Van Viet Tran was found dead on Saturday following the clash with members of the feared Abu Sayyaf kidnapping group in the strife-torn Sulu island group, Brigadier General Cirilito Sobejana said.

A soldier was also killed and 15 other troops wounded while the Abu Sayyaf suffered undetermined casualties, said Sobejana who heads a special anti-terror task force.

“He (the Vietnamese) was hit by a bullet. Two things may have happened: he was hit during the encounter or he may have tried to take advantage of the situation (to escape) and then his abductors shot him,” he said.

He said militants were holding Van and four other Vietnamese apparently kidnapped at sea in Sulu.

Six other Vietnamese seamen were also being held on Basilan island, near Sulu, but two of them were beheaded last week.

Abu Sayyaf militants have been seizing hostages for ransom for years, often targetting foreigners such as seamen passing through the waters of the southern Philippines.

The group, blamed for the worst terror attacks in the country’s history, is known to behead its hostages unless ransom payments are made.

German Jurgen Kantner, 70, was beheaded in February after the kidnappers’ demand for 30 million pesos ($600,000) was not met.

Last year, the Abu Sayyaf also beheaded two Canadian hostages.

The Abu Sayyaf, originally a loose network of militants formed in the 1990s with seed money from Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network, has splintered into factions, with some continuing to engage in banditry and kidnapping.

One faction led by Isnilon Hapilon has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and its members are among the hundreds of militants who have been occupying parts of the southern city of Marawi for almost two months despite a massive military operation to crush them.

The Phnom Penh Post’s CEO, Alex Odom, on Thursday signed an agreement with Pana Janviroj, executive director of ANN, in the Cambodian capital city, witฌnessed by Torben Stephan, director of Konrad Adenauer Siftung Media Programme Asia.

ANN is the world’s most active media alliance, established in 1999. Members exchange news and commentaries on a daily basis to enhance Asian reports on global affairs. The alliance operates ediฌtorial support offices in Delhi, Bangkok and Phnom Penh with daily e-newsletter and website (asianews.network). It also hosts conferences and workshops related to regional affairs.

The ANN charter allows for each country to have one English language media as a member and one vernacular media. In Cambodia, Rasmei Kampuchea the leading Cambodian language daily, is also a member.

“The Phnom Penh Post will further strengthen ANN as a dynamic voice of Asia at the time when the region is undergoing rapid changes – politically, economically and socially,” said Janviroj.

Added Alex Odom, CEO of the Phnom Penh Post: “I’m proud for the Post to be a part of the Asia News Network. It’s espeฌcially important, now more than ever, for journalists and news outlets in the region to work together. To be included among some of the best newspapers in Asia is truly an honour, and it validates the sigฌnificance of the Phnom Penh Post and its 25year history here in Cambodia.”

Founded in 1992, the Phnom Penh Post was initially published as a fortฌnightly newspaper, before becoming a daily in 2008.

It is the oldest existing independent newspaper in any language in Cambodia, and is read by thousands of foreigners and Cambodians, with subscribers in 35 countries around the globe.

Janviroj added that Cambodia lies at the heart of the development of the Mekong, Asean and Asia and is going through reforms and modernisation important to the development of the region. “The Phnom Penh Post is central to the reporting on Cambodia.

The Do Son Buffalo Fighting Festival of the northern city of Hai Phong will lose national intangible heritage status if its organising process does not fulfil its safety commitments, according to a report submitted by the Agency of Grassroots Culture to Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Ngoc Thien.

The report was compiled after a man was gored to death by his buffalo during a fight on July 1. Authorities halted the festival after the incident.

The agency has also proposed a meeting between the minister and Hai Phong People’s Committee to discuss the festival’s future.

The agency will review the organising process of the festival, including security and safety measures in its dossier of national intangible heritage.

If the festival is found to have fallen short of its commitments, the agency will consult the minister about taking the festival off the list of Vietnam’s national intangible heritages.

The report also suggests that inspectors from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism tighten examinations of managing and organising festivals, particularly those lacking evidence to be confirmed as traditional festivals, and those with brutal elements, in addition to strictly fining violations of the guidance.

The agency also urged the local People’s Committee and Department of Culture and Sports to hold a workshop on the festival. The workshop should involve relevant organisations, culturists and historians.

If the buffalo fighting festival continues to be held, its organising procedures must be conducted on a foundation of preserving and promoting the festival’s original cultural values.

On July 1, soon after the festival opened in the city’s Do Son Stadium, buffalo number 18, while fighting a fellow creature, turned on its owner, gored him in the thigh, chest and neck, and then threw him into the air.

The victim Dinh Xuan Huong, 47, a Do Son District native, was rushed to hospital and succumbed to his injuries late Saturday afternoon.

This is the first time such an incident has happened at the Do Son Buffalo Fighting Festival, which was recognised as a national intangible cultural heritage by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in 2013 and listed among major cultural festivals by the ministry.

The festival is held annually to wish local fishermen a prosperous fishing season.

According to Luu Toan Thang, a local in Hai Phong, the Do Son Buffalo Fighting Festival was first held in the 17th century. After being halted for a period of time, it was revived and has been conducted annually since 1990.

Religious South Koreans have been a loud fixture at the annual parade for years, holding a rival anti-homosexuality rally while trying to physically block the march.

Their presence is the most visible display of intolerance towards sexual minorities in the tradition-bound society, where religious belief is widespread and many homosexuals stay in the closet due to fear of discrimination and social isolation.

Homosexuality is not illegal in South Korea. But gay, lesbian or transgender rights remain politically unpopular.

Even left-leaning South Korean President Moon Jae-In — a former human rights lawyer — said he “opposed homosexuality” during a campaign debate in April.

His conservative opponent and eventual runner-up said homosexuals should be “punished severely for living against divine rules”.

Gay rights activists say that some progress has been made in recent years, with surveys showing increasing tolerance, particularly among young people, and participation at Pride surging since the first parade in 2000, when only 50 attended.

But the event’s growing profile has unnerved South Korea’s conservative Protestant church groups, which have millions of followers, enormous political lobbying power, and see homosexuality as a psychological illness to be “healed”.

‘Sodom and Gomorrah’

Every year, they petition authorities not to allow public venues to be used for the event, and stage a boisterous prayer rally at which they sing hymns through giant loudspeakers intended to drown out the sound of the parade.

Some wave banners accusing homosexuals of paedophilia and bestiality and turning the capital Seoul into “Sodom and Gomorrah”, while others scream insults.

“We do not want them to showcase homosexuality in public, which can corrupt the minds of our children,” said Pastor Hong Ho-Soo, secretary general of the Homosexuality Countermeasure Council for Korean Churches.

Hong accused gay people of spreading sexual diseases such as Aids and a “decadent sex culture against the teachings of the Bible”, and urged homosexuals not to fete their orientation publicly.

“It’s okay to celebrate whatever you are at home or privately. Just don’t do it in front of others,” Hong told AFP, describing his campaign as “a non-negotiable crusade against a religious sin”.

Police estimated each side’s turnout last year at a little more than 10,000 people, and routinely erect metal fences around the parade start point to prevent clashes.

Hong said he opposed violence against paradegoers and insisted his campaign “does not constitute hate speech”.

Pride representatives disagree.

“They say, ‘Hide yourself. Live in the shadows, because who you are is so harmful and something to be so ashamed of’,” Kang Myoung-Jin, chief organiser of the Korea Queer Culture Festival, told AFP.

“If this is not hate speech, what would be?” he asked, adding past parades had been marred by physical and verbal attacks by people bearing crosses or loudly reciting prayers.

Some throw plastic bottles, food, water and even traffic cones at participants while screaming curses, Kang said, or lie in the street to block parade floats.

Political influence

Gay rights remain limited in many Asian countries, although Taiwan’s constitutional court this year ruled against laws preventing same-sex unions.

Pride parades have met with varying degrees of opposition in many nations, but South Korea stands out with its unusually aggressive, well-organised church-led campaigns, analysts say.

They have also campaigned against anti-discrimination laws.

“It’s partly because the Protestant churches are the most well-connected and well-financed lobby machine in this nation,” said Kim Jin-Ho, chief researcher at the Christian Institute for the 3rd Era, a Seoul-based religious think tank.

Many South Korean churches took their cues from evangelical US megachurches that since the 1980s have expanded their influence through campaigns against abortion and homosexuality, Kim said.

South Korea is also home to many megachurches, including the world’s largest congregation of nearly 800,000. But their reputation has been tarnished by recent corruption scandals.

“For them, the anti-gay campaign is another way to maintain their political influence in this time of crisis,” Kim said.

But participation in Pride is broadening, organisers say. The National Human Rights Commission of Korea, a state rights watchdog, and the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism — the country’s biggest Buddhist sect — are taking part this year for the first time.

“Our sect has long maintained close ties with sexual minority groups, and wanted to take part as a show of solidarity,” said Kim Han-Nah, an official at the Jogye Order.

“We support a world without any form of discrimination.”//AFP

The 54-month sentence is the longest meted out to date by a Singapore court on 1MDBrelated charges.

Yeo, 34, pleaded guilty and was convicted on one charge each of money laundering and cheating, with eight other charges taken into consideration.

The sentence, which Yeo began serving immediately,  will run concurrently with an earlier 30-month jail sentence he began serving in December last year for witness tampering.

Senior banker Yak Yew Chee was sentenced in November to an 18-week jail term and fined for forging documents and failing to disclose suspicious transactions allegedly related to Malaysian financier Jho Low who is alleged to be at the centre of the money laundering scandal. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Another banker, Yvonne Seah Yew Foong, was jailed for two weeks and fined on Dec 16 last year for similar offenses.

MAS has issued a 10year prohibition order against Tim Leissner (top left), and said it is seeking prohibition orders against (clockwise, from top right) Jens Sturzenegger, Yak Yew Chee and Yvonne Seah Yew Foong.

The highest fine of S$128,000 was meted out to Falcon Bank’s ex-manager Jens Sturzenegger who was sentenced to 28 weeks’ jail.

Singapore is the first and only country to date out of at least 10 jurisdictions involved in the probe that has convicted several facilitators of the money laundering.

Four other individuals, including Goldman Sachs’ ex-star banker Tim Leissner, who used to be based in Singapore, have been banned from the city state’s capital markets for periods ranging from 10 years to a lifetime. Three others have been notified by MAS of its intention to issue Prohibition Orders (POs) against them, ranging from three to six years.

The two-year probe by MAS into the involvement of financial institutions implicated in the 1MDB money flows has resulted in two private banks losing their licenses here over serious lapses in their anti-money laundering controls and eight banks being fined a total of S$29.1 million.

Yeo, a Singaporean, had been employed by Swiss-based BSI between December 2009 and July 2014. He allegedly amassed S$26 million from various sources, including illicit schemes to defraud BSI while he was an employee.

The still-unfolding case involving 1MDB’s billions is deemed one of the world’s largest money laundering scandals in history. It required the unravelling of, as described by MAS, a “complex web of transactions involving numerous shell companies and individuals operating in multiple jurisdictions, including the United States, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Luxembourg and Malaysia”.

Yeo had repeatedly downplayed his close ties to  Jho Low, who is also under investigation in Singapore and elsewhere over money-laundering claims linked to 1MDB.

To the amusement of ground staff at Melbourne airport, the can of Emu Export Lager was tagged and made its way along the conveyor belt to the plane as the only check-in item for passenger Dean Stinson on Saturday.

The high-flyer said he concocted the plan with a friend who worked at the airport “just for a laugh”, adding that he was pleasantly surprised his precious cargo survived the four-hour journey to Perth.

“I thought it was bloody great,” he told Agence France-Presse about the safe arrival of the beer.

“And it was in perfect condition.”

Qantas had no comment.//AFP

Pre-exposure prophylaxis, commonly known as PrEP, is a type of medicine that, if taken daily, can reduce the risk of HIV infection via sexual intercourse by more than 90 percent, according to health studies.

Several countries recommend the drugs as a weapon to prevent the spread of HIV among people in high-risk groups, such as gay men.

However, the China Food and Drug Administration approved PrEP in 2015 for the treatment of HIV/AIDS – not prevention – which means doctors are not allowed to prescribe it to patients unless they test positive for the virus.

Xiao Dong, who runs Tongzhi, an NGO based in Beijing that is committed to combating AIDS, said he began traveling to Thailand early last year, for vacations and to stock up on anti-HIV medicine.

As an openly gay man, he said health and safety are his top priorities: “I use both condoms and PrEP to guard against HIV,” he said.

Advocates say prevention is worthwhile, given that the prevalence of HIV among Chinese gay men averages more than 5 percent in most cities and can exceed 10 percent in major metropolises, according to the National Center for AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Disease Control.

Given increasing awareness, more gay men in China have followed suit. Xiao said he knows nearly 100 men from Beijing who have also traveled to Thailand to purchase PrEP.

“It’s a positive sign that our community has become more responsible for our own health, and each other’s. They are willing to pay out of pocket,” he said.

Thailand is easy to visit, as Chinese citizens do not require a visa, and the country is recognized for its friendliness toward the LGBT community.

It also offers easy, affordable access to PrEP, Xiao said, who added that generic products can cost 300 yuan ($44) for a one-month supply, while brand-name products are about 800 yuan for the same amount.

By contrast, the brand-name drugs sell for nearly 2,000 yuan in China, said Wu Hao, director of the infectious diseases department at Beijing’s You’an Hospital.

You’an treats most of the AIDS patients in Beijing. Last year, he said, more than 90 percent of the newly detected HIV sufferers in the capital were gay men.

According to Wu, who specializes in sexually transmitted diseases, the efficacy of PrEP has been widely recognized internationally. It has been included in the HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment guidelines of the World Health Organization and health authorities in the United States.

However, Wu said, China has not yet introduced PrEP in its national guidelines. In addition, he ruled out the possibility that the government would give the drugs free to willing subjects, largely because of the high costs involved.

Wu’s department will launch a yearlong PrEP research study this summer with the center, recruiting 600 to 1,000 gay men and giving them free PrEP drugs.

“I welcome PrEP as prevention for those who are at high risk of infection, given that condom use is low, particularly among gay men in China,” he said.

Prabagaran Srivijayan was sentenced to death in 2012 for trafficking 22.24 grams (0.8 ounces) of heroin, but has consistently maintained his innocence.

He is expected to be hanged Friday, according to Amnesty International and other activists quoting members of his family.

Trafficking certain volumes of illegal drugs carries the mandatory death penalty in Singapore, except if certain conditions are met for it to be commuted to a life sentence.

“The Singaporean authorities must immediately halt his execution before another person suffers this inhumane and irreversible punishment,” James Gomez, Amnesty International’s Director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific said in a statement on Tuesday.

Amnesty said the convict’s lawyers have raised concerns about the fairness of his trial, including the alleged failure of the authorities “to follow up leads and call on key witnesses that would corroborate his version of events”.

Prabagaran’s lawyers have also launched a case in Malaysia where the Court of Appeal is considering an application to refer Singapore to the International Court of Justice over concerns about the trial, according to activists.

Both Malaysia and Singapore execute murderers and drug traffickers by hanging, a system which dates back to British colonial rule.

On Wednesday, Singapore anti-death penalty group We Believe in Second Chances also called for Prabagaran’s execution to be halted.

“There is no need to rush to hang an individual. Prabagaran’s execution should not have been scheduled while his case has yet to be fully heard in the Malaysian courts,” the group said in a Facebook post.

Singapore, however, has consistently maintained that the death penalty is an effective deterrent to crime and has rejected calls to abolish capital punishment.

The city-state last November hanged two foreigners — a Malaysian and a Nigerian — for drug trafficking after their last-minute appeals were rejected.

Singapore hosts thousands of multinational corporations, many of which have made the city their regional headquarters because of its reputation for safety and incorruptibility.

“We continue to call on the Chinese authorities for his full parole, and also for the release of his wife,” US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.

“We continue to call on China to release him so that he can receive medical treatment wherever he desires. If it’s in the United States, I think we would certainly welcome that,” the spokeswoman said.

Nauert said the United States was pleased that US and German medical experts have been able to visit the terminally-ill cancer patient.

“The State Department was involved in helping to get a US doctor…. to China to be able to take a look at him,” she said. “There was also a German doctor that was in attendance, too.”

Nauert added that Washington is worried not only about the welfare of Liu, 61, but of other dissidents held by China.

“The State Department remains deeply concerned about the continued detention of at least seven defense lawyers and rights defenders, and reports of their alleged torture and denial of access to independent legal counsel,” she said.

“We urge the Chinese authorities to immediately release those still in detention and drop the charges.”

Liu’s heath has deteriorated since authorities revealed last month that he had been transferred from prison to a hospital due to late-stage liver cancer.

But Chinese officials have ignored calls by international human rights groups, Western governments and local activists to grant the prominent democracy advocate’s wish to be treated abroad.

Liu has an abdominal infection, organ dysfunction and he went into septic shock, the hospital said in a statement on its website.

He is undergoing kidney dialysis, and is getting anti-infection and organ function support therapy.

Liu was arrested in 2008 after co-writing Charter 08, a bold petition that called for the protection of basic human rights and reform of China’s one-party Communist system.

He was sentenced to 11 years in prison in December 2009 for “subversion”. At the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo in 2010, he was represented by an empty chair.