Category: Uncategorized

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, already notorious for having cursed the pope and world leaders such as former US President Barack Obama, has been branded “evil” and a “psychopath” after he called God “stupid” and a “son of a b***h” in Asia’s largest Catholic country.
Duterte questioned in a televised speech on Friday the Biblical story of man’s creation and asked why God created Adam and Eve only to allow them to succumb to…

Companies bidding in public procurement exercises will be assessed by their social value, with the aim of enabling more small businesses and social enterprises to win contracts, the UK government has announced.

It was perhaps fitting that the World Cup match between Senegal and Japan – whose fans have received international acclaim for their cleanliness in the stadium – ended in a thrilling 2-2 draw on Sunday in Yekaterinburg.
Both teams won their opening games of the World Cup, yet it was the two sets of fans who grabbed the headlines.
Videos posted on social media showed Japanese fans cleaning up after themselves in the wake of their win over Colombia, picking up litter under the seats…

Grab, the Singapore-based on-demand services company that bought out Uber’s Southeast Asian business, is working toward opening its platform to third-party providers as part of its stated aim to build an “everyday app” for consumers.
The company may soon announce its first batch of external service providers, according to people familiar with the plan, who declined to be named because the information is private. Grab declined to comment.
Singapore’s Grab gets US$1…

One week before Sean Lee started his campus life, he pulled out of university. He preferred to pursue photography, a hobby he picked up right after junior college.
“I was not good at anything, and average at everything. I had to study very hard to get my grades, and even though I ran 12km every day, I couldn’t make the school cross-country team,” he said. “But I had a feeling that I’d be good at photography.”
For years, his instinct seemed more crazy than…

Cambodia’s strongman leader Hun Sen took a brief break from electioneering on Saturday to watch orangutans roller skate, kickbox and dance provocatively as he opened the first major zoo in the capital.
The premier – one of the world’s longest serving leaders – is seeking to prolong his 33-year grip on power in the national vote set for July 29 and has used the courts to cripple his opponents.
But he has also tried to cultivate a lighter side.
“Today we are all…

Tolerance and compassion may be the qualities most often associated with Buddhism. But Asia has been witnessing a spate of violence as new Buddhist movements emerge across the region based on the idea that the religion is under threat and needs protection. Fuelled by a particularly strong sense of Buddhist identity collated with national and ethnic anxieties, this form of Buddhism – based on a localised form of the religion – evokes a rhetoric of intolerance and discrimination that…

Sex toys, infidelity and penis size are generally hush-hush topics in conservative Cambodia, but not on a taboo-busting video blog called “A Dose of Cath” that unabashedly wrestles with the risqué, drawing both applause and abuse in the patriarchal country.
Hosted on Facebook, the show by a 23-year-old Cambodian woman tackles the finer points of sex education, women’s health and gender imbalances in a country where the #MeToo movement has barely registered.
A recent…

Influential industry guidance aimed at helping pension providers and trustees to recognise and tackle pension scams has been updated, to reflect legal and technological changes since it first came into force in 2015.

The application process for EU citizens who wish to obtain the right to remain in the UK after Brexit will be simpler than under the current ‘free movement’ rules, the UK government has claimed.