of the court proceedings to gather the facts of the case. We will…
Japan to pay firms to produce goods locally or in Southeast Asia, in shift from China
The government of Japan will start subsidising some companies to invest in local factories and those in Southeast Asia as part of efforts to reduce reliance on manufacturing in China.Fifty-seven firms, including privately-held face mask-maker Iris Ohyama and Sharp, will receive a total of 57.4 billion yen (US$536 million) in subsidies from the government to invest in production in Japan, said the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) on Friday.Another 30 firms will receive money for…