Sections of the national road 4D from O Quy Ho Pass (Sa Pa District) to Tam Duong District (Lai Chau Province) have been blanketed with snow and a centimetre of ice, posing danger to traffic.

Snow was also seen in higher-altitude areas, including Khau Pha Pass in Mu Cang Chai district, Suoi Giang Commune in Van Chan and Hat Luu and Tram Tau communes in Tram Tau District.

In Ha Noi, the highest temperature yesterday was forecast at 7 to 10 degrees C. Snow has also been seen in Ba Vi District, which is about 50km from Ha Noi.

The cold spell has expanded as far south as the central localities, bringing rain to most areas along the central coast.

Snowy peaks

Snowfall began after the temperature plummeted overnight, with thick ice and frost appearing on Phja Oac peak in the northern mountainous province of Cao Bang.

The temperature was recorded at negative 7 degrees Celsius on Saturday morning on the wintry white mountain peak.

The rare appearance of snow attracted some tourists who came to see the winter frost, but it also negatively impacted the locals’ activities.

According to Chairman of the Thanh Cong commune’s People’s Committee Ban Van Son, severe frost has damaging consequences to agricultural production, and it also poses health risks.

Authorities have urged locals to take several measures to cope with the cold weather.

Mong ethnic minority families in Sa Pa have taken measures to protect their cattle and crops from damage caused by the cold snap.

The cold front moving from the northern region may also reduce temperatures in HCM City and neighbouring provinces to as low as 17-18 degrees Celsius this weekend and early next week.

The ongoing cold snap has also triggered strong sea gusts, posing serious hazards to boats.

The Tonkin Gulf and sea off central and southern provinces and the entire East Sea, including the waters around Vietnam’s Truong Sa (Spratly) and Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelagoes, have witnessed rough seas and fierce winds.

The cold snap, expected to last until Wednesday, has also greatly affected localities in the central region, causing temperatures to drop to 10.4 and 12.4 degrees Celsius in Vinh City, the heart of Nghe An Province, and Ha Tinh Province, respectively.

The tag shows potential buyers the chick was bred in captivity. It’s an important symbol, which shows it was not trapped in the wild and smuggled, an illegal trade which sees birds packed in their thousands in shipping crates or stuffed in plastic bottles before being sold in giant avian markets in Indonesia’s major cities.

The hatchling was born at Megananda Daryono’s vast aviary in Bogor, a city on the island of Java, where he runs a breeding programme that is a sustainable alternative to the roaring trade in birds caught in the wild.

“I realised the birds being caught in the forest would one day be gone for good,” Daryono told AFP at the site, now a cornucopia of exotic macaws, brilliant parrots and vulnerable songbirds.

He is among a small number trying to turn the tide in a country where once-common bird species are being driven to the brink of extinction, as an obsession for bird-keeping and even avian singing contests fuels unprecedented demand.

The jungles of the archipelago are home to 131 threatened bird species, according to wildlife trade watchdog Traffic, more than any other country except Brazil. There are a dizzying array of exotic species, from the Sumatran Laughingthrush, to the Chattering Lory and the Black-winged Myna.

At an emergency meeting convened in Singapore to discuss the crisis last year, wildlife experts declared Indonesia’s rampant bird trade more of a threat to many native species than habitat loss, and called for urgent intervention to stop the plunder.

“The scale is massive. It involves millions and millions of birds every year,” Traffic’s Chris Shepherd told AFP.

“It’s just really reaching a point now, a critical point, where it’s now or never for a lot of these species.”

Caged birds have been kept as pets for centuries in Indonesia but the evolution of songbird contests from small, localised events to a nationwide craze known as “chirping mania” is in particular blamed for the rapid dwindling of songbirds in the wild.

There are entire fan clubs dedicated to certain species of canaries, “chirping” organisations boasting thousands of members, and champions who go on tour across the archipelago to compete for big prize money – and glory – at national gala events.

It’s serious business, as one champion Johan explained at a recent contest in central Jakarta, as men screamed, whistled and clucked at their birds, encouraging them to keep singing as stony-faced judges awarded points for melody, duration and volume.

“This isn’t a beauty pageant, it’s a chirping contest. It’s chirping mania,” Johan, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told AFP.

“The song is the only thing that matters,” he added, his champion yellow canary – one of just 50 birds he personally owns – perched nearby in an ornate wooden cage.

Calls from some quarters for these popular contests to be banned or heavily regulated have met stiff resistance, with many defending them as uniquely Indonesian and blaming the trade – not the competitions themselves – for the crisis unfolding in jungles far away.

However efforts are being made to distance the contests from the illegal trade and unsightly bird markets like Pramuka – an overcrowded, filthy emporium in Jakarta known to sell critically-endangered and vulnerable birds.

The Indonesian Bird Society (PBI), which sanctions and judges one major songbird league, has pledged to phase out all wild birds and replace them entirely with songbirds bred in captivity. So far three species must be captive-bred and bear the tell-tale ring to compete in PBI contests, with a fourth to be added next year.

But former PBI chairman Made Sri Prana, who helped usher in the regulations, said a full transition would take time and outside PBI-sanctioned contests, “there’s no real obligations” for other songbird associations to follow suit.

Capturing any native birds from the wild – whether they are protected or not – is illegal in Indonesia but law enforcement is lax, with fines and jail terms rarely handed out to traffickers or vendors at big markets, Shepherd said.

But there are some positive signs. There are now estimated to be hundreds of breeding programmes like Daryono’s across the country, and authorities have made a number of high-profile seizures of illegally caught birds.

In addition, conservationists working with the government hope in 2016 to update the list of birds protected under Indonesian law, which is many years out of date.

Raising public awareness is a longer game. Indonesian President Joko Widodo tried to do just that this month when he released 200 caged birds into the wild – but was criticised when it emerged the animals had been bought in Pramuka, a symbol of the country’s illegal wildlife trade.

Ria Saryanthi from Burung Indonesia, a local conservation group working for better protection of birds, said it would take time to alter old habits: “You cannot change people’s minds easily.”

According to participants, prior to the start of the national plan for foreign language learning, English was an optional subject at the primary level, so there were no regulations to include English teachers in schools’ payrolls.

Currently, Vietnam has 21,430 primary English teachers, less than a third of whom are employed full time. The four-lesson target will require approximately 7,766 more teachers in the workforce.

Another problem is the low quality of teaching staff. By July 2015, only 31.37 per cent of overall primary English teachers across the nation satisfied language standards.

Inadequate training facilities and the overlapping of training sessions have also added to the issue.

To handle these drawbacks, representatives from the ministry and educational establishments put forth a series of measures.

They suggested one teacher be able to teach at several schools in the same area, and incompetent staff should be let go.

They also proposed providing proper wages and incentives for contracted teachers, among other solutions.

Another video called on Katibah’s “brothers” from Somalia’s Al-Shabaab, a militant group aligned with the Al-Qaeda, to join the group in the “real front-line in Syria”.

In the video, which lasts more than a minute, Katibah’s Malaysian militants can clearly be seen speaking in Bahasa Malaysia, urging their compatriots from Al-Shabaab to join the ISIS and its so-called jihad or holy war.

The video shows Katibah member Abdul Halid Dari urging them to pledge their allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi and join the “real” fight in Syria as fellow militant Mohd Nizam Arifin looks on.

Abdul Halid also quotes Prophet Muhammad’s teachings to convince fighters in Somalia to join ISIS.

Bukit Aman Special Branch Counter-Terrorism Division head, Senior Asst Comm Datuk Ayob Khan, said the threat and direct challenge to the government reflected Katibah’s brazen stance.

“It further proves that IS, especially the Katibah group, views our country as secular, and as such makes the government and the people as its targets. This is no doubt in retaliation against our security forces’ actions against them,” he told The Star on Sunday (Jan 24).

He said the counter-terrorism division would be more vigilant as attacks could occur at any time, adding that reliable intelligence was the key to prevent attacks from taking place in the country.

“We have to be constantly on our toes and cannot afford to let our guard down,” he said.

On the video addressed to the Somalians, SAC Ayob Khan said although it had subtitles in Arabic, the fact that Abdul Halid spoke in Malay led intelligence agencies to suspect there were also Malaysians in Al-Shabaab.

“This is certainly a new development resulting in more involvement of Malaysians in terror groups,” he said.

Both videos were posted on an ISIS-sanctioned website, signifying Katibah’s increasing recognition within the terror group.

“Prior to this, we only saw videos posted on Facebook or other social media sites but this particular video is a clear indication that Katibah is among the major foreign factions in IS,” said SAC Ayob Khan.

He said the video was also the first clear indication that there were Malaysians or at least Malay-speaking militants in Al-Shabaab.

“It is certainly alarming if true. Why would the militants speak Bahasa Malaysia if they were not calling out to their fellow countrymen?” he asked.

It is believed that Katibah has more than 200 fighters from Malaysia and Indonesia, who are highly sought after for “specialised missions”, including serving as snipers and becoming suicide bombers.

Katibah first came under the radar of intelligence agencies two years ago when it was called Majmu’ah al Arkhabiliy.

According to Indonesian police, Muhammad Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian Katibah fighter, was behind the recent bomb blasts and gun attacks in Jakarta.

Win Htein of the NLD central executive committee said: “We will not answer every question. We regard every matter seriously. Suu Kyi does nothing carelessly. We will announce the speakers and vice-speakers after seeking approval from the CEC. We asked Nyan Win why he did it. We emphasise that appointments must represent the interests of ethnic groups and promote national reconciliation. We will issue an announcement at the opportune time.”

Tens of kilometres on national road 4D on the section from O Quy Ho Pass (Sa Pa district) to Tam Duong District (Lai Chau Province) have been covered with snow and 1cm of ice, posing danger to traffic.

Local residents in Nam Bung and Tu Le communes, Van Chan District, Yen Bai Province, were surprised to see snow fall for the first time in the area. Snow was also seen in higher areas, including Khau Pha Pass in Mu Cang Chai District, Suoi Giang Commune in Van Chan and Hat Luu and Tram Tau communes in Tram Tau District.

In Hanoi, the highest temperature today is forecast from 7 to 10 degree C.

The cold spell has expanded as far as the south central localities, bringing rain to most areas along the central coast.

Khun Khun Ja Lee could have been jailed for three years but he was suffering from asthma and was therefore given a more lenient term, the court said.

“It is injustice. This Telecommunications Act does not have by-laws yet and isn’t finished. I don’t want anyone to be handled like me,” Khun Khun Ja Lee said.

EU, US and UK envoys and human rights activists observed the trial.

“The verdict was anticipated. In December, Chaw Sandi Tun, a member of the National League for Democracy, was sentenced to six months in jail for defamation for uploading a photo to Facebookthat compared the colour of the army’s new uniforms to that of a sarong worn by NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi. It is not justice. Insufficient evidence was given,” Sabe Phyu, wife of Khun Khun Ja Lee, said.

Khun Ja Lee has already served three months of his sentence.