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Myanmar rescuers find 8 more bodies after boat sinks

Myanmar rescuers find 8 more bodies after boat sinks
The boat had been carrying mostly students returning to southern Myeik city after a two-week break when it went down on Sunday. (AP)
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Myanmar rescuers find 8 more bodies after boat sinks

Myanmar rescuers find 8 more bodies after boat sinks
  • The boat had been carrying mostly students returning to southern Myeik city after a two-week break when it went down on Sunday
Updated 15 sec ago
AFP
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YANGON: Myanmar rescuers recovered eight more bodies, including three children, on Tuesday after an overloaded boat carrying around 90 people sank off the country’s southern coast, a local resident told AFP.
The boat had been carrying mostly students returning to southern Myeik city after a two-week break when it went down on Sunday.
Eleven bodies had been recovered as of Monday.
Rescuers found “eight more dead bodies today, including three children,” a resident of Kyauk Kar village, where the boat had set out, told AFP on Tuesday.
The five others were students aged between 18 and 20, he said, asking for anonymity to talk to the press.
Local media reported around 60 people had been rescued and eight were still missing.
Boat accidents are common in Myanmar, a country with rudimentary transport and weakly enforced safety regulations.
Vessels ferrying people along the coastline and rivers are often dangerously overcrowded, and accidents can have staggering death tolls. It can also take several days for all bodies to be retrieved.

Topics: Myanmar

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Singapore blocks foreign-linked websites, warns against ‘hostile’ disinformation

Singapore blocks foreign-linked websites, warns against ‘hostile’ disinformation
Updated 5 sec ago
AFP
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Singapore blocks foreign-linked websites, warns against ‘hostile’ disinformation

Singapore blocks foreign-linked websites, warns against ‘hostile’ disinformation
  • The move comes as Singapore prepares for elections to be held before November next year
  • Two of the websites use domain names closely related or similar to legitimate Singapore-linked websites
Updated 5 sec ago
AFP
SINGAPORE: Singapore on Tuesday blocked access to 10 websites linked to foreign actors which the government said could be used to mount “hostile” disinformation campaigns against the city-state.
The move comes as Singapore prepares for elections to be held before November next year.
“These 10 inauthentic websites have been observed to masquerade as Singapore websites by spoofing or using terms associated with Singapore in their domain name and incorporating familiar local features and visuals,” the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said in a statement.
“They also carried content on Singapore, some of which were generated by artificial intelligence. These are common tactics used by malicious foreign actors: build websites which can attract a local following, that may subsequently be used as platforms to mount HICs,” it said, referring to hostile information campaigns.
Two of the websites use domain names closely related or similar to legitimate Singapore-linked websites.
They carried content “that may mislead their audience into thinking that the content is reflective of official positions or local sentiments,” MHA said.
Seven of the websites utilize the word “Singapore” or associated terms in their domain name and publish content related to the country.
The 10th presents itself as a Singapore news website, carrying mostly articles that we “were likely to have been written” using AI tools.
“These 10 inauthentic websites could potentially be used by foreign actors to mount HICs against Singapore, and it is in the public interest to issue directions... to disable access to them for users in Singapore,” MHA said.

Over 250 women in talks with Harrods over Al-Fayed claims

Over 250 women in talks with Harrods over Al-Fayed claims
Updated 2 min 2 sec ago
AFP
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Over 250 women in talks with Harrods over Al-Fayed claims

Over 250 women in talks with Harrods over Al-Fayed claims
Updated 2 min 2 sec ago
AFP

LONDON: Upmarket London department store Harrods on Tuesday said it was in discussions with more than 250 women to settle claims of sexual misconduct by former owner Mohamed Al-Fayed.
The disclosure came as the daughter of former England footballer Paul Gascoigne said she was assaulted by the late Egyptian billionaire when she worked at the store as a teenager but was threatened about speaking out.
Fayed has been accused of raping and sexually harassing scores of women, earning comparisons with high-profile sex offenders such as the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and US financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The slew of allegations came to light in a BBC documentary aired last month.
Harrods, which is under new ownership, said in a statement: “Since 2023, Harrods settled a number of claims with women who alleged historic sexual misconduct by Fayed.
“Since the airing of the documentary, so far there are over 250+ individuals who are now in the Harrods process to settle claims directly with the business.”
Fayed, who died last year aged 94, was one of Britain’s most well-known businessmen. His son Dodi was killed in a 1997 Paris car crash alongside Princess Diana, the former wife of King Charles III.
Claims since that he was also a serial sexual predator have prompted police to re-examine their files for formal complaints against the tycoon, and led to growing numbers of women initiate formal legal action.
Last weekend, the former captain of Fulham Ladies football team, where Fayed was chairman between 1997 and 2013, said he assaulted her at his Harrods office.
On Tuesday, Bianca Gascoigne told Sky News that she joined Harrods as a teenager and Fayed initially portrayed himself as a kindly figure, as her father battled addiction in the public eye.
“I literally felt quite safe in his presence early doors,” she told the broadcaster.
But she said she was left “gobsmacked” and “shell-shocked” when Fayed turned up unannounced at a Harrods apartment where she was staying, and sexually assaulted her.
Gascoigne, 37, said she did not speak out at the time because Fayed told her she would lose her job if she did. “I just got really scared,” she added.

India bringing in a new law to curb the menace of hoax bomb threat calls disrupting airlines flying

India bringing in a new law to curb the menace of hoax bomb threat calls disrupting airlines flying
Updated 22 min 44 sec ago
AP
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India bringing in a new law to curb the menace of hoax bomb threat calls disrupting airlines flying

India bringing in a new law to curb the menace of hoax bomb threat calls disrupting airlines flying
  • The Indian government is working on a new law to punish those spreading the menace of hoax bomb threat calls
Updated 22 min 44 sec ago
AP

NEW DELHI: The Indian government plans a new law to punish those making hoax bomb threats against flights, which disrupt the schedules of airlines and cause massive inconvenience to thousands of passengers.
In less than two weeks, more than 120 flights operated by Indian carriers have received bomb threats, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan said on Monday that the government is planning to introduce legislation that would put offenders on a no-fly list and amend the 1982 Civil Aviation Act so that they can be arrested and investigated without a court order.
On Tuesday, IndiGo, a private Indian airline, said nine of its flights destined for Jeddah and Dammam in Saudi Arabia and some flights from Turkiye had received such hoax calls. The flights were diverted to the nearest airports for security checks.
“We worked closely with the relevant authorities and followed standard operating procedures,” the airline said in a statement.
The hoaxers have largely gone untraced so far. The Mumbai police said they detained a 17-year-old boy from eastern Chhattisgarh state on Wednesday for allegedly posting bomb threat messages on the social media of various airlines.
Police officer Maneesh Kalwaniya said the boy’s motive was to implicate another person involved in a business dispute with him.
The Press Trust of India said 30 domestic and international flights operated by Indian airlines, including IndiGo, Vistara, and Air India, received bomb threats on Monday night alone.
“Even though bomb threats are hoaxes, things cannot be taken non-seriously,” Rammohan said.

Topics: India

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UN: Ukraine population 10 million less since Russia invasion

UN: Ukraine population 10 million less since Russia invasion
Updated 38 min 36 sec ago
AFP
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UN: Ukraine population 10 million less since Russia invasion

UN: Ukraine population 10 million less since Russia invasion
  • The UN Population Fund said there had not been a census, but that there clearly had been a dramatic population decline in war-torn Ukraine
Updated 38 min 36 sec ago
AFP

GENEVA: Ukraine’s population has declined by more than 10 million since Russia invaded in February 2022, sparking an exodus and sending birth rates plunging, the United Nations said Tuesday.
The UN Population Fund said there had not been a census, but that there clearly had been a dramatic population decline in war-torn Ukraine.
“The Ukraine population has declined by over 10 million since the beginning of the war,” UNFPA’s regional director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia Florence Bauer told reporters in Geneva.
She stressed that the decline had been seen “since the beginning of the full-scale invasion,” and was due to “a combination of factors.”
Already before the war, Ukraine had one of the lowest birth rates in Europe, and like many countries in Eastern Europe, it had seen a declining population, as young people left in search of more opportunities, Bauer said.
But since the war, some 6.7 million people fled the country as refugees while the birth rate fell to just around one child per woman, she said.
“That’s one of the lowest in the world,” she said, stressing that this was well below the theoretical replacement rate of 2.1 children that each woman on average must have to maintain the population size.
At the same time, she said, there are the “several tens of thousands of casualties (from the war), which of course add to the equation.”

Topics: Russia-Ukraine Conflict Ukraine population

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Over 1,000 UK prisoners get early release to ease prison overcrowding

Over 1,000 UK prisoners get early release to ease prison overcrowding
Updated 59 min 27 sec ago
AFP
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Over 1,000 UK prisoners get early release to ease prison overcrowding

Over 1,000 UK prisoners get early release to ease prison overcrowding
  • The controversial policy previously saw 1,700 prisoners freed early last month
  • The review will consider options for tougher non-custodial punishments for some convicted criminals
Updated 59 min 27 sec ago
AFP

LONDON: The UK was on Tuesday due to release early a second batch of 1,000 prisoners as the government launches a review of sentencing to ease chronic overcrowding in jails.
The controversial policy previously saw 1,700 prisoners freed early last month.
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood pledged that earlier mistakes that led to 37 ineligible prisoners being erroneously freed had now been “ironed out.”
The review will consider options for tougher non-custodial punishments for some convicted criminals to ensure prison space is available to incarcerate dangerous offenders.
They include “nudge” technology — watches or apps to encourage compliance with conditions imposed on offenders — as well as home detention curfews.
The early release scheme has seen some so-called non-violent offenders who have complied with certain conditions released after serving 40 percent of their sentence instead of the usual 50 percent.
Former justice secretary David Gauke who is chairing the review said the prison population — currently around 89,000 — was rising by 4,500 each year with 90 percent of those sentenced to custody being reoffenders.
Mahmood said the early release scheme had been forced on the government by a prison crisis inherited from the last Conservative government.
She said that after winning power in early July ministers in the new Labour government discovered a prison system so close to “collapse” it could have led to “the breakdown of law and order in this country.”
“In August of this year, we were down to fewer than 100 places across the whole of the country,” she told Sky News.
As a Conservative justice minister in 2019, Gauke argued that there was a “very strong case” for abolishing jail terms of six months or less, with exceptions made for violent and sexual crimes.
Given current reoffending rates prisons were “clearly... not working,” he said.
“This review will explore what punishment and rehabilitation should look like in the 21st century, and how we can move our justice system out of crisis and toward a long-term, sustainable future,” he added.

Topics: UK

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