The Youth and Sports Minister has since removed the post from both his Twitter and Instagram accounts.

The photo showed the 25-year-old, who became the youngest ever minister in the country, immersed in cold water therapy after a friendly football match that was held in conjunction with Hari Sukan Negara 2018 on Saturday (Oct 13).

Syed Saddiq, on his Twitter account, had exposed his well-defined abs to his 613,000 followers by posting a picture of himself soaking in ice water in a bathtub.

“After scoring the golden goal, (I) immediately soaked myself in ice. Good game @dugongallstars,” he tweeted.

Some Malaysians, however, described the post as unbecoming of a minister.

Syed Saddiq’s Choice team had played against Dugong Allstars, a team made up of local celebrities, on Saturday afternoon.

His team won the match 4-3, with the minister scoring the decisive goal. It is common practice among athletes to soak themselves in ice water after training or after a competition. The therapy is said to provide relief for muscle pain and soreness.

Yet, it is still outperformed by three fellow Asean nations: Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia – largely due to weaknesses in the Kingdom’s education system.

Released on October 11, the index measures productivity of the next generation of workers relative to the benchmark of complete education and full health.

Topping the index is Singapore, which scored 0.88 out of the possible 1. Coming second and third are South Korea and Japan. Hong Kong is ranked 4th while Finland sits in 5th spot.

Thailand scored 0.6 and placed 65th among the 157 world territories.

The Human Capital Index measures the amount of human capital that a child born today can expect to attain by age 18, given the risks of poor health and education that prevail in the country where the child lives.

“Thai children can expect to complete 12.4 years of school by age 18. However, when years of schooling are adjusted for quality of learning, this is only equivalent to 8.6 years, a learning gap of 3.8 years,” the World Bank calculated.

The index has used five indicators: the probability of survival to age five, a child’s expected years of schooling, harmonised test scores as a measure of the quality of learning, adult survival rate (the fraction of 15-year-olds that will survive to age 60), and the proportion of children who are not stunted.

Globally, 56 per cent of all children born today will grow up to be at best, half as productive as they could be; and 92 per cent will grow up to be, at best, 75 per cent as productive as they could be.

The index shows that children born in Thailand today will be 60 per cent as productive when they grow up as they could have been if they had enjoyed a complete education and full health.

“This is below the average for East Asia and Pacific region,” the World Bank noted.

Thailand’s performance marginally improved over last year, with its score rising from 0.58 in 2017 to 0.60.

“Thailand has made great progress in expanding basic education and the rate of child stunting is low as a consequence of earlier government efforts,” said Mara K Warwick, World Bank country director for Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand. “However, greater emphasis on learning is needed to further equip a child born today with the skills and knowledge to be a productive citizen of the future.

“The Government of Thailand recognises this and is working with the World Bank to improve the efficiency of education expenditure in order to boost quality and reduce the inequity in educational resource allocation.”

World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said human capital was a key driver of sustainable and inclusive economic growth, but investing in health and education has not received the attention it deserves.

“The Human Capital Index creates a direct line between improving outcomes in health and education, productivity and economic growth. I hope that it drives countries to take urgent action and invest more – and more effectively – in their people,” he added.

The visit demonstrates the importance of the UK/Thailand relationship, and our commitment to further strengthen ties between our countries, British Ambassador to Thailand Brian Davidson said in a statement.

The duke of Gloucester is a grandson of King George V and a first cousin of the queen.

On his first day in Bangkok, the duke will tour the Jim Thompson House, a famous Bangkok residence and art collection.

In Chon Buri, the duke will tour the Triumph Motorcycles Factory and Senior Aerospace Factory. Both companies are British-owned and employ hundreds of staff in Thailand.

To mark the 75th anniversary of the Thai-Burma railway, the duke will visit Kanchanaburi province to attend a remembrance service for Commonwealth servicemen and women who gave their lives in the construction of the railway. He will also see the well-known Bridge over the River Kwai and tour its museum.

In Chiang Mai, he will visit the Royal Project Foundation Centre where he will learn more about the sustainable projects founded by His Majesty the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej. The Royal Project has always had close connections with the UK, in particular Kew Gardens, and provides excellent examples of sustainable development.

The duke will also visit the Children’s Advocacy Centre: a notable Thai government initiative that joins international NGOs and Thailand’s police units to combat child abuse, exploitation of children and human trafficking; and the Habitat for Humanity centre in Chiang Mai.

Habitat for Humanity aims to improve the quality of life of low-income Thai people by building homes and transforming communities.

On his final night in Thailand, the duke will be the guest of honour at a charity dinner hosted at the British ambassador’s residence. The menu will be curated by Michelin-starred chef Ken Hom. The event is held in partnership with the Siam Piwat Group.

The victim, whose name was not released, had been living for several years in the small town of Les Gets and was shot Saturday evening as a hunting party beat its way through nearby woods near Montriond, according to the local prosecutor.

The victim was “perfectly identifiable” and was on a well-used but hard to access mountain track when he was shot by a 22-year-old hunter who was taken to hospital in shock.

An enquiry has been launched for “aggravated manslaughter”, the prosecutor said.

Tourism has been one of the growing economic sectors across the world.  According to the report by World Tourism Organisation the international tourist arrivals have increased from 25 million globally in 1950 to 278 million in 1980, 674 million in 2000, and 1,235 million in 2016.

The Asia Pacific region accounts for 30 per cent of the world’s international tourism receipts. The region has outperformed all other regions in terms of growth, with international tourist arrivals increasing an average 7% per year compared to the world average of 4%.

China remains one of the leading destinations in Asia. It attracted the highest number of tourists in the region with a record number of inflow of 59.27 million people in the year 2016.  Great Wall of China draws highest number of visitors followed by Forbidden city, Ming dynasty palaces. Apart from the architectural feats China has many natural sites that attract international tourists.

Thailand attracted second highest number of tourists in the region with 32.58 million visitors in 2016. The country has an easy visa policy that makes it easier for tourists to travel. Malaysia attracted 26.75 million tourists last year, although the average number of days of stay decreased.

Japan and India followed with 24.04 and 14.56 million tourists respectively.  In India, it was a new high since foreign tourist arrival crossed ten million for the first time and pushed the country’s earnings to 27 billion dollars. The numbers also helped the country go up 25 places in the Tourism competitive Index.

South Korea had the sixth highest number of tourists in the year 2016. However the numbers plunged to a low owing to the boycott by Chinese tour groups after South Korea installed the Thaad system.  Singapore and Vietnam followed with 12.91 million and 10.01 million tourists respectively.

In 2017, Philippines’ tourist arrival went up by 11 per cent at 5.96 million. South Koreans remained the highest numbers of visitors to the country.  It was followed by Cambodia, Laos and Sri Lanka. The lesser visited countries of the region remained Mongolia, Brunei and Bhutan.

As at 7.30pm, the PKR president-elect has secured a total of 25,409 votes, according to Fahmi Fadzil, the PKR strategic communications director.

The total number of votes counted so far is 36,335.

The Election Commission said that voter turnout at 4pm was at 54%, but it has not provided the final voter turnout figure as yet.

PAS candidate Lt-Kol (Rtd) Mohd Nazari Mokhtar has so far received 6,540 votes and independent candidate Tan Sri Isa Samad, 3,574 votes.

Another independent candidate, Stevie Chan, has 271 votes, followed by Lau Seck Yan (174), Kan Chee Yuen (127) and Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan (84).

The Port Dickson polls was triggered by the resignation of the incumbent MP Datuk Danyal Balagopal Abdullah, who made way for Anwar to enable his return to Parliament.

The Saudi critic has not been seen since he walked into the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul on October 2, with Turkish officials accusing Riyadh of murdering him inside the diplomatic mission.

“We’re going to get to the bottom of it and there will be severe punishment,” Trump told CBS’s “60 Minutes” program, according to an extract of an interview that was released on Saturday.

“As of this moment, they deny it and they deny it vehemently. Could it be them? Yes,” Trump said in the interview, which was conducted on Thursday, when asked if Khashoggi was murdered by Saudi Arabia.

The network said it will air the interview in full on Sunday evening.

Trump added the matter was especially important “because this man was a reporter.”

But when asked what options Trump would consider, the president said he was not keen to limit arms sales to the kingdom — a position he has previously voiced.

“Well, it depends on what the sanction is,” he said.

“I’ll give you an example — they are ordering military equipment. Everybody in the world wanted that order. Russia wanted it, China wanted it, we wanted it. We got it, and we got all of it, every bit of it.

He added: “I’ll tell you what I don’t want to do. Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon, I don’t want to hurt jobs. I don’t want to lose an order like that. And you know what, there are other ways of punishing, to use a word that’s a pretty harsh word, but it’s true.”

The decision to expel former archbishop Francisco Jose Cox Huneeus and former bishop Marco Antonio Ordenes Fernandez — the latest heads to roll in a country hit hard by the cleric abuse scandal — could not be appealed, it said.

Both were stripped of their priesthood “as a consequence of overt acts of abuse against minors”.

The announcement came a day after the pope accepted the resignation of Washington DC archbishop Donald Wuerl, who has been blamed for not doing enough to deal with paedophile priests.

Saturday’s defrocking was “an extremely unusual, if not unprecedented” move, said Ines San Martin, a Vatican expert writing in the Crux specialist Catholic website.

Defrocking is considered the harshest penalty for priests within the Church and means the offender is forbidden from exercising any clerical duties at all, even in private.

Scores of new cases of priestly sexual abuse of minors have come to light in Chile, deepening a crisis in the Roman Catholic church that has also embroiled Pope Francis.

On Saturday, Francis met with Chilean President Sebastian Pinera at the Vatican for talks on the “difficult situation” in Chile.

They discussed “the painful scourge of abuse of minors, reiterating the effort of all in collaboration to combat and prevent the perpetration of such crimes and their concealment”, the Vatican said.

The leaders “shared the hope that the church could live a true rebirth,” Pinera said in a statement.

A total of 167 bishops, priests and lay members of the church are now under investigation for sexual crimes committed in the South American country since 1960.

Investigation ongoing

Fernandez became a bishop at the age of 42 in 2006, but resigned just six years later, allegedly for health reasons.

It later transpired that he had been accused of sexual abuse, sparking both a church and a civil investigation.

“The civil investigation is still ongoing because he’s never responded to a court subpoena to give testimony,” Vatican expert San Martin said.

Fernandez was last seen in public in 2013 and had reportedly been living a life of penitence and prayer in Peru, she said.

Cox has long been the object of abuse allegations dating back to the 1970s.

The Vatican on Saturday said he would remain a part of the institute of the Schoenstatt Fathers in Germany.

The prelate, now 85 and reportedly in precarious health, has resided in the institute since 2002, San Martin said.

Pope Francis has already apologised repeatedly to Chileans over the scandal, admitting the church failed “to listen and react” to the allegations, but vowed to “restore justice”.

In May, the Argentine pontiff accepted the resignation of five Chilean bishops amid accusations of abuse and related coverups.

Francis himself became mired in the scandal when, during a trip to Chile in January, he defended 61-year-old bishop Juan Barros, who was accused of covering up abuse by paedophile priest Fernando Karadima in the 1980s and 1990s.

Karadima was suspended for life by the Vatican over the allegations of child molestation.

Francis eventually accepted he was wrong to defend Barros and subsequently accepted his resignation.

In recent weeks, Trump has slapped $250 billion worth of tariffs, boosted military support for rival Taiwan, accused China of interfering in US elections, stepped up denunciations of Beijing’s human rights record and curtailed its access to US nuclear technology.

The real estate mogul, who early in his tenure had described Chinese President Xi Jinping as a friend, was generally presumed to be most interested in trade as he has repeatedly vowed to ramp up US factory production by fighting back the flow of cheaper manufactured imports.

But his administration has expanded its pressure campaign to virtually all fronts, a strategy unprecedented since the time the United States and China established diplomatic relations four decades ago.

“It is a full-frontal assault by the US on China,” said Elizabeth Economy, director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“There is a general sense in Washington that China is simply too big now, it’s simply too large as a country and as an economy, to allow it to continue to violate all sorts of expected international trade and investment norms,” she said.

Economy said that the United States was also struck at how Xi has “presented a very different China to the world” with a “much more ambitious and expansive foreign policy.”

“The US and other countries say, ‘Okay, this is the China we have to deal with, not what we anticipated ten years ago.'”

China ready for ‘marathon’

Hua Po, a political commentator in Beijing, agreed that trade was only the “superficial” source of friction.

He believed that the underlying concern of the United States was the Made in China 2025 plan, under which Beijing has set a goal of rapidly ensuring that a majority of its industry is sourced domestically.

The United States accuses China of rampantly stealing technology and seeking an unfair trade advantage by forcing foreign businesses to work with local partners.

“Even if the trade issue is resolved, other problems between China and the United States will continue to exist,” Hua said.

Hua said that Trump seemed to want “to fight a new cold war.” But Hua doubted that the United States would enjoy the support of its allies, especially in Europe, which do not see China as the same type of threat as the former Soviet Union.

And amid turbulence on Wall Street, China is expecting the US economy to see growing strains as negative effects emerge from Trump’s signature domestic policy of tax cuts, Hua said.

“China does believe that this dispute will last for some time. The United States wants to run a 100-meter race with China, but China wants a marathon with the United States,” he said.

Diplomacy through confrontation

Tensions soared between the world’s two largest economies last month at the annual UN General Assembly session.

A closed-door meeting of foreign ministers from the five permanent members of the Security Council turned “icy” as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lashed out aggressively against China, whose foreign minister, Wang Yi, responded with similar intensity, according to a witness.

Vice President Mike Pence a week later delivered a speech in which he took China to task and made the headline-grabbing claim, a month ahead of congressional elections, that Beijing was intervening in US politics, citing the Asian power’s purchase of newspaper advertisements and its imposition of counter tariffs in politically crucial states.

The two countries have still kept in contact on resolving the nuclear crisis with North Korea, a top priority for both powers, with Pompeo visiting Beijing after a stop in Pyongyang.

Ryan Hass, the director for China policy on the White House’s National Security Council under Obama, said that Trump had taken a new course by emphasizing public pressure over diplomacy with China.

He said that Trump had gambled “on the assumption that Beijing needs a stable relationship with Washington” and that Beijing is ready to moderate its policies both at home and abroad.

“Beijing believes Washington is organizing itself to contest China’s rise. As such, Beijing sees little incentive to accommodate Trump’s demands on trade or other issues, because doing so would not resolve the underlying source of intensifying rivalry — Washington’s efforts to hold back China’s rise,” said Hass, now a fellow at the Brookings Institution.

“Given these dynamics, it is unlikely that either side will moderate its approach in the foreseeable future,” he said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency “will assist” with the project, said Milton Haughton, Executive Director of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism.

“I am very positive that we will have things going by next year,” he told AFP in Barbados where Caribbean agriculture ministers are holding their annual meeting.

Haughton said the Caribbean would also be establishing laboratories and training personnel to conduct future testing.

Scientists already believe that the increased acidity is caused by the sea’s absorption of carbon emissions.

“In more recent times scientists have realized that the absorption of carbon dioxide in the ocean is actually causing serious, serious problems in the ocean itself. Basically, the seawater is becoming more and more acidic and that is not good for the living marine organisms,” Haughton said.

He added that acidic and increasingly warm seas were causing coral bleaching and dissolving the carbonates that shellfish require to make their shells.

“The fact is that for many of our countries, our fisheries are based on the health of the coral reefs,” Haughton said.

Avoiding global climate chaos will require a major transformation of society and the world economy that is “unprecedented in scale,” the United Nations said Monday.

It warned that the world must become “carbon neutral” by 2050 to have at least a 50/50 chance of keeping global warming below 1.5 C.