Over the past two years, Zoology, Veterinary and Giant Panda Conservation Centre director Dr Mat Naim Ramli has been taking special care of his “daughter”, even sleeping beside her in rather uncomfortable circumstances just so she won’t be restless.

His “daughter” is Malaysia-born panda cub Nuan Nuan.

Soon, Dr Mat Naim will be missing his child. The panda cub will be flown to the Duijangyang panda base in Sichuan province in China on Nov 14 to be freed into her natural habitat.

“I’m very attached to Nuan Nuan as she needs to be cuddled until she falls asleep. Solitary animals like pandas are particularly sensitive in character and very sensitive to their surroundings,” Dr Mat Naim told reporters at the farewell ceremony for Nuan Nuan at the Giant Panda Conservation Centre in Zoo Negara yesterday.

“After her mother was separated from her, I took care of her at night. I am sure this won’t be the last time I see her. I will visit her in China,” he said.

Nuan Nuan, which weighs 82kg, is the fastest naturally conceived panda baby in captivity, born within 15 months of her parents’ arrival.

Nuan Nuan’s parents, Xing Xing and Liang Liang, arrived here in May 2014 to mark the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Malaysia and China. The last day for the public to visit Nuan Nuan will be on Nov 12.

The next day she bolted from the country, joining half of the kingdom’s opposition lawmakers in self-exile.

They have fled since September 3 when their party chief was arrested in the middle of the night by hundreds of officers, a dramatic escalation of a purge of rivals to Cambodia’s strongman premier Hun Sen, one of the world’s longest serving leaders.

“I don’t intend to be captured,” Mu Sochua told AFP from Bangkok, where she arrived on Tuesday and will stay before heading to Europe.

“I don’t intend to sit and wait for a kangaroo court to give us a trial that is a total joke.”

Her anxiety is well founded.

Through a mix of threats, harassment and legal entanglements, Hun Sen’s government has been clearing out critics ahead of key elections that will test the premier’s 32-year run.

And the odds are looking good for the 65-year-old, a master of manipulating the country’s malleable democratic institutions in his favour.

The opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP)is in tatters, with more than 20 MPs skipping abroad in the past month after their stand-in leader Kem Sokha was locked up in a remote prison on dubious treason charges.

His arrest comes months after a series of legal convictions and new laws forced the party’s long-time frontman Sam Rainsy to step down.

Many civil society groups railing against corruption and repression have also been shut down or sidelined by court cases.

Outspoken media — including the respected and recently shuttered Cambodia Daily — have found the cost of criticism is a crippling tax bill.

– Repression the ‘new normal’ –

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Deputy party leader Mu Sochua is no stranger to intimidation.

The 63-year-old is a veteran of an opposition movement that has spent most of its time dodging Hun Sen’s machinations.

But the latest crackdown, she says, feels different.

“For the first time I felt unsafe. And politically speaking, this is the first time I felt we no longer have the possibility of a dialogue,” Mu Sochua told AFP, adding that police have been following the movements of her party’s members around the country.

“I didn’t want another leader caught, another voice being silenced. That left me with one choice only, which is to leave.”

Despite the roadblocks set up against it, the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) faired well in recent elections, buoyed by growing frustration over graft and inequality.

But the recent exodus of MPs abroad is unprecedented and severely cramps the party’s ability to mount an effective campaign in next year’s poll.

At this rate, a boycott of next summer’s national vote is on the table if Kem Sokha remains in jail and repression of the media and civil society continues, said Mu Sochua.

She and others in exile will now travel the West to whip up global pressure on Hun Sen and his cronies from abroad.

But whether Western democracies — once a source of vital aid for the impoverished country — can still wield influence over the premier is in question.

China has steadily pulled Hun Sen into its orbit in recent years by lavishing the leader with aid and investment free of pressure to safeguard human rights.

That has relieved the autocrat from needing to at least maintain the semblance of a functioning democracy and free press.

In the past, his crackdowns were often followed by spells of relative freedom to keep democratic donors on board.

But with Chinese cash flowing into the coffers, that let-up might never come.

“What’s new in all this is the feeling of permanence,” said Sebastian Strangio, an expert on Cambodian politics.

“It looks like the current repression is becoming Cambodia’s new normal.”

    The 62-year-old, “in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world,” the Academy wrote in its citation.

Born in Nagasaki, he moved to Britain with his family when he was five years old, only returning to visit Japan as an adult.

Both his first novel “A Pale View of Hills” from 1982 and the subsequent one, “An Artist of the Floating World” from 1986, take place in Nagasaki a few years after World War II.

“The themes Ishiguro is most associated with are already present here: memory, time, and self-delusion,” the Academy said.

“This is particularly notable in his most renowned novel, ‘The Remains of the Day’,” which was turned into a film with Anthony Hopkins acting as the duty-obsessed butler Stevens.

“Ishiguro’s writings are marked by a carefully restrained mode of expression, independent of whatever events are taking place,” it said.

Apart from his eight books, Ishiguro has also written scripts for film and television.//AFP

Thai embassies in Myanmar and Bangladesh have sent through the International Committee of the Red Cross Bt5 million to each country to help Rohingya who fled to the Bangladesh border or remained in Rakhine state after the violence broke out on August 25, said ministry spokesperson Busadee Santipitaks.

More than 500,000 Muslim Rohingya fled from Rakhine state to Bangladesh over the past month after the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) launched a series of attacks against government security outposts, prompting a heavy-handed military response termed a “clearance operation”, which has killed more than 100 people.

The international community has raised concerns and criticised de facto civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi for poorly handling the situation and backing the Tatmadaw, as the Myanmar military is known, which is forcing the exodus of Rohingya. The minority ethnic group has historically been treated badly in the predominantly Buddhist state, which has refused them citizenship rights.

While the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has labelled the violence in Rakhine state “ethnic cleansing”, Asean, which includes Myanmar as a member, has supported Myanmar’s government and refrained from addressing the so-called clearance policy.

A scene of diplomatic disarray took place during an informal meeting of Asean foreign ministers late last month on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Asean issued a chairman’s statement on September 23 to express concern over the Rohingya crisis and support the Myanmar authorities’ efforts to end the violence, Malaysia’s foreign minister responded with a counter-statement to dissociate the country from the group’s statement, saying the Asean chair had misinterpreted the situation.

“While Malaysia condemns the attacks against Myanmar security forces on 25 August launched by ARSA, the subsequent ‘clearance operations’ efforts by Myanmar authorities was disproportionate in that it [sic] led to deaths of many innocent civilians and caused Rohingyas to be displaced,” Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said in his statement.

Malaysia has sheltered a significant number of Rohingya migrants for years, while the Philippines is now holding rotation chairmanship of Asean.

Thailand supported the chairman’s statement and joined the group to urge Myanmar authorities to implement recommendations in the final report of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, led by former UN chief Kofi Annan, Busadee said.

She added that Bangkok had also encouraged Myanmar and Bangladesh to join efforts to tackle refugee issues.

In collaboration with Japan, Thailand will also provide mid and long-term assistance to ensure that a sustainable solution can be achieved to resolve the issue at the root cause, she said.

Tens of thousands of well-wishers waving the country’s flag lined the streets and cheered as Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, the world’s second-longest reigning monarch, passed by in a chariot pulled by dozens of his subjects.

Marching bands took part in the colourful procession as it made its way through the streets, the highlight of about two weeks of celebrations to mark the golden jubilee of one of the world’s richest men.

An absolute monarchy with strict Islamic laws, Brunei is one of the world’s wealthiest nations thanks to abundant oil and gas reserves, although analysts warn it faces serious challenges to diversify the economy as oil prices fall and its reserves dwindle.

Among the crowds was Melissa Ibrahim, an airline employee, who sang Hassanal’s praises.

“His majesty cares about the people, their welfare, education and heath,” she told AFP. “Everything is subsidised by the government, so for that we are very, very thankful.”

Celebrations got under way earlier at the sultan’s sprawling palace, where an honour guard performed a 21-gun salute and the ruler and his wife sat on golden thrones for a royal audience.

The 71-year-old ascended to the throne of the Muslim country perched on the north of tropical Borneo island in October 1967, and comes from a royal family that has ruled the country for over 600 years.

His decades ruling Brunei have seen the country gain full independence from Britain and living standards soar to among the highest in the world.

Islamic law, high-priced harem

But his reign of Brunei, which has a population of about 400,000, has also been marked by controversies.

These include the introduction of tough Islamic laws in 2014, which will eventually include penalties such as severing of limbs and death by stoning, a move that sparked rare domestic criticism as well as international condemnation.

The royal family was also deeply embarrassed by a sensational feud between Hassanal and his younger brother Prince Jefri Bolkiah over the latter’s alleged embezzlement of $15 billion during his tenure as finance minister in the 1990s.

During the scandal, salacious details emerged of the prince’s jet-set, un-Islamic lifestyle, including allegations of a high-priced harem and a luxury yacht he owned called “Tits”.

There are also challenges for the younger generation, who fear their futures may not be secure as the oil-dependent country struggles to find new revenue sources.

“They still have not really made any significant headway moving beyond this major sector (oil and gas),” said Bridget Welsh, a Southeast Asia expert from John Cabot University.

Still, the jubilee stood out as a rare source of excitement in the sleepy sultanate, which is known for its slow pace of life and lack of nightlife — alcohol is largely banned under Islamic practice.

Thursday’s festivities began with Hassanal, dressed in yellow and gold royal finery and accompanied by his wife Anak Hajah Saleha, inspecting a guard of honour in the grounds of his palace, before the gun salute.

The couple then held the royal audience in the throne room of the palace, a vast complex of resplendent white buildings with golden domes and almost 1,800 rooms, before heading to take part in the procession.

The festivities will continue Friday when Southeast Asian leaders, from countries including Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, and Middle Eastern royalty attend a banquet to mark the jubilee.

The sultan only comes behind one sovereign in terms of having the longest reign — Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, who ascended to the throne in 1952.

She became the world’s longest serving monarch a year ago following the death of Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej, whose reign spanned seven decades.//AF{

Irene the koala was discovered missing from her holding yard at the Australian Reptile Park outside Sydney early Thursday, park officials said.

The two-year-old was eventually found stuck in a nearby tree after a “Houdini-style” escape through an opening in her pen, they said.

General manager Tim Faulkner said Irene had only recently reached sexual maturity and this week marked the start of the annual koala mating season.

“It’s not the first time we’ve had a young female koala keen on finding a mate, and it’s no coincidence she made her way out of her yard to find a mate’s yard,” he said.

Park officials insisted Irene’s desires would be satisfied, but more prosaically.

She “will be introduced to the correct male after ‘selective pairings are made’ managed by a stud book,” the park said.//AFP

His testimony is the first evidence directly linking the women to the poison VX which was used to kill Kim Jong-Nam as he waited at a crowded airport in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.

Indonesian Siti Aisyah and Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong are accused of smearing VX on Kim’s face in February in a Cold War-style hit that stunned the world.

Kim died an agonising death within 20 minutes of being attacked with a chemical so deadly it is listed as a weapon of mass destruction.

The women, who were arrested a few days after the killing and face death by hanging if convicted, have pleaded not guilty to murdering the estranged half-brother of Kim Jong-Un as he waited to board a flight to Macau.

The defendants, both in their 20s, say they were duped into believing they were taking part in a prank for a reality TV show and their lawyers blame North Korean agents.

The murder sparked a fierce row between Malaysia and North Korea, which is suspected of ordering the hit. Pyongyang denies the allegation.

Giving evidence Thursday, government chemist Raja Subramaniam said that he found traces of VX on the clothes of Aisyah, 25, and Huong, 29.

“We found a degradation product of VX on a sleeveless shirt of Siti Aisyah,” he told Shah Alam High Court, outside the capital Kuala Lumpur.

Subramaniam said he found pure VX, a degraded form of the poison and a base substance used to make the poison on a t-shirt that Huong wore at the time of the attack.

The t-shirt had “LOL”, an acronym for “laughing out loud”, emblazoned on it.

Traces of the poison were also found on clippings of Huong’s fingernails, he said.

CCTV footage of the attack shows the women coming up behind Kim and swiping his face with a substance before running away, and a post-mortem report showed his death was caused by VX.

But experts have been confounded by how the women allegedly carried out the hit using the chemical without causing any harm to themselves.//AFP