Sri Lankan authorities have arrested a Saudi-educated scholar for what they claim are links with Zahran Hashim, the suspected ringleader of the Easter Sunday bombings, throwing a spotlight on the rising influence of Salafi-Wahhabi Islam on the island’s Muslims.Mohamed Aliyar, 60, is the founder of the Centre for Islamic Guidance, which boasts a mosque, a religious school and a library in Zahran’s hometown of Kattankudy, a Muslim-dominated city on Sri Lanka’s eastern shores.“Information has been…
More than 100 inmates escape Indonesian jail in mass prison break after rioting
More than 100 inmates escaped from jail in Indonesia on Saturday, in the latest breakout to hit the country’s creaking prison system.The prisoners fled the jail in Siak district on Sumatra island early in the morning after rioting and a fire broke out at the detention centre, police said.Footage on local TV stations showed the facility engulfed in flames.Authorities launched a massive manhunt and 115 prisoners had been recaptured by late morning, said Riau province police chief Widodo Eko…
Asia’s oldest architecture firm practises its art along belt and road
A slowdown in China and price pressure in Greater China is forcing P&T Group, Hong Kong’s oldest architecture firm, to look to emerging markets along the belt and road.P&T directors Remo Riva and Janette Chan estimate that total revenue from China is now less than 30 per cent, down from more than 50 per cent. As a result the firm has had to cut staff, which at its peak was more than 2,000 to around 1,600 today.The company earns about US$130 million in fees annually, according to the directors…
Japan enacts legislation making preschool education free in US$7 billion bid to expand child care support
Japan enacted legislation Friday making preschool education free as part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s drive to expand child care support and stem the country’s falling birth rate.The government will use revenue from the planned consumption tax hike in October to run the free education program that is expected to cost 776 billion yen (US$7.1 billion) per year.The bill, which secured lower house approval in April, was passed by the House of Councillors on Friday, amid criticism from some…
Thai election: a political laundering by the junta to earn legitimacy
With almost one and a half months since Thailand’s general election on March 24, Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-ocha, leader of the military junta that usurped power from Yingluck Shinawatra’s government in 2014, seems a step closer to serving another term.On the May 7 and 8, the Election Commission (EC) certified 95 per cent of the election results on constituency MPs and party-list MPs respectively. The remaining 5 per cent will be tabulated when the cases involving possible…
US suspends effort to recover Korean war remains this year amid silence from Pyongyang
The United States military said on Wednesday that it has been unable to reach North Korean officials to discuss the recovery of American service members who died and were left behind in the Korean war, a new indication of fraying relations between the two nations.The Defence Department agency that recovers human remains from past wars said in a statement that US efforts to communicate with the North Korean army regarding the resumption of joint recovery operations in 2019 have been suspended…
Who will be Thailand’s next prime minister? Billionaire Dhanin Chearavanont of CP Group might have an idea
Dhanin Chearavanont has spent six decades building the Charoen Pokphand Group (CP) into a global empire spanning everything from agriculture and food to telecommunications and e-commerce – not to mention property development, automobiles, and finance – but he may have even greater ambitions in the political arena.Since his abrupt resignation last month as chairman of CP Foods, the conglomerate’s core business, speculation in Thailand has been rife that Dhanin will either be named as a senator –…
Major banks tap into fintech space in battle for market share
The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has selected technology provider Mambu to support its new challenger bank Bó for its upcoming launch later this year.
Pension oversight proposals could delay corporate deals
Proposals that would require companies with defined benefit (DB) pension schemes to notify scheme trustees and The Pensions Regulator (TPR) about a wider range of corporate activities have the potential to delay deals, experts have warned.
Malaysia’s terrorism threat must be addressed at community level to prevent resurgence of groups such as Islamic State
The concept of “New Malaysia” is rife with sentiments of change. But since the Pakatan Harapan coalition won the country’s general election on May 9 last year, taking power from a party in place for 60 years, one problem has remained unchanged – the threat of terrorism.The new government took the helm amid a terrorism landscape shaped by a militarily weakened Islamic State in Syria and the southern Philippines. A five-month conflict between jihadist groups and government forces at Marawi in…