Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said he accepted the resignations of speaker Tan Chuan Jin and member of parliament Cheng Li Hui to “maintain the high standards of ownership and personal conduct” of the People’s Action Party (PAP). He said they were in an “inappropriate relationship” that continued even after he had told them to stop in February. It was the latest development to rock the PAP, which has ruled Singapore uninterrupted for 64 years and has prided itself on a corruption-free government. Last week, Transport Minister S. Iswaran was arrested by the city-state’s powerful Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau in…
Author: Mike Harrison
By Reuters  July 18, 2023 | 06:18 am GMT+7 Move Forward Party Leader Pita Limjaroenrat speaks during a voting session for a new prime minister at the parliament, in Bangkok, Thailand, July 13, 2023. Photo by Reuters An eight-party alliance seeking to form Thailand’s next government reaffirmed its backing for Pita Limjaroenrat to become prime minister, Pita said on Monday, despite his defeat last week in a parliamentary vote. Pita, leader of the progressive Move Forward party – the surprise winner of a May 14 election – failed in his initial bid to win the requisite support of more than…
By Lam Oanh  July 18, 2023 | 06:00 am GMT+7 My boyfriend is 1.6-meters-tall, the same height as me. We met through a mutual friend and started dating eight months ago. He is working in the construction field and comes from a middle class family. I’m an office worker, not too pretty, but have been said to be cute.My boyfriend treats me very nicely. He makes me feel secure and comfortable sharing everything with him. It’s the way he treats me that I prioritize in our relationship, not his appearance.We are planning to arrange a meeting with my mother, so…
Blackpink is set to perform at Hanoi’s My Dinh National Stadium on July 29 and 30. Photo from Blackpink’s Twitter Hoang Tram, 30, of HCMC, says she came up with the idea of making profits from selling tickets to the global superstar’s concerts after seeing the seemingly high demands. She ended up buying three tickets, worth VND3.8 million (around ($161) each.But selling them thereafter was not as easy as she had thought.”I was excited when I checked out the tickets successfully,” she says. “But over the following days, I felt worried, as I realized I would have to compete with…
By Linh Le July 17, 2023 | 08:04pm GMT+7 A dog owner in China caused a public backlash for promising 10 million yuan (around $1.4 million) but only paying 5,000 yuan as a reward for finding his missing dog. The man, surnamed Yang, of China’s central province of Henan, announced on his social media account July 9 that he would pay whoever helped him to find his missing dog Tianlang, an ex-military canine that “made contributions to the nation,” 10 million yuan, the South China Morning Post reported. Yang announced on his social media account July 9 that he would pay…
Miss Grand Vietnam 2022 runner-up Che Nguyen Quynh Chau wore the dress in a photoshoot. Tuan, 31, gained fame after his designs appeared at many domestic and international beauty contests. The designer is working on a new collection, which is expected to be released this month, as part of the 2023 Miss World Vietnam pageant. He is the favorite gown designer of many international celebrities, including Hollywood actress Caylee Cowan, Miss World 2015 Mireia Lalaguna Royo and Miss Universe 2005 Natalie Glebova. . Source: Internet
By Linh Le July 17, 2023 | 03:01pm GMT+7 Jonas Fine Tan, a bachelor student at Oxford University, became an internet sensation after a video featuring him demonstrating his ability to speak 11 different languages was uploaded to TikTok. Jonas Fine Tan goes viral after demonstrating his ability to speak 11 different languages in a TikTok video. Photo from Tan’s Instagram The 11 languages Jonas Fine Tan speaks are English, Mandarin, Hokkien, Thai, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Malay, Tamil, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, according to the Straits Times.Tan learned the majority of these 11 languages not in school, but through talking to native…
Homosexuality is a crime in Muslim-majority Malaysia, and rights groups have warned of growing intolerance in the country towards the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community.In May, Malaysian authorities confiscated watches from Swatch’s ‘Pride collection’ because of the presence of the letters ‘LGBTQ’ on the watches, the home minister said.Home ministry officials “illegally” seized 172 watches from 16 outlets, Swatch said in court documents seen by Reuters. The lawsuit, filed on June 24 at the Kuala Lumpur high court, was first reported on Monday by the Malay Mail, a Malaysian news website.”Without a doubt, the seized watches did…
By Reuters  July 17, 2023 | 02:44pm GMT+7 Pedestrians cross a road on a hot day amid an orange alert for heatwave, in Beijing, China June 16, 2023. Photo by Reuters/Florence Lo A remote township in China’s arid northwest endured temperatures of more than 52 Celsius on Sunday, state media reported, setting a record for a country that was battling minus 50 C weather just six months ago. Temperatures at Sanbao township in Xinjiang’s Turpan Depression soared as high as 52.2 C on Sunday, state-run Xinjiang Daily reported on Monday, with the record heat expected to persist for at least…
By Reuters  July 17, 2023 | 10:12am GMT+7 A medium-sized (M2) solar flare and a coronal mass ejection (CME) erupting from the same, large active region of the Sun on July 14, 2017. NASA/GSFC/Solar Dynamics Observatory/Handout via Reuters Powerful solar flare activity is forecast for Monday which may interfere with short-wave communications, Russian scientists said after three flares were observed on the sun on Sunday. The Fedorov Institute of Applied Geophysics in Moscow said class X flares were possible, including proton flares, and short-wave radio conditions were expected to deteriorate.X-class flares are the largest explosions in the solar systems and…