The death toll from the earthquake and tsunami on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island has climbed past 2,000, the country’s disaster agency said Tuesday, as authorities prepared to end the search for thousands of victims feared buried in mud and rubble in the hardest-hit neighbourhoods.
Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the toll from the September 28 twin disasters had climbed to 2,010. He said authorities will hold prayers on Thursday to mark the end of the search in the Petobo,…
Data protection compensation claim fails to prove ‘damage’
Businesses that breach UK data protection law or misuse personal information are not automatically obliged to pay compensation to people affected by that breach, the High Court in London has confirmed.
Insights in store for Malaysia investors at the Post’s China Conference
International investors in Malaysia are expected to carefully parse comments by government officials in a slew of high-profile business forums taking place in Kuala Lumpur this week. Among them is the South China Morning Post’s flagship China Conference, which is taking place outside the newspaper’s Hong Kong base for the first time ever. The two-day Post event at the Kuala Lumpur Hilton beginning Wednesday will feature a keynote speech by Malaysia’s economic affairs…
Ex-Pakistani PMs Nawaz Sharif, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi face court in treason case
Two former prime ministers of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, facing allegations of treason appeared before a court along with a prominent journalist on Monday in a hearing to determine whether the case should go to trial.
The hearing was adjourned until October 22.
The case related to an interview Sharif gave to the English daily Dawn in which he was quoted as suggesting the Pakistani state played a role in the militant attack on the Indian city of Mumbai that killed 166…
Chancellor: UK will ‘go it alone’ with digital tax if no international agreement
If international agreement cannot be reached on how to tax digital companies the UK will “go it alone” and introduce its own digital services tax, UK chancellor Philip Hammond said in a speech to the Conservative party conference last week.
Cambodian dissident weighs next fight against strongman Hun Sen after starting new life in US
If Cambodian government officials thought Meach Sovannara would stay quiet after they threw him in prison, they were wrong.
From behind the walls of Prey Sar – a crowded lock-up in Phnom Penh – Sovannara wrote a critical article this year about Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has ruled the Southeast Asian nation for decades in what human rights activists often describe as a dictatorship masquerading as a democracy.
Sovannara said he wrote the article by hand and had it…
Bollywood actress Tanushree Dutta takes #MeToo claims to police
The Indian actress whose public allegations of sexual harassment by a Bollywood star is sparking a string of similar #MeToo claims has filed a formal complaint, police said on Sunday.
Former Miss Universe contestant Tanushree Dutta first alleged in 2008 that multi-award-winning Nana Patekar behaved inappropriately towards her during the making of a romantic comedy the same year.
No action was taken at the time against Patekar and she made no formal complaint.
But emboldened by the global #MeToo…
Number of missing soars to 5,000 as relief aid arrives in Indonesia disaster zone
The number of people believed missing from the quake and tsunami that struck Indonesia’s Palu city has soared to 5,000, an official said Sunday, an indication that far more may have perished in the twin disaster than the current toll.
Indonesia’s disaster agency say they have recovered 1,763 bodies so far from the 7.5-magnitude and subsequent tsunami that struck Sulawesi on September 28.
But there are fears that two of the hardest-hit neighbourhoods in Palu – Petobo and Balaroa -…
Malaysia arrests 8 suspected militants, 7 of them foreigners
Malaysian police say eight suspected militants, including seven foreigners, have been arrested for allegedly spreading religious extremism that could threaten national security and fan terrorism in the region.
National police chief Mohamad Fuzi Harun said the suspects were connected with an Islamic religious school in Yemen that promoted teachings permitting the killings of non-Muslims and even Muslims who did not follow their ways and denounced democracy as un-Islamic.
Rosmah Mansor, wife of…
How cashless mainland China made Hong Kong, Singapore look backward
It’s lunchtime on a Tuesday and a hungry office worker has just pulled up beside Amoy Street Food Centre – a popular haunt in the Central Business District of Singapore. For the next five minutes he fumbles with a parking coupon, tearing tiny holes in the paper to indicate the date and time, as well as the duration he will be parking his car there. Up till about a year ago, this was a common sight in the 1,100 public car parks across the island, as were tiny round pieces of paper…