Asia

    For the first time, Singapore is the single most powerful passport in the world, thanks to a little help from Paraguay. By removing visa requirements for Singaporeans, Paraguay helped Singapore edge out Germany for the top spot in a passport index developed by global financial advisory firm Arton Capital. Historically, the top ten most powerful passports in the world were mostly European, with Germany having the lead for the past two years, reports the Channel News Asia. Bangladesh obtained a visa-free score of 35 and managed 90th position in the latest rankings. Since early 2017, Singapore has tied for number one position with Germany. But Singapore obtained a visa-free score of 159 in the latest rankings released on Wednesday (Oct 25), while Germany achieved a visa-free ...

    Beijing: China’s Communist Party revealed its new leadership helmed by President Xi Jinping on Wednesday, breaking with recent precedent by failing to include a clear successor to the president among the seven-man line-up. Apart from Xi, Premier Li Keqiang was the only one to retain his spot amid sweeping changes on the Politburo Standing Committee, the height of power in the world’s second-largest economy. Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji and Han Zheng were promoted, replacing five retiring members including anti-corruption chief Wang Qishan, a key Xi ally. All seven are in their 60s, and for the first time no Standing Committee member will have been born before the 1949 Communist revolution. Guangdong party secretary Hu Chunhua and Chongqing party boss Chen ...

    Japan’s leader has scored a major victory in national elections that returned his ruling coalition to power in decisive fashion. Japanese media said on Monday that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party and a small coalition partner had together secured at least 312 seats in the 465-seat lower house of parliament, passing the 310-barrier for a two-thirds majority. Four seats remained undecided. The victory boosts Mr Abe’s chances of winning another three-year term next September as leader of the Liberal Democratic Party. That could extend his premiership to 2021, giving him more time to try to win a reluctant public over to his longtime goal of revising Japan’s pacifist constitution. In the immediate term, the win likely means a continuation of the policies M...

    A Houston company is negotiating to conduct a private search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, after three governments failed in a three-year, $160 million effort. The Boeing 777-200ER is presumed to have crashed after it went missing March 8, 2014 with 239 people aboard, during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation said Friday that it is weighing several private offers to search for the plane, including one from Ocean Infinity, a Houston firm that surveys the ocean floor. Ocean Infinity offered to search without payment unless the plane was found but the offer is still being assessed and no agreement has been reached yet, according to the statement from Azharudden Abdul Rahman, the department's director general. Flight offi...

    North Korea issued another threat of nuclear annihilation against the U.S. on Thursday, vowing to unleash an unimaginable strike at an unimaginable time. The warning comes as American military forces conduct ongoing joint naval exercises with South Korea. The U.S. is running amok by introducing under our nose the targets we have set as primary ones, North Korean state news agency KCNA said in a statement. The U.S. should expect that it would face unimaginable strike at an unimaginable time. North Korea also targeted President Trump directly. The rabid man in the White House … will first face the immense volley of nuclear fire if he hopes to settle (this) confrontation with nukes, KCNA said. Trump has engaged in a heated war of words with the rogue nation since taking offic...

    North Korea could collapse within a year due to US sanctions, a defector and former Pyongyang official has said. Ri Jong-ho, who ran an international network of North Korean businesses which funnelled money into the hermit kingdom, said the country “desperately wants relations with the US. The sanctions that the White House has imposed on North Korea are of a historic level, Mr Ri told an Asia Society event in New York. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Never before has the country faced such tough sanctions. I don’t know if North Korea will survive a year with these sanctions. People will die, he said. Mr Ri believes North Korea’s increasing provocations and Kim Jong-un’s rhetoric are an attempt to force the US into a diplomatic dialogue which does not involve South Korea....

    A teenage girl in China who claimed to be auctioning off her virginity in return for an iPhone 8 was taught a terrifying lesson. The 17-year-old is reported to have posted her offer in an online forum, where she said she would give up her virginity for a cash payment of around £2,300. But her post was discovered by a vlogger who hosts a show, and they set up an interview with the unsuspecting teen, known as Xiao Chen, reports the Mirror. Footage posted by vlogger Nana, 21, shows the pair meeting in a tea house, where Xiao Chen explains that one of her friends slept with a wealthy stranger and earned easy money. The girls claims she wants to order to buy the new iPhone 8 which all her friends have - although several people have said the footage is fake. Nana, whose show foc...

    Japan has again been forced to confront its work culture after labour inspectors ruled that the death of a 31-year-old employee of the country’s public broadcaster, NHK, had been caused by overwork. Miwa Sado, who worked at the broadcaster’s headquarters in Tokyo, logged 159 hours of overtime and took only two days off in the month leading up to her death from heart failure in July 2013. A labour standards office in Tokyo later attributed her death to karoshi (death from overwork) but her case was only made public by her former employer this week. Sado’s death is expected to increase pressure on Japanese authorities to address the large number of deaths attributed to the punishingly long hours expected of many employees. The announcement comes a year after a similar ruling...

    An honour bestowed on Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi by the city of Oxford has been withdrawn as a reaction to her perceived inadequate response to the plight of Rohingya Muslims in the country, reports Times of India. The ‘Freedom of Oxford’ had been granted to the de facto leader of Myanmar in 1997 for her ‘long struggle for democracy’ by the Oxford City Council. A cross-party motion was unanimously passed by the council yesterday which said it was ‘no longer appropriate’ for her to hold the honour. Oxford City Council leader Bob Price supported the motion to remove her honour and confirmed it was an ‘unprecedented step’ for the local authority. The city council will hold a special meeting to confirm that the honour is removed on November 27. Suu Kyi, winner of the Nobe...

    Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh were sceptical on Tuesday about their chances of ever going home to Myanmar, even though the government there has given an assurance it would accept people verified as refugees. More than half a million Rohingya have fled from a Myanmar military crackdown in Rakhine State launched in late August that has been denounced by the United Nations as ethnic cleansing and placed a huge burden on Bangladesh. Myanmar denies ethnic cleansing, saying it is only fighting Rohingya terrorists who have claimed attacks on the security forces. The government has said anyone verified as a refugee from Myanmar will be allowed to return under a process agreed with Bangladesh in 1993. Bangladesh and Myanmar agreed on Monday to work on a repatriation plan, and a My...