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Health experts on Monday warned against a possible outbreak of measles in the Philippines, as a disease long under control is fuelled by patchy immunisation programmes and declining trust in vaccines.
Measles cases jumped nearly fivefold to 17,300 in the 11 months to November versus last year’s figure, mostly in conflict areas in the south, said doctors and officials of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
“We have almost eradicated measles, but we are now seeing a rise in cases,…

A refugee football player who was hoping to return to Australia over the weekend after being arrested in Thailand has been put into detention instead and is facing deportation to the country he fled from.
Hakeem al-Araibi was arrested at Bangkok airport last week on an Interpol notice issued at Bahrain’s request.
The 25-year-old told SBS News on Sunday that Thai authorities “discreetly” ordered him to book a flight out of the country.
‘This is barbarity’:…

Tens of thousands of Indonesian Muslims held a rally in Jakarta on Sunday led by hardline groups who had agitated to remove the city’s Christian governor, underscoring the growing influence of Islamist groups ahead of elections in 2019.
The rally was attended by former general, Prabowo Subianto, a nationalist with strong links to Islamists who is seeking to topple President Joko Widodo in next year’s polls after being narrowly defeated in 2014 during a bitterly fought campaign.
The…

Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra married US singer Nick Jonas on Saturday in a Christian ceremony attended by close family and friends at one of India’s most opulent royal palaces, People magazine reported.
The couple are due to have a traditional Hindu wedding ceremony on Sunday and host a reception in New Delhi next week.
The bride, groom and other members of the wedding party wore outfits designed by Ralph Lauren, the design house said on its Twitter account.
The wedding was officiated…

When Indonesian politician Grace Natalie pledged her party would not support discriminatory local laws based on “the Bible or sharia”, she probably did not expect to be investigated by police. But on November 22, 11 days after the ethnic Chinese Protestant addressed members of her Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) and their guest, President Joko Widodo, she was summoned for seven hours of questioning. Eggi Sudjana, a politician from the National Mandate Party, which supports…

Personal information belonging to approximately 500 million hotel guests may have been stolen from a database operated by the Marriott International hotel group during the past four years, the company has said.

US prosecutors have charged Mike Lynch, the former chief executive of UK software business Autonomy, with fraud.

The UK’s financial regulators have backed an orderly withdrawal from the European Union, including the post-Brexit transitional period set out in the draft withdrawal agreement.

Two police officers were shot dead execution-style while manning a checkpoint in a former war zone in Sri Lanka, officials said Friday.
The victims had their hands tied behind their backs and were shot in the head, according to authorities, and their weapons had been taken.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the shooting shattered the relative calm in the region where fighting between troops and Tamil rebels ended over a decade ago.
Sri Lanka in turmoil amid ‘anti-…

Nine drug smugglers were sentenced to death in Vietnam on Friday for selling methamphetamine and heroin in a country with some of the toughest drug laws in the world. Heroin has long been the drug of choice among users in Vietnam, mostly older men, but synthetic drugs use is on the rise especially among a growing class of hard-partying youth. The sentences handed down on Friday were among the toughest in years and came after a long trial in northern Ha Nam province. The ring…