Asia

    The decision to halt the recruitment of new foreign workers will not affect the validity of an agreement signed with Bangladesh for taking 1.5 million workers, says Malaysia Human Resources Minister Richard Riot. Malaysia’s decision to halt the recruitment of new foreign workers will not affect the validity of an agreement signed with Bangladesh for taking 1.5 million workers. This is because the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was for a period of five years, said Human Resources Minister Richard Riot. “The agreement will remain valid when the freeze is lifted. We have signed agreements for intake of foreign labour not only with Bangladesh but with seven countries. “The freeze does not make the agreements null and void,” he told The Star when met at Parliament lobby yest...

    Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) branch manager Maia Santos Deguito in the alleged scheme to launder US $81 million, saying she confessed she had done something wrong by opening an account in his name and even apologised for it. It was an account in William So Go’s name where the $81 million in questionable funds was consolidated before being transferred to casino accounts. But he has denied owning the account. Go, appearing before the Senate blue ribbon committee hearing, narrated his February 22 meeting with Deguito, facilitated by an East West Bank manager he identified as Allan Peñalosa. It was Peñalosa who first invited him to a meeting and even asked him if he wanted to earn “200 million”. Peñalosa told him he could not explain it fully and then brought him to me...

    North Korea’s highest court has sentenced US student Otto Warmbier to 15 years’ hard labour. Warmbier, a 21-year-old University of Virginia undergraduate student, was convicted and sentenced in a one-hour trial on Wednesday morning at the North’s supreme court. He was charged with subversion. He was arrested as he prepared to leave Pyongyang in January. Last month he was paraded in front of the media as North Korea announced it was charging him with the theft of a political banner. During the press conference he broke down, acknowledging and apologising for the supposed crime. According to Warmbier’s statement, he took the banner with a political slogan on it as a trophy for a church member, who was the mother of a friend. In previous cases, people who have been detained i...

    The death toll from torrential rain in Pakistan rose to 28 on Sunday after more homes collapsed in the southwest and northwest, officials said. They said 17 people lost their lives over the past three days in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, while six died in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the northwest and five in adjacent tribal areas. Four women and six children were among the dead.  More than 50 people were injured in both regions. Officials in the central province of Punjab said they were still estimating damage there. "At least 17 people have died due to roofs and walls collapsing or being struck by lightning," Zahid Saleem, chief of Baluchistan's disaster management authority, told AFP. House collapses also accounted for most of the fatalities in the northw...

    North Korea claimed Sunday that it could wipe out Manhattan by sending a hydrogen bomb on a ballistic missile to the heart of New York, the latest in a string of brazen threats. Although there are many reasons to believe that Kim Jong Un’s regime is exaggerating its technical capabilities, the near-daily drumbeat of boasts and warnings from Pyongyang underlines the regime’s anger at efforts to thwart its ambitions. Our hydrogen bomb is much bigger than the one developed by the Soviet Union, DPRK Today, a state-run outlet that uses the official acronym for North Korea, reported Sunday. If this H-bomb were to be mounted on an inter-continental ballistic missile and fall on Manhattan in New York City, all the people there would be killed immediately and the city would burn do...

    On Monday, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea threatened to carry out a “pre-emptive nuclear strike of justice” on the United States, U.S. bases in the Pacific, and South Korea. If we push the buttons to annihilate the enemies even right now, all bases of provocations will be reduced to seas [of] flames and ashes in a moment, the National Defense Commission said in a statement. Is this bluster, Pyongyang-style? Yes. North Korea is not planning to launch nukes at this moment. But the regime of Kim Jong Un looks ready to strike at its neighbors or the U.S., and a strike could trigger conflict on the Korean peninsula and beyond. “Strategic patience,” the name given to the American policy of the last half-decade, is no more. In the wake of the North’s Jan. 6 detonation o...

    She’s the new darling of the industry, and why not? Sonam Kapoor’s Neerja, a biopic on the courageous air hostess who sacrificed her life to save 359 passengers on board the hijacked PanAm flight in 1986, opened to a great first day on Friday, and is already being hailed as one of this year’s best, and even the biggest, films. Is Neerja the lifeline Sonam needed so badly to sustain her fledgling career in the industry? Will Neerja help Sonam step out now as a bonafide actor who’s got more to her than a famous father and those designer clothes? Whatever that may be, the fact is that Ram Madhvani film is also about many things most of us hold close to our heart. Here’s a list of life-lessons all of us could learn from Neerja. 1. Love and live life The film opens with Sonam g...

    North Korean leader Kim Jong-un looks through a pair of binoculars as he guides the multiple-rocket launching drill of women's sub-units under KPA Unit 851, in this undated file photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang December 30, 2014. Kim Jong-un has said North Korea's nuclear weapons should be ready for use "at any time", state media report. He told military leaders North Korea would revise its military posture to be ready to launch pre-emptive strikes, the Korean Central News Agency said. On Wednesday the UN imposed some of its toughest ever sanctions on North Korea, following its recent nuclear test and missile launch. In response, the North fired six short-range projectiles into the sea. KCNA said Kim was speaking at a military ...

    North Korea has fired short-range missiles into the Sea of Japan - hours after the UN Security Council voted in favour sanctions against the regime. The South Korean defence ministry told the Yonhap news agency the projectiles were launched from Wonsan on the east coast, the BBC reports. South Korean experts were trying to identify exactly what had been fired. It follows Pyongyang's recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch. And it came just hours after the United Nations announced what have been described as the strictest sanctions imposed on North Korea in 20 years. As a result, all cargo going in and out of the country will be inspected, while 16 more people and 12 organisations have been blacklisted. The United States and China spent seven weeks discussing the n...

    Indonesia has issued a tsunami warning after an earthquake of magnitude 7.9 hit off the west coast of the island of Sumatra. The quake's epicentre was 502 miles southwest of Padang and was six miles deep, according to the US Geological Society. It struck at around 6.50pm local time (12.50GMT) and had initially been measured at 8.2. There have been no immediate reports of casualties or damage but the National Meteorological Agency said a tsunami warning has been issued for parts of Sumatra, including West Sumatra, North Sumatra and Aceh. Australia's Bureau of Meteorology issued a marine warning for distant Cocos and Christmas islands, saying strong and dangerous currents were possible and people should secure boats and avoid waterfront areas. The warning did not advise peop...