MALAYSIA
US, Australia warn of attack
The US and Australian embassies have warned of a potential terrorist attack at a popular hawker street in Kuala Lumpur. The US embassy issued an advisory on Thursday saying it has credible threat information and urged its citizens to avoid Alor Street and its immediate surrounding areas. It said that terrorist organizations had in the past planned attacks to coincide with significant dates, but gave no details. The Australian embassy issued a similar alert to its citizens based on the US threat warning. Malaysia has arrested more than 100 supporters of the Islamic State group in the past two years, some of whom were allegedly plotting attacks in the country.
MYANMAR
Rohingya vote ban defended
The government has defended a decision barring 800,000 ethnic minority people from voting in November elections by saying that green card holders cannot vote in US elections either. Minister of Foreign Affairs Wanna Maung Lwin drew awkward laughter on Thursday at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York when he likened the situation of foreigners permitted to live and work in the US after obtaining a green card or permanent residence permit from the government with Myanmar’s so-called “white card” holders, many of them stateless Rohingya Muslims. In March, Myanmar declared the temporary identification cards invalid. Those who held them could vote in the last national elections in 2010, but they will not be able to do so this time.
NORTH KOREA
US resident shown to media
A South Korean citizen and resident of the US who has been detained in the country for five months was presented to the media in Pyongyang yesterday. New York University student Joo Won-moon, 21, said he has not been able to contact his family, but wanted them to know he is healthy. Joo has admitted to entering the country illegally in April, but it remains unclear if authorities plan to prosecute him or release him to go home. For most of the 30-minute appearance, Joo read a prepared speech full of praise for the country, its government and people.
UNITED STATES
Macau businessman nabbed
A Chinese businessman from Macau has been arrested in New York for allegedly smuggling more than US$4.5 million in cash into the country over a two-year period. Property tycoon Ng Lap Seng has been charged with fraud and imprisoned without the possibility of release on bail, along with his alleged collaborator, Jeff Yin. According to an FBI investigation report, Ng and Yin made 11 trips to the US between July 2013 to this month, each time bringing with them between US$200,000 and US$900,000.
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the