Around the world more than 10.35 million people are imprisoned either as pretrial detainees or having been convicted and sentenced, according to the report of UK-based Institute of Criminal Policy Research.

The USA has the highest prison population in the world with around 2.2 million incarcerated. China, which is four times more populous than the United States, is a distant second, with 1.6 million people in prison. The country has the highest prison population in Asia. The report mentions that the figures could be much higher for China since it does not include those in pretrial detentions and administrative detentions.

India’s prison population is second highest in Asia. Although the prison population rate is relatively low, the Indian prisons are overcrowded with 70 per cent of detainees as ‘undertrials’ or remand detainees who are awaiting final decrees in their cases.

Thailand has the third highest prison population in Asia. But​ ​with​ ​461 prisoners for every 100,000 people, Thailand has the tenth highest incarceration rate in the world and the highest in Asia. With fourth highest prison population in Asia, Indonesia has 64 prisoners for every 100,000 citizens.  Vietnam and Philippines follow at fifth and sixth position respectively.

Pakistan is at number seven in Asia with slightly more than 80,000 prisoners. The prison population rate of the country has seen a slump from 57 per cent in 2005 to 43 per cent in 2016.  Bangladesh has 69,719 prisoners putting it at number eight in Asia.

Taiwan has the ninth highest prison population in Asia although the prison population rate has been seeing a decline from 282 to 272 in 2016. It is followed by Japan and Myanmar at tenth and eleventh position respectively.

Malaysia has twelfth highest prison population in Asia. The country has seen a surge in prison population percentage from 137 to 171 in 2016. South Korea is at number thirteen in Asia with around fifty thousand prisoners. It is followed by Sri Lanka,Nepal, Cambodia and Singapore that are at fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth  and seventeenth position respectively.

With less than five thousand prisoners Laos, Bhutan and Brunei are the three countries with the least number of prison population.

According to the report world prison population total has grown by almost 20 per cent which is slightly above the estimated 18 per cent increase in the world’s general population over the same period.

The chief designer of China’s space labouratories has denied Western media reports that the nation’s Tiangong I space lab was “out of control” and will crash land, according to Science and Technology Daily.

Zhu Zongpeng, a senior scientist with the China Academy of Space Technology, which has built the Tiangong series, told the Beijing newspaper that Chinese scientists are constantly monitoring Tiangong I and will “make it fall back to the Earth” in the first half of this year.

Parts of the spacecraft will burn out during re-entry, while the rest will fall into a designated area of the ocean without endangering people and property on the ground, he said.

The latest announcement on Tiangong I, published on the China Manned Space Agency’s website, said the space lab operated in an orbit with an average altitude of 286.5 kilometres from Dec 17 to 24, noting it was “in stable condition without any abnormalities”.

Pang Zhihao, a researcher of human space activity at the academy, told the newspaper that China has rich experience in steering retired spacecraft back to Earth. He said most parts of Tiangong I will burn up as the spacecraft re-enters the atmosphere.

The 8.5-metric-ton Tiangong I, the country’s first space lab, was launched atop a Long March 2F carrier rocket at Jiuquan Satellite Launch centre in northwestern China in September 2011. With a designated life span of two years, the spacecraft was in service for four and a half years before its retirement was announced by the Chinese space authorities in March 2016.

During its operation, the space lab conducted six automatic and astronaut-controlled dockings with the nation’s Shenzhou VIII, Shenzhou IX and Shenzhou X spacecraft.

A number of Western media have been speculating since 2016 that Tiangong I is “out of control” and that there is possibility of it crashing onto land with “remaining toxic fuel”.

In a note sent in May by China’s permanent mission to the United Nations in Vienna to the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, Chinese space authorities said Tiangong I’s operational orbit is under constant and close surveillance.

“According to the calculations and analysis that have been carried out, most of the structural components of Tiangong I will be destroyed as they burn up during the course of re-entry,” it read. “The probability of endangering and causing damage to aviation and ground activities is very low.”

Hundreds of well-wishers gathered to catch a glimpse of the couple as they visited Reprezent radio station, which is staffed entirely by young people and based in a community-led complex built out of old shipping containers.

They met the youngest presenter, 17-year-old DJ Gloria Beyi, chatting to her while she played a track live on air.

Reprezent mainly plays hip-hop, grime and house music and is a hotbed of new talent, having broadcast the first ever radio interview with grime star Stormzy.

“I must tune in,” said Markle, who was wearing a coat by Smythe, Burberry trousers and a sweater by high street store Marks & Spencer.

Outside, Bob Marley songs played out from a nearby market stall as royal fans and curious locals strained for a view of the couple, who became engaged in November and will marry in May.

“Harry! Meghan! Over here! We’ve been waiting ages!” shouted one woman.

A mixed-race American actress with a history of activism, Markle is a different mould of royal princess — and the symbolism was not lost on the largely black crowd.

“She’s of mixed race, I’m of mixed race, and it means a lot to see that,” said Sandra Wiltshire, a 39-year-old care assistant who spoke to the couple as they briefly met members of the crowd.

“This is the forgotten borough of London. People don’t really come here so the fact that the royals are here is nice,” added 23-year-old local Adedotun Spruger.

Brixton, known for its large West Indian community, was once one of London’s most deprived areas, although it has seen a wave of gentrification in recent years.

“When they come here it’s good — they are not too proud,” said Adedayo Olanrewaju, a 45-year-old student, adding of Markle: “She looks so young!”//AFP

The woman, surnamed Luo, stopped a cabin door from closing on a high-speed train bound for Guangdong from Hefei using her body on Friday, as seen in a video that went viral on the internet.

In the video, Luo can be seen blocking the door while talking on the phone, in the hope that it would stall the train’s departure and allow the boarding of her husband, who along with their child was stopped at the gate for arriving late, reported Shanghai Morning Post on Tuesday.

Ignoring the repeated demands from two train personnel to either stay inside the cabin or stay on the platform, she was then forced out of the train, and fell on the ground and was pulled by an official on the platform. But her jammed foot in the crack between the door and its frame led to a second opening of the almost closed gate, followed by her continued demand for the boarding of her husband.

Though the incident ended with Luo finally being pulled out of the train, the train left about four minutes behind schedule.

Claiming she had no idea that the gate of the train was supposed to be closed three to five minutes before the departure, Luo believed her action was “no problem if her husband can just come down (to the platform) in 10 seconds”, as there was “two minutes left” before the scheduled leaving.

“Because the child has stuff to do in the other city, we were in a hurry, and there was only one train that day, or otherwise we would have to wait till the next day,” said Luo in the Post interview.

According to a Guanchazhe report, Luo was suspected of violating the Law on Punishments in Public Order and Security Administration and Regulation on the Administration of Railway Safety, and faces a possible detention of 10 days and penalty of up to 2,000yuan (RM1, 229).

Luo is currently suspended from her job as a deputy dean in a primary school in Hefei while the case is being investigated.

Myanmar nationals Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, were arrested a month ago under the Official Secrets Act after they allegedly were given classified documents by two policemen over dinner.

The pair had been reporting on the military campaign in the northern Rakhine state that has forced some 655,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee over the border to Bangladesh since August, violence the UN has condemned as ethnic cleansing.

The issue is incendiary inside Myanmar, where authorities deny any wrongdoing during an army crackdown on militants from the Muslim minority.

A police officer “filed the case to charge under the state secret (Official Secrets) act, section 3.1(c),” a district judge told the court.

The section punishes anyone who “obtains, collects, records or publishes… any official document or information” which could be “useful to an enemy.”

The pair will return to the court on January 23 for legal arguments, when the bench will decide whether to accept the case under Myanmar’s arcane legal system.

Emotive scenes gripped the Yangon courthouse with the journalists’ family members in tears and the reporters issuing desperate pleas before being led back to detention.

“Please tell the people to protect our journalists,” Kyaw Soe Oo shouted to the court.

His colleague Wa Lone said his wife was pregnant adding: “I’m trying to be strong.”

The case has shocked Myanmar’s embattled press corps.

Journalists covering Wednesday’s proceedings wore black in protest against their arrest, carrying banners proclaiming “Journalism is not a crime”.

“We applied for bail but the prosecutors rejected it,” the journalists’ lawyer Khin Maung Zaw told AFP.

“So we are going to give arguments in detail in the next trial.”

– ‘Legitimate work’ –

Reuters insists its reporters have done nothing wrong, while their families have suggested the pair were set up.

The US and EU have led global calls for the journalists to be freed, while Amnesty International late Tuesday repeated its appeal for their immediate release.

“They have done absolutely nothing but carrying out their legitimate work as journalists,” said James Gomez, Amnesty International’s Director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

This week, former US president Bill Clinton also weighed in on the issue.

“A free press is critical to a free society-the detention of journalists anywhere is unacceptable,” he tweeted on Monday.

“The Reuters journalists being held in Myanmar should be released immediately.”

The case has cast a spotlight on Myanmar’s troubled transition to democracy after nearly five decades of military rule.

It touches on both slumping press freedom and the Rohingya crisis, two issues that have raised questions about the country’s ability to shake off the legacy of junta rule.

Much of the Buddhist-majority population supports the army in what it calls a justified campaign against Rohingya militants after attacks against border guard police killed about a dozen last year.

The military has severely restricted access to Rakhine to reporters, aid groups and observers.

A slew of legal cases against journalists have compounded disappointment among those hoping the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi would usher in a new era of freedom.

Her administration shares power with an army that still controls all security policy and other key levers of government.

Suu Kyi’s time in office has also been dominated by the Rohingya crisis, with criticism pouring in from around the globe over her refusal to denounce the army’s crackdown and allow in international investigators.//AFP

“Horrible! It’s only sprung on leather. Not very comfortable,” the 91-year-old said of the Gold State Coach, which has been used at the coronation of every British monarch since George IV’s in 1821.

The richly gilded coach was built in the 18th century and has been used by the queen on other state occasions such as her Golden Jubilee of 2002.

In the documentary she also discusses the Crown Jewels used at coronations, saying in a trailer for the film: “There are some disadvantages to the crowns. But otherwise they’re quite important things.”

The documentary entitled “The Coronation” focuses on the historic date of June 2, 1953 when the queen was crowned following the death of her father George VI.

Queen Elizabeth is the world’s oldest head of state and Britain’s longest ever reigning monarch.

“I’ve seen one coronation and been recipient in the other, which is pretty remarkable,” she said in the trailer, adding: “It’s sort of, I suppose, the beginning of one’s life really, as a sovereign.”

But her sense of humour appears to falter when viewing a piece of archival footage from her coronation showing her children Prince Charles and Princess Anne playing with her royal robe.

They were aged four and two at the time.

Presenter Alastair Bruce is heard saying: “Such fun for the children!” — to which the queen quickly replies: “Not what they’re meant to do.”

The agreement came in the first inter-Korean talks to be held in more than two years.

South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon (left) exchanges a joint press statement with the head of North Korean delegation Ri Son-gwon at their meeting at the Panmunjeom in the DMZ in Paju, South Korea, Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. (AP-Yonhap)

South Korea’s delegation, led by Minister of Unification Cho Myoung-gyon, and the North Korean delegation met at Panmunjeom at 10 a.m. The North Korean delegation was led by Ri Son-gwon, the chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country. The CPRC is North Korea’s state agency handling inter-Korean affairs.

“The South and the North agreed to collaborate in facilitating reconciliation and unity by easing military tension, and to establish a peaceful environment,” the two sides said in a joint press statement.

“The South and the North agreed on the need to ease military tensions and to hold military talks to resolve the issue.”

The statement went on to stress that the two Koreas will take the lead in resolving “all issues raised in inter-Korean relations.”

Under the agreement, the North will send in addition to the athletes, an Olympic Committee delegation, cheering squad, cultural performance troupe, taekwondo demonstration group, delegation of observers and press.

In addition, the two Koreas agreed to hold further high-level talks and engage in dialogue concerning other areas of inter-Korean relations.

The matter of holding reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, however, was not mentioned in the statement.

In its assessment of the talks, the Ministry of Unification echoed Cheong Wa Dae’s earlier assessment that the talks will pave the way for improving inter-Korean relations.

The ministry also said the talks served to relay the Moon Jae-in administration’s North Korean policies and improve mutual understanding.

The talks, however, did not end without friction between the two sides.

According to Seoul officials, Ri expressed “strong discontent” at the South Korean delegation’s mention of denuclearization at the start of the talks.

At the opening of the meeting at 10 a.m., the South Korean delegation suggested military talks as well as family reunions in February, and called on the North to reduce tensions on the peninsula and “resume dialogue to establish peace including denuclearization.”

In the final meeting, Ri is also said to have expressed discontent at South Korea’s decision to announce the re-establishment of the West Sea military hotline, saying the line had been revived on Jan. 3.

The two Koreas installed military hotlines on the east and west sides of the country in 2009. The West Sea line was deactivated by the North in 2016 after the inter-Korean Kaesong industrial park was shut down in 2016. The East Sea hotline was lost in a wildfire in 2010.

Tuesday’s talks lasted nearly 12 hours, with the two sides holding a number of meetings interspersed with breaks.

The initial meeting, involving all delegation members, lasted just over an hour before breaking at 11:05 a.m. The talks resumed at 11:30 a.m., though just between the chief delegates.

The two sides held another four meetings that excluded the chief delegates, before the final meeting at 8 p.m.

By Choi He-suk, Jung Min-kyung & Joint Press Corps(cheesuk@heraldcorp.com) (mkjung@heraldcorp.com)

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According to Bukit Aman CID director Datuk Seri Wan Ahmad Najmuddin Mohd, the Royal Thai Police (RTP) had since 2015 recovered more than 100 stolen Malaysian vehicles in the kingdom and handed them over to their Malaysian counterparts.

“Thailand is a transit country for Malaysia’s car-jacking syndicates,” he told reporters after receiving 20 stolen cars, mostly luxury vehicles, from RTP adviser Gen Witaya Prayongpan during a ceremony here yesterday.

He said police forces from both nations would step up their cooperation to bust vehicle theft syndicates currently operating in both countries.

Wan Ahmad Najmuddin said efforts were under way to track down the Malaysian lea­der of the syndicate.

Meanwhile, the RTP, in a statement issued after the handing-over ceremony, said stolen vehicles had been a long-standing issue and had impacted the economies of both countries adversely.

“Thai Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha and his deputy Gen Prawit Wongsuwan have always stressed the importance of tac­kling the issue as it has the potential to lead to other criminal activities.

“This is not merely about stolen motor vehicles but could potentially finance other activities of criminal nature such as terrorism,” it said.

Prayut said yesterday that countries in the lower part of the Mekong – Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam – are “troubled” by dams being built in the upper part of Southeast Asia’s longest river.

However it remains unclear how the issue will be addressed at the summit, which is mostly aimed at advancing the newest sub-regional scheme to become a modern cooperation framework.

At the summit today, Prayut will sit with five other leaders from the Mekong basin to endorse the Five-Year Plan of Action (2018 – 2022) and the Phnom Penh Declaration.

Established in 2015, the LMC comprises China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, and aims to forge political and security cooperation, economic and sustainable development, and social, culture and people-to-people exchange.

The LMC is regarded as a forum to promote China’s influence and synergise with its Belt and Road Initiative. However, the Thai delegation wants the scheme to become an economic hub and sustainable development model through innovation and modern industries consistent with the Thailand 4.0 initiative and Eastern Economic Corridor development policies.

Thailand’s push is probably compatible with the LMC economic plan of action, as the six countries promote connectivity, including infrastructure upgrades such as railways. China is now working with countries in the region, including Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, to realise the dream of a “trans-Asean railway”.

Prayut is expected to pursue talks on the upcoming Thailand-Cambodia railway line, a part of Singapore-Kunming rail link and ultimately the Eastern Economic Corridor.

The premier said that the project has drawn to “near completion” despite suffering from several delays earlier.

Border control and trade and investment with emphasis on agricultural goods should also be discussed with Cambodia, Prayut added.

In the plan, they would promote the increase of application of global satellite navigation systems, including the Chinese Beidou system, in the Mekong countries.

In the area of economic cooperation, the six countries have plans to improve production capacity, promote cross-border trade, and build a long term, stable, sustainable and diversified financing system. The five-year action plan in the economic field also covers water resource management, agriculture, poverty reduction, forestry and environmental protection.

In the political and security field, the six countries – which have different political regimes, ranging from communist to military rule and semi-democracy – would promote dialogue and exchanges among political parties, according to the draft of the plan seen by The Nation.

Their cooperation in the security field mostly focused on non-traditional security threats such as combating drug and human trafficking, smuggling, terrorism, and trans-boundary and cybercrimes.

The action plan would also enhance cooperation in the field of disaster prevention and mitigation as well as humanitarian assistance.

On the social and culture front, the action plan would explore the establishment of the Lancang-Mekong Tourism Cities Cooperation Alliance to promote tourism and people exchange in the region.