Separately, the head of the Saudi National Guard, once a leading contender to the throne, as well as the navy chief and the economy minister were replaced in a series of high-profile sackings that sent shock waves in the kingdom.

The crackdown was reported immediately after a new anti-corruption commission, headed by powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was established by royal decree late Saturday.

Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television reported that the princes, four current and dozens of former ministers were arrested as the commission launched a probe into old cases such as floods that devastated the Red Sea city of Jeddah in 2009.

State-run Saudi Press Agency said the commission’s goal was to “preserve public money, punish corrupt people and those who exploit their positions”.

Saudi billionaire Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal was among those arrested, Saudi news websites said though there was no official confirmation. The prince was not reachable for comment.

An aviation source told AFP that security forces had grounded private jets in Jeddah, possibly to prevent any high-profile figures from leaving.

Meanwhile, the kingdom’s top council of clerics tweeted that anti-corruption efforts were “as important as the fight against terrorism”, essentially giving religious backing to the crackdown.

“The breadth and scale of the arrests appears to be unprecedented in modern Saudi history,” said Kristian Ulrichsen, a fellow at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.

“The reported detention of Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, if true, would send shock waves through the domestic and international business community,” Ulrichsen told AFP.

Widening crackdown

The purge comes less than two weeks after Prince Mohammed welcomed thousands of global business titans to Riyadh for an investment summit, showcasing his economic reform drive for a post-oil era.

It follows a wave of arrests of influential clerics and activists in September as the 32-year-old prince, often known as MBS, cements his grip on power.

Analysts said many of those detained were resistant to Prince Mohammed’s aggressive foreign policy that includes the boycott of Gulf neighbour Qatar as well as some of his bold policy reforms, including privatising state assets and cutting subsidies.

The latest purge saw Prince Miteb bin Abdullah sacked as the head of the National Guard, an elite internal security force. His removal consolidates MBS’s control of the kingdom’s security institutions.

To analysts, MBS’s meteoric rise has seemed almost Shakespearean in its aggression and calculation. In June, he edged out a 58-year-old cousin, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, to become heir to the throne.

At the time, Saudi television channels showed the bearded MBS kissing the hand of the older prince and kneeling before him in a show of reverence. Western media reports later said that the deposed prince had been placed under house arrest, a claim strongly denied by Saudi authorities.

Already viewed as the de facto ruler controlling all the major levers of government, from defence to the economy, the prince is widely seen to be stamping out traces of internal dissent before a formal transfer of power from his 81-year-old father King Salman.

At the same time, he has projected himself as a liberal reformer in the ultra-conservative kingdom with a series of bold moves including the decision allowing women to drive from next June.

Foreign diplomats predict MBS, set to be the first millennial to occupy the Saudi throne, could well be in control of Saudi Arabia for at least half a century.

Paya Terubong near the former Lee Rubber factory was not spared from the floods.

Netizens posted that areas such as Lintang Sungai Ara and Gurney Drive, which were never flooded before, or had not been flooded for more than 30 years, were now inundated.

From the Facebook page of the Penang Island City Council (MBPP), it said roads that were flooded since 7am on Sunday were Jalan Masjid Negri, Jalan Perak in front of flat Taman Abidin, Jalan Makloom, Jalan Free School, Jalan Terengganu, Jalan Sungai Pinang and Lilitan Stadium.

Other areas that were flooded included Jalan Datuk Keramat in front of Penang Times Square and Jalan Transfer.

Many roads especially those located by the hills, such as Jalan Tun Sardon, Jalan Batu Ferringhi and Jalan Paya Terubong were not passable due to fallen trees.

In his Facebook page, Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi had agreed to send the Royal Malaysian Armed Force to help Penang in a telephone call at about 3.30am on Sunday.

Lim said that the situation in Penang was getting worse as the water level rose and winds were strong.

He urged Penangites to be patient and stay safe, as the state government will try its best to help those in need.

Penang Environment Committee Chairman Phee Boon Poh linked the continuous rain to Typhoon Damrey that hit Vietnam.

A family in Desa Damai here had to send off a loved one using a boat after the area was inundated by floods Sunday.

Video clips of the funeral have also gone viral, showing the casket being floated on the water in a boat on Jalan Padang Lalang.

Trump and his wife Melania tossed white pikake flower petals into the waters at the USS Arizona memorial, where hundreds of US service members died when Japan launched a surprise attack in 1941, triggering the US entry into World War II.

The Trumps also took part in a wreath-laying ceremony during the stopover on Friday, watching as two sailors placed the flower arrangement before a white marble wall bearing the names of the fallen.

Before his some 20-minute visit to the shrine, Trump met with leaders of the US Pacific Command, amid growing concerns over security in the region.

In brief comments to reporters, Trump said it was “very special being in Hawaii.”

He voiced enthusiasm over his trip to Pearl Harbor, “which I’ve read about, spoken about, heard about, studied, but I haven’t seen.

“And that is going to be very exciting for me.”

Trump stopped in Hawaii ahead of a tour of Asia lasting nearly two weeks which will include visits to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

He left Washington with heavy domestic baggage — including new developments in the high-stakes probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election — that risks dogging efforts at top-level diplomacy.

The trip itself poses its own set of challenges, with efforts to contain or roll back North Korea’s ballistic and nuclear missile programs topping the diplomatic agenda.

Trump departed for his first presidential trip to Asia Friday, with tensions over North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats looming large. He is due to arrive in South Korea Tuesday, after first visiting Japan.

The North’s state-run KCNA news agency said in a commentary that the US should be disabused of the “absurd idea” that Pyongyang would succumb to international sanctions and give up its nuclear weapons, adding that it is in “the final stage for completing nuclear deterrence”.

“It had better stop daydreaming of denuclearisation talks with us”, said the commentary titled “Stop dreaming a daydream”.

“Our self-defensive nuclear treasure sword will be sharpened evermore unless the US hostile policy toward the DPRK is abolished once and for all”, it said, using an acronym for the official name of North Korea.

The White House said Trump will deliver a speech at South Korea’s National Assembly and urge “common resolve in the face of shared threat”.

But there is widespread concern in South Korea that the US president’s visit might worsen the situation if Trump fails to rein in his fierce rhetoric.

Trump and the North’s leader Kim Jong-Un have traded insults and threats of war in recent months.

“Because of his tendency to veer off the script, many Koreans are worried that he may let loose”, Professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies told AFP.

Some 500 protesters took to the streets in Seoul Saturday, chanting slogans and waving banners as they accused Trump of bringing the Korean peninsula to the brink of war.

“No Trump, No War”, read one of the banners, while others portrayed the US President wearing a Nazi uniform.

Nearby, a rival group of some 100 Trump supporters, including many military veterans, chanted: “Welcome to Korea, We believe in Trump”.

Trump, who dismissed direct talks with Pyongyang as “waste of time”, will meet with President Moon Jae-In, who came to power early this year advocating for engagement with Pyongyang, a stance denounced as “appeasement” by Trump.

Professor Koh Yu-Hwan at Dongguk University, a leading policy advisor to the government, said Seoul expected Trump to avoid putting Moon in a quandary by renewing pugnacious threats against the North, particularly with South Korea hosting the Winter Olympics in February next year.

Moon has had to dial back his policy of engagement with the North in the face of Pyongyang’s persistent nuclear and missile tests.

Congestion in the jail in a Manila suburb is likely to have contributed to the fight between two prison gangs that broke out on Friday, said the jail’s duty officer Norberto Felicen.

“We have 3,424 inmates in a facility built to hold 800 people. Wherever there is an open space, they have to use it to sleep. That is one of the factors that caused the riot,” Felicen told AFP.

The trouble began when members of the “Bahala Na” gang, detained at the Quezon City jail, brought a gang member who had suffered a seizure to the jail’s clinic, Felicen said.

In their rush, they overturned a pail of water on to the sleeping members of a rival gang who awakened in anger, thinking they were being provoked.

The members of the two gangs battled each other with rocks and chairs before order was restored, but not before one inmate was killed.

The prisoner who suffered a seizure also died in the clinic, Felicen said, adding that the incident is being investigated.

Quezon City jail received international attention last year after AFP photographs showed massive overcrowding made worse by President Rodrigo Duterte’s draconian anti-drug campaign.

The pictures showed detainees jammed in like sardines, taking turns sleeping on a staircase and an open-air basketball court.

Human Rights Watch criticised the conditions at the time, saying it was “straight out of Dante’s ‘Purgatory'”, referring to the 13th century Italian writer’s description of the afterlife.

Authorities had promised to build new facilities to alleviate the overcrowding but said this would take time.

Even before Duterte took office last year, the Philippine penal system was ranked as the third most congested in the world, according to the University of London’s Institute for Criminal Policy Research.

No single government is able to take care of the Mekong, which is an international river running through China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, said Nguyen Truong Giang from Vietnam’s Diplomatic Academy. Giang and Thai and Vietnamese scholars and conservationists gathered for a seminar entitled “Promoting Cooperation in Sustainable Use of the Mekong River” hosted by Sakon Nakhon Rajabhat University on Tuesday.

International law expert Giang (above) said the 1995 Mekong Agreement, which gave birth to the Mekong River Commission (MRC) and regulations for the river, is not sufficient to handle the situation.

While the Mekong runs through six countries, only countries in the lower part of Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam are members of the MRC.

“We want to have the MRC as an inter-governmental body to coordinate a master plan for the international river management, which must include countries in the upper part – China and Myanmar”, Giang told the seminar.

China is needed to be an active part of the MRC since the country shares 16 per cent of the total length of 4,880 kilometres of the Mekong, has built seven hydropower dams in the river’s mainstream, plans to build more as well as blasts rapids, rocks and islets in the river to clear navigation routes in the river.

Apart from climate change, which has caused rising sea levels, the construction of infrastructure in the Mekong River is another major challenge for the delta in southern Vietnam, said Nguyen Thi Hong Van, Coordinator of Vietnam River Network (below). Hydropower dams upstream cause impacts on the delta due to fluctuations in water flow, blocking migration of fish, reducing sediment load, and saline intrusion into farm lands, she said.

“The infrastructure development would increase the risk of future conflict in the region, not only among the countries but also in the economic sectors and ecological values,” Van said.

People in the Mekong region need to be well aware of the transboundary impacts of development projects in the river on their livelihood, said Withoon Permpongsacharoen, director of Energy Network for Ecology in the Mekong Basin.

Energy generated by hydropower dams is not cheap as widely understood since it is built at the expense of environmental damage, and impacts people’s lives, he said.

Rock blasting to clear navigation channels in the Mekong River not only damages the river’s ecosystem, but also the livelihood of Thai and Lao people along the river, said leader of Love Chiang Khong Group Somkiat Khuanchiangsa.

China cleared the stretch at the Golden Triangle more than 10 years ago, enabling convenient and safe navigation from Simao Port in Yunnan province to Thailand. It wants to facilitate the passage of bigger vessels along the river to at least Luang Prabang in Laos. There is the need to clear rapids and rocks underwater between Laos’ Huay Xay to Luang Prabang. Some parts of this portion border Thailand and Laos and the clearance would affect the boundary between the two countries, Somkiat said.

Local residents and environmental conservationists in Thailand urged the Thai government to review its decision since blasting rocks and islands to clear the waterway would affect their livelihood and environment.