“We will send the North Korean workers who are in Sarawak, who have exceeded their visa period, back to Pyongyang.

“Those with valid visas, however, can stay,” he told reporters in Parliament on Tuesday.

The Deputy Prime Minister said there were a total of 315 North Koreans in Malaysia, adding that negotiations are ongoing with North Korea to allow the remaining nine Malaysians there to return.

Dr Ahmad Zahid also said that there were a total of 191 North Koreans here under the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) program.

Diplomatic ties between the two countries have soured following the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the estranged half-brother North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (KLIA2) on Feb 13.

North Korea has criticised Malaysia’s handling of the investigation, and has even accused it of being part of a conspiracy against the hermit nation.

Tensions escalated on March 7 when North Korea barred all 11 Malaysians there from leaving the country, effectively turning them into hostages.

Two of them, Stella Lim and Nyanaprakash Muniandy of the United Nations’ World Food Programme, got out of Pyongyang and reached Beijing on March 9. Malaysia issued a similar ban for the 315 North Koreans still in the country.

I admit it, I used to enjoy shark fin soup. Not anymore.

My wife and I stopped consuming shark fin soup after learning what sharks had to go through before a bowl of shark fin soup is served to humans.

Reasons why we should say no to shark fin soup:

First, shark fins have low nutritional value.

Second, shark fins have no taste. They get their taste from the other ingredients.

Third, shark fins are expensive.

Fourth, shark fins have no proven medicinal value. In fact, they contain high levels of mercury (made more concentrated by the treating and drying process), plus hydrogen peroxide, which is used to make the color more appealing.

Fifth, many shark species are on the brink of extinction.

Sixth, humans do not need shark fin soup to live but sharks need their fins to survive.

Finally, shark fins are harvested through a barbaric process known as shark finning.

Barbaric process

How are shark fins gathered?

First, sharks are caught.

Second, the fins are removed while the sharks are still alive. And because sharks have as many as six big and small fins, they agonise six times over.

Third, they are dumped back into the ocean and are left to die an excruciating death. Without their fins, they cannot swim properly, they cannot catch prey for food, they cannot defend themselves, and they cannot get oxygen, as water needs to be forced through their gills as they swim.|

Why are sharks dumped back into the ocean after finning?

1. Space – The shark’s body is huge and takes a lot of space in the boat

2. Price – The fins are worth much more than the rest of the shark’s body.

3. Spoilage – Ammonia produced by a decomposing shark body may contaminate other catch.

Why people eat shark fin soup

In many countries, including China and Hong Kong, the consumption of shark fins has declined after government interference, like banning the dish in state banquets.

However, since there is no law (yet) banning shark fin soup/dishes in the Philippines, some people still have the appetite to order them because of one or all of the following reasons:

1. Culture or habit – Some people still believe shark fin is delicious, a delicacy, an aphrodisiac, has medicinal or nutritional value.

2. Show of affluence – A bowl of shark fin soup costs a lot of money and being seen ordering or serving shark fin soup in a wedding or banquet sends a signal that the host is successful and has money.

3. Ignorance – Most consumers do not realise the barbaric process involved in removing the fins.

4. Indifference – They do not care about marine conservation or the fate of the sharks.

Why restaurants still serve shark fin soup

In the Philippines, many big, multinational hotels like Shangri-La and Peninsula have stopped serving shark fin soup since 2011 because they understand the bigger picture.

Their business continued to be brisk without shark fin soup.

Others, unfortunately, are still serving them because of one or all of the reasons below:

1. Brand association – Dishes with shark fins are core products.

2. Marketing – Customers ordering them have money, which means they can cross sell other expensive items as well.

3. Fear of losing to competition – Some feel that if they stop, business will go to the competition.

4. Apathy – They have no idea about shark finning or do not care to know anything about it.

5. No social implication – They have not been pressured enough to stop.

6. Law of foolish fellowship – If others are serving it, why should they stop? They failed to look into the possibility that stopping and publicising their reason for doing so can reposition them as a caring restaurant and a leader in seafood sustainability.

Citizen action requests

Now that you have read up to this point, I have three requests.

1. Please share this information with others.

2. Stop consuming shark fin soup or shark fin dishes. When you are served shark fin soup during weddings, banquets or meals, do not consume it.

3. Write to restaurants serving shark fin soup to ask them to stop.

If there is no demand, then hopefully the cruel practice will stop. When restaurants know we are vigilant, they will likely stop serving shark fin soup.

Action requests

To restaurants – Please stop buying shark fins and phase out this dish. Do not wait for people to hold placards or boycott your restaurant before you remove this dish from your menu. Offer alternatives.

To party hosts – Please refrain from including dishes with shark fin in your banquet order.

To guests and consumers – Again, please stop ordering and consuming dishes with shark fin.

The cuts come after the movie ran into trouble in Russia, which slapped an adults-only rating on the film last week following pressure by an ultra-conservative lawmaker who was pushing for a ban.

The film’s director Bill Condon has revealed that it contains Disney’s “first exclusively gay moment”, although some critics have said the reference is extremely mild and fleeting.

Malaysian Censorship Board (LPF) chairman Abdul Halim Abdul Hamid told The Star newspaper that the film “has been approved… with a minor cut”.

The cut focussed on a “gay moment” in the film, said Abdul Halim, adding that it had been rated PG-13 — which indicates that some material may be inappropriate for pre-teens.

The Malaysian release of the movie, featuring “Harry Potter” star Emma Watson, was postponed by Disney earlier this week pending “an internal review”, according to theatre chain Golden Screen Cinemas which was set to show the film from Thursday.

Disney’s office in Singapore was not immediately able to confirm the censorship decision or say when the film would be released.

In a departure from previous depictions of the fairy tale, Le Fou, the sycophantic sidekick to antagonist Gaston, is portrayed by comedian Josh Gad as a gay man, making him Disney’s first ever” out” LGBT character.

The film has also come under fire from religious figures in neighbouring Singapore, with Christian clergy attacking Disney for deviating from “wholesome, mainstream values”.

“Parents are therefore strongly advised to provide guidance to their children about this re-make of ‘Beauty & the Beast’,” said Bishop Rennis Ponniah, president of the National Council of Churches of Singapore.

Harussani Zakaria, the senior mufti for Malaysia’s northern Perak state, said the film would “sow the seeds of destruction and negative behaviour in our society”.

“We must guard ourselves from Western behaviour which has gone astray,” he told AFP.

“This movie must be banned in Malaysia.”

But Malaysia’s minister of tourism and culture, Seri Nazri Aziz, has criticised the controversy over the film, calling it “ridiculous”.

“You don’t ban a film because of a gay character,” he told the Malay Mail Online. “We must allow people to decide for themselves.”

Homosexuality is illegal in Malaysia, where laws criminalising sodomy can result in imprisonment, corporal punishment, and fines.

Little Reagan Caldwell  was all smiles as he got a good look at his father, Brandon, a captain in the US Air Force who had just returned home to New York from a stint in Antarctica.

Reagan was infected with Group B Strep (GBS) shortly after he was born, according to his mother, Amanda. As a result, he came down with sepsis, meningitis, and other illnesses, and was rushed to an intensive care unit at hospital, according to the Caters News Agency.

Mrs Brandon quit her job as a teacher to care for Reagan. Then her husband was deployed to Antarctica in what she said “was the hardest deployment yet by far”.

Before he returned, his little boy had received the special glasses to improve his vision as part of a recovery regime that also includes physical and speech therapy.

“I was never told this could make my baby sick after leaving the hospital,” Mrs Reagan told ABC7 news. “I want moms to ask questions, do research on it, and if you think there’s something going on with your baby take them in to the paediatrician or the emergency room.”

Capt Brandon was still in uniform when he picked up his baby boy and sang “Patty cake, Patty cake” to him. In the video, Little Reagan peers at him. His reactions are priceless. Finally, his little boy rests his head on his father’s chest.

“You can see how hard it was for Brandon to be away from Reagan by the emotion he showed when he finally had him in his arms again,” Mrs Reagan told ABC7 news. “Reagan did not skip a beat and is loving having daddy back home.”

The United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, said a full purge could be the ultimate goal of the institutional persecution and horrific violence being perpetrated against the Rohingya.

The evidence “indicates the government may be trying to expel the Rohingya population from the country altogether,” Lee told the UN rights council.

The army launched a bloody crackdown against the Rohingya in October in the northern Rakhine state following attacks by militants on several border posts.

UN investigators say that during the military operation women were gang-raped by soldiers and Rohingya babies were slaughtered.

Lee wants the rights council to establish the UN’s highest-level probe, a Commission of Inquiry (COI), to investigate that crackdown as well as violent episodes in 2012 and 2014.

The council could set up the commission before its session ends later this month, but key players including the European Union have not yet backed Lee’s call because of concern that a damning UN investigation might threaten the country’s fragile democracy drive.

Speaking to reporters after her council appearance, Lee said she believed support for a Commission of Inquiry was tepid, including within the EU.

Countries “won’t say they are not going to support your call, but I do hear … (countries) say that maybe Aung San Suu Kyi needs more time,” Lee said, referring to the Nobel peace laureate who leads Myanmar’s civilian government.

Suu Kyi’s government, which took charge last year after decades of oppressive military rule, has rejected Lee’s bid to set up a Commission of Inquiry and insisted its own national probe can uncover the facts in Rakhine.

Lee conceded to reporters that a full international probe “could have a destabilising affect” in that it may implicate the military in crimes against humanity, but she insisted it was in the government’s interest to get the facts out.

Speaking to reporters at the Parliament lobby on Monday, he said Malaysia has its own advantages and would be able to move forward in a situation such as war with North Korea.

“We can’t fight a country like North Korea on our own, which focuses so much on its defence assets. But we have our advantages which would allow us to move forward … don’t think we are only dependant on our own assets. That said however, it’s better if we don’t go there,” he said.

Hishamuddin cited as an example the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, in which 26 countries stepped forward to help with search and rescue operations.

“That is our advantage, so don’t worry so much about the assets in our country,” he said.

He added that the death of Kim Jong-nam at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (KLIA2) was not as big as many other ongoing international issues.

“You need to look at this with a fair viewpoint,” he said.

Jong-nam’s murder has put both countries at loggerheads. Malaysia has expelled North Korea’s ambassador and has recalled its own ambassador from Pyongyang.

North Korea has also barred Malaysian citizens from leaving the country, with nine Malaysians still stranded there, while Malaysia has responded with a similar ban on North Koreans here.

On Monday, Fajar Ashraf Fajar Ali, who works as a supervisor in the food and beverage industry, was jailed for 18 weeks on two counts of animal cruelty.

He committed the acts on the 10th floor and at the void deck of Block 884 Tampines Street 83 on May 26 last year.

Deputy public prosecutor Soh Weiqi said that at 1.07am that day, Ashraf had left home to look for cats to play with.

About half an hour later, he saw the female shorthair cat at a neighbouring block and lured it into the lift with cat food.

He took the lift to the 10th storey and played with the cat at the staircase landing.

When the cat tried to escape, he lured it back with more food.

He then picked the animal up and dropped it over the ledge.

He went to the ground floor to check if the cat was alive.

When he found that it was still alive, he picked the cat up and slammed it on the ground twice. He left after making sure the cat was dead.

He stated that he had committed the various acts as he was frustrated that cats did not want to go near him.

He was arrested five days later.

His lawyer Amarjit Singh Sidhu said his client was deeply remorseful for his actions and regretted mistreating the cat and causing its death.

The prosecution had sought five months’ jail for Ashraf, who has been found unsuitable for mandatory treatment order.

District Judge May Mesenas agreed with DPP Soh that a deterrent sentence was needed to ensure that like-minded individuals do not commit such offences.

Ashraf could have been fined up to $15,000 (RM47,283) and/or jailed for up to 18 months per charge.

T4, which will open towards the end of the year, will be Singapore’s first checkpoint with multiple biometric capabilities, though they will not all be immediately activated.

Currently, such checks at immigration counters islandwide are focused on fingerprint verification.

To secure Singapore’s borders as threat levels increase with recent terrorist attacks at other airports and cities, multiple biometric screening will be progressively introduced at all checkpoints besides T4, Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police (SAC) Zuraidah Abdullah said.

Currently attached to the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) as Domain Commander, Integrated Checkpoints Command (Air), she told The Sunday Times in an exclusive interview: “We have come across a lot of people, myself included, whose thumbprints cannot be read, for whatever reasons. With iris and facial screening, we can do one or all three, depending on the level of risk and threat situation.”

Desmond Lee, Senior Minister of State for Home Affairs, had said in Parliament last November that it would take about two years for all checkpoints to be equipped with the capabilities.

ICA will collect iris images from Singapore citizens and permanent residents progressively when they apply for and collect their identity cards and passports.

For foreign visitors, there are other security initiatives, SAC Zuraidah said. Since last April, for instance, fingerprints have been scanned upon arrival and departure so these can be verified against ICA records.

It also allows those whose fingerprints are scanned when they arrive to use automated immigration lanes when they depart.

Encouraging more to use the automated lanes reduces human errors and allows officers at the manned counters and on the ground to focus on unknown travellers.

These include, for example, first-time visitors who may require closer scrutiny.

For those passing through Changi Airport, ICA is studying the feasibility of verifying their documents against Interpol’s list of stolen and lost passports, following a recent trial, SAC Zuraidah said.

All travellers flying to Singapore will also eventually be screened even before they land, she revealed.

To do this, it will be made compulsory for all airlines to provide a full list of names and other personal information of travellers booked on their flights.

“This way, you don’t need to stand in front of me before I start looking at you,” SAC Zuraidah said.

As passenger and cargo traffic grows at Changi – from 58.7 million passengers last year, Changi Airport is expected to handle an estimated 80 million passengers a year by 2025 – and the airport becomes more popular with locals as a place to shop and eat, a focus on security in both public and restricted areas is critical, SAC Zuraidah said.

“Of course we also recognise that Changi is known for its efficiency, so we work closely with the airport operator, deploying better technology to facilitate faster and, at the same time, more accurate clearance,” she added.

The killing of the half-brother of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Un last month in Kuala Lumpur International Airport with VX nerve agent triggered a bitter standoff between the previously friendly Asian nations, which have expelled each other’s ambassador and refused to let their citizens leave.

Three Malaysian embassy staff and six family members are stranded in Pyongyang after North Korea barred Malaysians from leaving the country on Tuesday, prompting a tit-for-tat move by Kuala Lumpur.

“Talks are set to begin… in next few days” with Pyongyang, Foreign Minister Anifah Aman told a news conference.

“They want to start talking but … before we start talking we have to establish a lot of factors first,” he said, without offering further details.

Alam held the briefing after meeting with relatives of the stranded Malaysians and said he had spoken to embassy staff in Pyongyang who appeared to be safe.

“They said they are quite free to move around and this is very encouraging.”

North Korea has never confirmed the identity of the dead man, but has denounced the Malaysian investigation as an attempt to smear the secretive regime, insisting that he most likely died of a heart attack.

Pyongyang has also demanded the return of his body but Malaysian authorities have refused to release it without a DNA sample from next-of-kin.

Alam said the matter would be discussed with Pyongyang when talks begin, adding, “we don’t want to keep the body more than what is necessary”.

South Korea has blamed Pyongyang for the assassination and Malaysian police are seeking seven North Korean suspects, four of whom left Malaysia on the day of the murder.

The Malaysian police chief has said he believes the other three are hiding in North Korea’s embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

Two women — one Vietnamese and one Indonesian — have been arrested and charged with the murder. Airport CCTV footage shows them approaching the victim and apparently smearing his face with a piece of cloth.

The ex-president has made no comment since she was forced from office Friday when the country’s Constitutional Court unanimously upheld parliament’s decision to impeach her over a corruption scandal.

Thousands of riot police were deployed as some 50,000 anti-Park protesters took to the streets to celebrate the verdict, chanting: “The people have won! Arrest Park!”

Some 20,000 angry pro-Park flag-waving protesters rallied near the City Hall, demanding a review of the one-off decision. Police set up barricades to keep the rival protests apart.

A third person died Saturday in hospital after he lost consciousness the day before in a clash between pro-Park supporters and riot police, near the Constitutional Court which confirmed her impeachment.

News reports said Park was watching television alone in her private presidential room Friday when the country’s highest court announced her dismissal live on air.

An incredulous Park immediately phoned her aides to confirm the verdict, the Chosun Ilbo daily said.

Her aides told the newspaper she had no immediate plans to issue a statement on the court decision or her future course of action.

“The president was apparently stunned at the ruling. She looked dejected,” an unidentified aide was quoted as saying.

“She wants to keep to herself for a while,” he added.

Park is obliged to move out of the presidential palace, where she has been cloistered for more than 90 days after the National Assembly voted for her impeachment in October.

She will leave only after her private house in prosperous southern Seoul is repaired and cleaned to accommodate her and her security detail, Park’s aide told Yonhap news agency.

TV footage showed materials being unloaded from a small truck parked outside the two-storey house.

The court’s verdict immediately stripped her of all powers and privileges, except for her security.

– ‘Growing concern’ –

=====================

Police have arrested several protesters for violent behaviour. Some Pro-Park demonstrators were caught assaulting photographers and TV crew members, leaving them with cuts and bruises.

Yonhap said the third victim was a 74-year-old man who collapsed during a demonstration near the Constitutional Court.

A demonstrator died the day before after being hit on the head by a speaker that fell from the top of a police bus when a protester commandeered the vehicle and drove it into police barricades.

South Korea’s top election official Kim Yong-Deok said in a statement there was “growing concern” over the highly charged atmosphere ahead of an election which must take place no later than on May 9.

“The vote must serve as a chance to overcome divisions and conflicts and achieve national unity and harmony,” he said in a speech aired live on TV.

The main opposition Democratic Party urged Park to accept the court ruling, saying she was behaving as if she rejected the decision, which was reached unanimously by the court’s eight judges.

Park was found to have broken the law by allowing her friend Choi Soon-Sil to meddle in state affairs, and breached rules on public servants’ activities.

The ruling removed her presidential immunity to criminal indictment.

She has already been named a criminal suspect, accused of bribery for offering policy favours to firms that benefited Choi.

For months she has refused to make herself available for questioning by prosecutors probing the scandal.

But that may no longer be an option once she leaves the Blue House, when she could face formal arrest if she refuses a summons.