Authorities deported them to Batam, an Indonesian island not far from Singapore, the same day, and they have since been sent on to Jakarta.

“Four Indonesians were deported to Indonesia after investigations revealed that they had plans to make their way to Syria to fight for ISIS,” a spokesman for Singapore’s ministry of home affairs said, using an alternative name for IS.

“Singapore authorities informed their Indonesian counterparts before the deportation.”

After questioning the men, all from the main island of Java, Indonesian officials also concluded that the group were likely heading to Syria, Indonesian police said.

IS has provided a potent new rallying cry for Islamic extremists in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, with hundreds believed to have headed to fight in the Middle East with the jihadists.

National police chief Badrodin Haiti said the detained men were also thought to be followers of radical preacher Aman Abdurrahman, who is in jail for his role in forming a militant training camp, and has pledged allegiance to IS.

There have been suspicions Abdurrahman may have helped plan last month’s gun and suicide attacks in Jakarta that left four attackers and four civilians dead.

They were claimed by IS, which controls vast swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq, and were the first major attack in Indonesia for seven years.

The detained men originally entered Singapore from Batam but left for Malaysia, where they stayed only several hours, said local police chief Helmy Santika.

They were detained as they returned to Singapore, where they planned to catch flights, he added, without giving further details.

Indonesian police have launched a nationwide crackdown since the Jakarta attacks, rounding up dozens of alleged Islamic extremists.

Indonesia suffered several major bomb attacks by Islamic radicals between 2000 and 2009, but a subsequent crackdown weakened the most dangerous networks.

– AFP

Head of Viengkeo village in Xaythany district, Norlaphong Phengkhampang, said that this year’s Phaved festival will go ahead without a band and focus more on the religious ceremonies.

Most people were in favour of the decision because the village’s income from the sale of goods associated with the band such as food and drinks was insufficient and excessive drinking resulted in disruptive behaviour.

Certain families were out of pocket after paying for the band and hosting parties for friends.

Another reason for the decision was that the village does not have a suitable area where the band can play. In the past, bands played in the temple grounds and alcoholic drinks were served in this sacred area, Norlaphong said.

A Phaved is a religious or temple festival and many villages are now organising such an event. Most combine religious ceremonies and a band, especially in communities outside the city centre. Festivals held in the city do not normally include a band and focus more on the religious aspects of the occasion.

According to the law on the control of alcoholic drinks, which was promulgated last year, concerning locations where alcohol can be served, Article 29 says the sale of alcohol should not take place near healthcare or educational institutions, state offices, religious venues, embassies, public parks, theatres, passenger vehicle stations, petrol stations, sports complexes or factories.

Along with Viengkeo, other villages in the district have decided not to hire a band for the festival, including Dongdok, Khamhoung and Houaytouay.

An official at the Information, Culture and Tourism office in Xaythany district said there was no ban on village authorities arranging for music to be played at the festival, but they did not issue a licence for bands to play in temple grounds.

It is a longstanding custom for bands to play at traditional festivals. However, celebrating a festival without a band is a good thing because the presence of a band is a luxury and the social merriment that goes with it increases the risk of road accidents, the official said.

Director of the Vientiane Information, Culture and Tourism Department, Khampadith Khemmanith, said that it was a good thing if festivals did not include a band to entertain guests because it cut down noise and reduced alcohol consumption. In addition, many bands play beyond the time limit at night, which disturbs other people.

The tougher laws are being introduced to clamp down on restaurants and hotels for imposing up to 10percent service charge of the bill on their customers despite them not meeting the condition to do so.

The Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Ministry is in the midst of coming up with new rules that enable it to take action against such premises that charge for service although they do not have a collective agreement (CA) with their employees.

After the GST was implemented, the Government repeatedly reminded operators that only those with a CA between employer and employees could impose a service charge.

However, many restaurants, despite not meeting the condition, continue to flout the rule.

According to the ministry, there are only 93 companies in the hotel and food and beverage industries that are eligible to impose the service charge.

A check by mStar Online has found that four popular restaurant chains, with some 500 outlets nationwide, charge 5 per cent or 10 per cent for service despite not having a CA in place.

The ministry’s secretary-general Datuk Seri Alias Ahmad (pic) said that it has since last year required business owners to display the service charge notice to inform their customers.

“However, not only those who qualify are doing that, all businesses do that these days.

“I don’t think a normal eatery has a CA because logically, they do not have a workers’ union,” he said in an interview with the Malay news portal.

Alias said that due to a lack of specific rules to enforce the ruling, business owners continued to arbitrarily display the notice and charge their customers for service.

Under the Price Control and Anti-Profiteering Act 2011, it is an offence for premises to not display the service charge notice.

If convicted, individuals can be fined up to RM100,000, be jailed up to three years, or both, while companies face a penalty of up to RM500,000.

The proposed new rules will strengthen enforcement and provide more protection for consumers and workers.

“We have asked our legal advisers and the enforcement team to draft the laws and look at the existing regulations.

“We need to look deeper into this matter as it also involves the Human Resource Ministry and other agencies,” said Alias, noting that the CA used by workers’ unions was recognised by the Industrial Court.

The new rules, he said, involved an amendment to the Consumer Protection Act.

“As it requires an amendment to an Act, it needs to be tabled in Parliament, most probably in the fourth quarter of the year,” said Alias, adding that the proposal would be presented by Minister Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainuddin to the Cabinet before being tabled.

If all went well, the new rules would come into effect early next year, said Alias.

The new rules, he added, would enable the ministry to check if businesses were entitled to impose the service charge.

“These rules will also enable the ministry to check if the employers are distributing the service charge to their workers.

“If employers or companies fail to do so, the ministry can take stern action based on the laws,” he said.

However, there is yet to be discussion on the penalties for offenders.

But in another part of the city, those who were tortured and imprisoned under martial law will hold their own rally to mourn a lack of justice.

They will also try to raise the alarm over the dictator’s only son and namesake from getting elected vice-president, as he has surged to the top of polls with national elections less than three months away.

“The Marcoses have not returned what they stole and they are rewriting history,” said Enriquez, who was imprisoned for two years and whose activist sister was believed killed by government forces.

– Treasure hunt –

=================

Philippine parliament passed a law in 2013 to distribute money that was plundered by the Marcos family to human rights victims.

However, out of $10 billion that the government estimates to have been plundered, it covers only $210 million that was discovered in a Swiss bank account.

The government says it has recovered close to $4 billion worth of assets, but can not distribute the vast bulk of it because of legal challenges by the Marcoses and their cronies.

Meanwhile, an arduous process to verify 75,000 claims will not be finished until 2018, and only then can the victims finally get much-delayed compensation.

The victims have submitted medical records, prison logs and photos of themselves bruised or behind bars, according to Lina Sarmiento, head of the Human Rights Victims Claims Board tasked to verify the applications.

Although the money may not be a lot when it is finally distributed, she said it would be an important symbol of justice.

“More than the compensation for the victims, this is a recognition from the state, giving them back their dignity because they suffered for democracy,” Sarmiento told AFP.

“This is long overdue.”

The need to finally recognise and compensate human rights victims is not lost on the government claims board.

A timer that counts down to the number of days until the board’s 2018 deadline to pay all approved claims is installed on every computer screen in their spartan office.

– Marcos resurgence –

=====================

Meanwhile, Ferdinand Marcos Jnr is on the verge of cementing a remarkable comeback for the family.

The dictator died in US exile in 1989, but wife Imelda was allowed to return a few years after with her son and two daughters, and they began rebuilding a political power base.

If Marcos Jnr, 58, wins the vice presidency, he would be well positioned for a tilt at the nation’s top post at the next elections in 2022.

In the Philippines, the two positions are elected separately.

His mother and elder sister are also poised for re-election as congresswoman and governor, respectively, of Ilocos Norte, a northern province that has long been the family’s stronghold.

“This is the irony of our time: the activists of the 70s are now ageing and struggling for indemnification and we have not really achieved our objective and here comes another Marcos trying to make a comeback,” Selda president Bonifacio Ilagan, a former student activist who was jailed without trial for two years during the dictatorship, told AFP.

Marcos Jnr was not available for comment.

But he has consistently denied any wrongdoing by his family while portraying his father’s 20-year rule as benevolent, with tough measures used only to quash security threats such as communism.

In slick election campaign videos, Marcos Jnr proudly declares that “I am not my past” — in a nod to critics of his father — while trumpeting his father’s alleged gains in the economy and peace and order.

Marcos Jnr is surging in the polls on the back of the family’s “loyalists” and a generation of voters who were born after the martial law years, political analyst Ramon Casiple told AFP.

One third of the voters in the upcoming election were born after “People Power”, and are susceptible to the Marcos charm offensive as they live in a country still racked by poverty and corruption, according to Casiple.

He said democracy had failed to end these and other long-standing problems, allowing Marcos Jnr, known by his nickname of Bongbong, to falsely portray his father’s rule in a golden light.

“Bongbong is portraying the Marcos years as paradise,” Casiple told AFP.

– AFP