Senior civil servants who do not meet requirement set for English Proficiency Test should be sent for training, says chief executive officer of Malaysian Qualifications Agency Prof Dr Rujhan Mustafa.

He is of the view that the government should consider sending those who do not meet the requirement to attend few months of training for them to be able to play a better role in their tasks where they have years of experience.

Dr Rujhan is one of the first batch of senior civil servants sitting for English Proficiency Test.

He told Sin Chew Daily: “We come from different background. Some graduated from universities in England and United States. Many are local graduates where the medium of instruction in university is Malay language and do not have a chance to be trained in English-speaking countries.

Senior civil servants started to sit for English Proficiency Test on Saturday.

Dr Rujhan said personally, he welcomed Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s proposal of assessing the English proficiency of civil servants, especially those at senior level.

Dr Mahathir announced earlier that senior civil servants are required to liaise with officers from foreign countries. Hence, they are to sit for English Proficiency Test.

Chief Secretary Ali Hamsa made a surprise visit to National Institute of Public Administration as senior civil servants sat for English Proficiency Test.

He posted photographs of officers sitting for the test on Twitter. Among them are Transport Ministry Secretary-General Saripuddin Kasim, Youth and Sports Ministry Secretary-General Lokman Hakim Ali, Perlis state secretary Syed Omar Sharifuddin Syed Ikhsan and others.

They are tested on communication skills including giving their reply after going through some reading materials.

The board, the France-based International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), said in its report that Kota Tua lacked “integrity and authenticity” as an old town. Many 20th century architectural developments, described as “unsympathetic intrusions” by ICOMOS, “have irreversibly changed the visual appearance and skyline of Kota Tua.”

UNESCO also raised concerns about several future projects, including high-rise developments, the construction of 17 islets through land reclamation in Jakarta Bay, the proposed giant sea wall and the mass rapid transit (MRT) infrastructure.

“Kota Tua is not unique as a harbor city formed by the globalizing trade routes of colonial activities as there are many others, including some which have already been inscribed on the World Heritage List. As a result, ICOMOS considers that the justification provided is not appropriate in relation to the serial property proposed,” the report, released last week, said.

The government responded to the report by immediately withdrawing its proposal for Kota Tua.

“We would not be able to submit another proposal if UNESCO officially decided that Kota Tua could not receive World Heritage status. Therefore, the government decided to withdraw the dossier,” Yunus Arbi, the ministry’s subdirectorate head of world heritage objects, told The Jakarta Post recently.

The government first submitted the nomination dossier for Kota Tua and four outlying islands in Thousand Islands regency, namely Onrust, Kelor, Cipir and Bidadari, to UNESCO in 2015.

However, the proposal was deemed incomplete, so the government submitted a revised proposal last year.

In the proposal, titled “The Age of Trade: Old Town of Jakarta and 4 Outlying Islands”, the government introduced Kota Tua as the city that saw the largest volume of trade in Asia during the “golden age” of trade in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Onrust Island was used as the Dutch East India Company’s (VOC) shipyard in 1613, while the other three islands were used for defense, quarantine and prisons for political opponents.

Despite emphasizing the glory days of Kota Tua, only a few tangible objects remained in the area, ICOMOS noted.

The city walls and Batavia Castle had been demolished, while the former’s canals had been converted into streets, the body said.

“On contrary, the contemporary […] Kota Tua contains an impressive ensemble of 20th century interwar buildings, erected for Dutch businesses connected to maritime trade, such as banks, insurance companies, produce brokers, etc” ICOMOS said in the 2018 Evaluations of Nominations of Cultural and Mixed Properties report.

The Jakarta administration has long struggled to manage Kota Tua, given the lack of concrete plans to revitalize the area. Jakarta Gubernatorial Decree No. 26/2014 on the master plan for Kota Tua has yet to provide detailed plans on the project, a factor that has hindered the city administration from thoroughly revitalizing the area.

Jakarta Cultural Heritage Expert Team (TACB) member Candrian Attahiyat said a number of projects in Kota Tua had been developed without proper consideration for history or sustainability.

“For instance, Kali Besar has been turned into a reservoir. This shows that the city administration is not ready to receive World Heritage status from UNESCO,” Candrian said.

Candrian added that the eviction in 2016 of Pasar Ikan residents in Penjaringan, North Jakarta, had destroyed the old walls in the area. He suggested that the city administration and the government also exclude Thousand Islands from the proposal and focus solely on Kota Tua in the future.

Yunus said the mismanagement of the area was caused by a lack of communication between the government, the city administration and private parties.

ICOMOS recommended Indonesia pay “close attention to current investments and revitalization projects for 19th and 20th century architecture in Kota Tua, as these projects need to be guided by heritage conservation concerns in order to preserve, in the long-term, the character of the city”

Myanmar nationals Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were both “charged under the state secrets act”, Judge Ye Lwin told the court.

The pair have been held in custody for nearly seven months for pre-trial hearings.

Reuters says they were simply doing their job by reporting on a massacre of Rohingya Muslims, and had urged the court to dismiss the case.

But the judge decided there was enough evidence of “collecting evidence” from state officials to proceed the case to trial.

The Myanmar nationals were arrested in December and accused of possession of leaked sensitive material linked to security operations in crisis-hit Rakhine state.

The allegations against them have been lambasted by rights groups and foreign observers as an assault on media freedom and an effort to stifle reporting on the Rohingya crisis.

During pre-trial hearings the prosecution argued the reporters tried to access “secret papers” and therefore deserved punishment under the British colonial-era secrecy law.

The reporters say they were entrapped by police — a version of events seemingly backed up in court by a whistleblowing cop who testified that officers were ordered to set up the reporters.

The pair had been investigating a massacre of 10 Rohingya Muslims at Inn Din village in Rakhine state during last year’s military-led crackdown on Rohingya militants.

Wa Lone, who has issued a defiant “thumbs up” to waiting journalists at each court appearance, vowed to fight the case.

“We have the right to a defence. The court did not decide we are guilty,” he said after the ruling.

“We revealed the case by investigating according to journalistic ethics. We are not giving up.”

Army operations in August 2017 forced more than 700,000 Rohingya, who are denied citizenship in Myanmar, to flee to Bangladesh.

North Korea had expressed regret on Saturday over the attitude of US negotiators during talks between the country and Pompeo in Pyongyang last week to work out details on how to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula as agreed to by their leaders in their recent summit meeting.

In a statement issued by an unnamed foreign ministry spokesman and carried by the Korean Central News Agency, the North lashed out at the United States for seeking unilateral and forced denuclearization from Pyongyang.

“We expected that the US side would come with productive measures conducive to building trust in line with the spirit of the North-US summit and (we) considered providing something that would correspond to them,” the spokesman said.

“The US just came out with such unilateral and gangster-like denuclearization demands as CVID, declaration, and verification that go against the spirit of the North-US summit meeting,” he added, calling the talks “really disappointing.”

CVID stands for the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of the North’s nuclear program, an oft-cited demand by Washington for Pyongyang.

Pompeo Responds 

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, reacting to the provocative statement from North Korea, said that if Washington’s demands were “gangster-like”, then the world is a gangster.

“If those requests were gangster-like then the world is a gangster because it was a unanimous decision at the UNSC about what needs to be achieved,” he added, referring to the United Nations Security Council’s crippling sanctions regime against the North.

Following his meeting with his South Korean and Japanese counterpart Kang Kyung-wha and Taro Kono, Pompeo said while there was progress made on denuclearization, the US and its allies will continue to apply international sanctions until North Korea completely abandons its nuclear arsenal.

“Our three countries will continue to be vocal in reminding each country of its obligations to (enforce sanctions). While we are encouraged by the progress of these talks, progress alone does not justify the relaxation of the existing sanctions regime.”

Chinese Role

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on Sunday that the setback in talks between the United States and North Korea could be blamed on China. Speaking to Fox News, Graham said that the ongoing trade war between the US and China is the major reason for the pushback by Pyongyang.

According to Graham, China is using the north to force the US to negotiate on trade.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s the Chinese pulling a North Koreans back,” Graham said.

“I see China’s hands all over this. We are in a fight with China. We buy $500 billion worth of goods from the Chinese. They buy $100 billion from us. They cheat and President Trump wants to change the economic relationship with China.

So, if I were President Trump, I would not let China use North Korea to back me off of the trade dispute. We’ve got more bullets than they do when it comes to trade. We sell them $100 billion, they sell is $500 billion, we can hurt them more than they will hurt us. And all we’re looking for is for them to stop cheating when it comes to trade.”

Gursharan Kaur Sharon Rachael, 57, a former lead contract specialist with the US Navy, was charged at a district court in the city-state in late 2015 for leaking confidential information in exchange for cash and luxury vacations.

She had been giving the information to Malaysian businessman Leonard Francis, who ran a port services firm called Glenn Defense Marine Asia (GDMA).

The portly, Singapore-based Francis — dubbed “Fat Leonard” — had admitted to plying officers with cash, booze, prostitutes and other perks to ensure US Navy ships stopped at ports where his firm operated.

Twelve US Navy officers had pleaded guilty in the United States to charges relating to their roles in the scandal, with nine of them sentenced to various jail terms and fines.

One of them was retired rear admiral Robert Gilbeau, who became the higest ranking US Navy officer to be convicted in the probe and was jailed for 18 months.

US prosecutors said Francis had supplied Gilbeau with prostitutes and paid for his stay in a fancy hotel.

Singaporean state prosecutors said Gursharan “leaked confidential contract information to Leonard in exchange for over Sg$100,000 (US$73,000) in cash and luxury vacations in Bali and Dubai”.

Specifically, information leaked by Gursharan was linked to 16 US Navy contracts, out of which GDMA won 11 worth US$48 million, the prosecutors said.

Gursharan “played a pivotal role in Leonard’s web of corruption,” they said.

According to US prosecutors, Francis had picked up the tab on widespread debauchery including a May 2008 “raging multi-day party, with a rotating carousel of prostitutes, during which the conspirators drank all of the Dom Perignon available at the Shangri-La” hotel in Manila at a cost of more than US$50,000.

In one port visit by the USS Blue Ridge in 2007, historical memorabilia in the MacArthur Suite at the Manila Hotel related to legendary US General Douglas MacArthur “were used by the participants in sexual acts”, the indictment stated.

As the rains finally began to ease, the government said several dozen more people remain missing.

And the death toll was expected to rise further, with local media reporting nearly 90 people killed and over 50 others unaccounted for.

The rains are the deadliest weather disaster in Japan since two typhoons that hit back-to-back in August and September 2011, killing nearly 100 people.

By Monday morning, the downpours had mostly ended across the worst-affected parts of central and western Japan, where entire villages were engulfed by flood waters or sudden landslides.

The meteorological agency downgraded its alerts for affected areas, but authorities warned that the risk of fresh landslides caused by rain-loosened earth remained high.

In the town of Kumano in Hiroshima prefecture, rescue workers were still digging through the dirt of a landslide that enveloped homes over the weekend, crushing some into little more than scrap wood.

Desperate family members of missing locals waited nearby for word of their relatives.

The nose of a white car was just visible underneath the entire top floor of one home that had been torn from the rest of a building and swept down a hillside.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned Sunday that rescue workers faced a “race against time” to reach people who remained trapped.

More than 54,000 emergency workers, police and troops have been deployed to help people, with the Self Defense Forces dispatching several planes to help airlift residents to safety.

‘The area became an ocean’

In Okayama prefecture, rescue workers flew in helicopters over areas that are still under flood water and otherwise unreachable, looking for signs of life.

“As far as we could see from the helicopter, no-one is now waving for help,” a rescue worker from Kurashiki city told AFP.

Local government officials said pumping trucks were being deployed to help restore access to some of the worst-hit areas in the area, and with the rains stopped, water was starting to recede.

“Rescuers had to go by boat yesterday due to flooding but water is gradually receding today. If the water level drops low enough, they may be able to access hard-hit areas by road or on foot,” a spokeswoman at the area’s disaster control office said.

“It’s not raining today but we must stay alert for the possibility of landslides,” she told AFP.

At one point around five million people were told to evacuate, but the orders are not mandatory and many people remained at home, becoming trapped by rapidly rising water or sudden landslides.

In the town of Mihara, roads were transformed into muddy flowing rivers, with dirt piled up on either side as flood water gushed around the wheels of stranded cars.

“The area became an ocean,” 82-year-old resident Nobue Kakumoto told AFP Sunday, surveying the scene.

Several dozen Mihara residents ventured down from shelters on Sunday to inspect the damage to their homes in the Hongo district of the city, where many locals are rice farmers.

They found the flood waters had engulfed their rice fields and homes alike.

In the town of Saka, Eiichi Tsuiki opted to stay in his home, and survived only by moving to the top floor as flood waters rose, washing cars away outside.

“I’ve lived here for 40 years… I’ve never seen this before,” the 69-year-old oyster farmer told AFP.

Authorities said high temperatures were forecast for Monday, posing new challenges for the many people stuck in modestly equipped shelters with few possessions or damaged homes with no water or electricity.

The resignation will be a blow to Prime Minister Theresa May, who is trying to win over Brexit hardliners in her own Conservative Party ahead of a fresh round of negotiations with Brussels this month.

A long-time eurosceptic, Davis was appointed two years ago to head up the newly-created Department for Exiting the European Union after Britain voted to leave the European Union in a historic referendum.

He became the face of Brexit, leading the British delegation in talks with Brussels, although his role was overshadowed in recent months as May and her aides took an increasingly key role in the negotiations.

The 69-year-old had reportedly threatened to quit several times over a perceived lack of firmness in Britain’s negotiating stance but had remained strictly loyal to the prime minister in public.

The resignation comes just hours before May was due in parliament to explain her plan for Britain to adopt EU rules on goods after Brexit, amid anger from MPs in her own party who want a cleaner break.

Conservative MP Peter Bone said Davis had “done the right thing”, adding: “The PM’s proposals for a Brexit in name only are not acceptable.”

Labour Party chairman Ian Lavery said: “This is absolute chaos and Theresa May has no authority left.”

May’s plan would create a free trade area with the EU for goods, to protect supply chains in areas such as manufacturing, while maintaining flexibility for Britain’s dominant service sector.

It is unclear whether Brussels will accept this, after repeatedly warning Britain it cannot “cherry-pick” bits of its single market.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, a leading Brexit supporter, was widely reported to have described the plan as a “turd” before agreeing to support it.

Special forces training

Davis, a sharp operator and a gut-instinct politician, was a “Leave” campaigner in the referendum on Britain’s EU membership.

He was well acquainted with the Brussels beat: he was Europe minister between 1994 and 1997 as the European issue tore apart then Conservative prime minister John Major’s government.

Born to a single mother and brought up on a public housing estate in London, Davis went on to study molecular and computer sciences at Warwick University in central England.

From there, he took a higher degree in business at the London Business School, attending the advanced management programme at elite US university Harvard while pursuing a career on the board of sugar giant Tate and Lyle.

Davis also served as a reservist in the Special Air Service, the British army’s elite special force unit.

Noted for his love of climbing and flying, his ascent in politics began in 1987 when he was elected to parliament, representing a seat in northern England.

He became a government whip ensuring party discipline and later, as Major’s Europe minister, delighted in the nickname “Monsieur Non”.

Davis then chaired the powerful public accounts committee in the lower House of Commons from 1997 to 2001.

He ran for the Conservative leadership in 2001 and came fourth, but was made party chairman.

Davis was the front-runner in the 2005 Conservative Party leadership contest, but lost out to David Cameron, shedding momentum after a party conference speech fell flat.

He stayed on as the party’s home affairs spokesman, but dramatically resigned his seat to force a by-election in protest at the Labour government’s erosion of civil liberties.

He won the seat back but the move cost him his place in Cameron’s top team.

When the Conservatives returned to power in 2010, he never got a government post and spent his time on the backbenches campaigning on civil liberties issues.

When Cameron resigned after defeat in the Brexit referendum, Davis was appointed back in government by May, Cameron’s replacement.

Prime Minister Theresa May said she was “appalled and shocked” by the death of Dawn Sturgess, a 44-year-old mother of three, and offered her condolences to the family.

Sturgess and a man named locally as Charlie Rowley, 45, fell ill last weekend in Amesbury, near the town of Salisbury where former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were attacked with Novichok in March and have since recovered.

Novichok is a military-grade nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Britain and its allies accused Russia of trying to kill the Skripals, prompting angry denials and sparking an international diplomatic crisis.

Police said they would be led by the evidence but confirmed a link between the Amesbury case and the Salisbury attack was a main line of inquiry.

Interior minister Sajid Javid last week demanded answers from Moscow, saying he would not accept Britain becoming a “dumping ground for poison”.

Russia hit back, denouncing Britain for playing “dirty political games”.

‘Reckless and barbaric act’

The British couple were believed to have become exposed to Novichok by handling a “contaminated item”, with speculation that it could have been the container used to administer the nerve agent to the Skripals.

However, police and public health officials insist the risk to the wider public remains low.

The prime minister said: “Police and security officials are working urgently to establish the facts of this incident, which is now being investigated as a murder.”

Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, the head of Britain’s counter-terror police, said Sturgess’ death was “shocking and tragic news”.

“This terrible news has only served to strengthen our resolve to identify and bring to justice the person or persons responsible for what I can only describe as an outrageous, reckless and barbaric act,” he said.

He added that the other victim “remains critically ill in hospital and our thoughts are with him and his family as well”.

Around 100 counter-terrorism officers are helping in the investigation, which police said Friday could take “weeks and months”.

So far, there is no evidence that the couple visited any of the sites involved in the Skripal case.

“Detectives will continue with their painstaking and meticulous work to gather all the available evidence so that we can understand how two citizens came to be exposed with such a deadly substance that tragically cost Dawn her life,” Basu said.

Sturgess collapsed on the morning of June 30th and was taken to hospital. That afternoon, the 45-year-old man fell ill at the same address in Amesbury and was also hospitalised.

It was not until the Wednesday, however, that the government’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down confirmed their exposure to Novichok.

“Detectives are working as quickly and as diligently as possible to identify the source of the contamination, but this has not been established at this time,” police said on Sunday.

“We are not in a position to say whether the nerve agent was from the same batch that the Skripals were exposed to.”

The Skripals were released from hospital but the investigation into the attack on them continues. No arrests have been made.

Dozens of people remain missing after the days of torrential rains that have caused flash floods and landslides.

Rescue workers and troops have been struggling in the mud and water to save lives.

Local media are already putting the number of fatalities at around 90.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday warned of a “race against time” to rescue flood victims, some of whom have resorted to tweeting desperate messages seeking help from emergency services.

In villages across central and western Japan, trapped residents have been forced to take shelter on their rooftops as floods swirl below.

Over 50,000 rescue workers, police and military personnel have been mobilised to respond to the disaster, which has left entire villages submerged by flooding and left just the top of traffic lights visible above the rising waters.

The toll has risen steadily in recent days, with the conditions forcing rescue workers to rely on boats and helicopters to extract trapped civilians.

The death toll has already exceeded the recent most deadliest rain-related disaster in 2014, when at least 74 people were killed in landslides caused by torrential downpours in the Hiroshima region.

According to a report in JAMA Dermatology, the woman went to a dermatologist six months after most of her toenails on both feet stopped growing and began to fall off, a condition known as onychomadesis. The doctor then ruled out any known causes of onychomadesis, such as major illness or a side effect of certain medications.

“While the mechanism of action is not entirely clear, it is likely due to the fish traumatizing the nail matrix,” said the doctor who treated the woman, Sheri Lipner, an assistant professor of dermatology at Columbia University’s Weill Cornell Medicine, as reported by Gizmodo.

“I do not recommend fish pedicures for any medical or aesthetic purpose,” continued Lipner. “In addition to onychomadesis, there are also serious infections associated with fish pedicures.”

Fish pedicures, a popular spa treatment in Asia, involve small fish that nibble at your feet in a large container of warm or room temperature water. The fish, a type of toothless carp, nip away at dead skin and are supposed to be able to treat conditions like psoriasis and smoothen the skin.

But as the fish are typically used on more than one person, infections can be transmitted between customers. While some have argued that the fish and their tanks can be disinfected, research has shown that disease-causing bacteria can be readily found in both the tubs and fish used in these spas.

To ensure patient anonymity, Lipner did not say where the woman got her pedicure. According to the doctor, this was the first documented case of onychomadesis caused by fish.

The woman will have a long wait ahead of her before she sees the return of her nails, which will likely grow back. Lipner said that toenails only grow one millimeter a month on average, while an entire nail can take as long as 18 months to be replaced. “Therefore, we will have to wait quite a while to see the outcome,” she said.