Graduates of the college would have the opportunity to work on the Laos-China railway, which is currently under construction and set for completion in 2021.

The agreement was signed by Deputy Minister of Education and Sports, Associate Professor Dr Kongsy Sengmany, and the Economic and Commercial Counsellor at the Chinese Embassy to Laos, Mr Wang Qihui.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Assoc. Prof. Dr Kongsy said the railway would be a new experience for Laos, adding “Staff from the ministry’s

Vocational and Technical Education Department went to China for a study tour to learn about railway operations.”

In anticipation of the railway’s opening, Assoc. Prof. Dr Kongsy stressed that the Lao side wanted China to help train personnel to staff the railway.

It is expected that the college will be built near the National Sports Complex in Xaythany district. Work on the feasibility study began recently. The timeframe for its completion, possible start of construction, the budget to be provided and other details are still awaiting confirmation, the ministry’s committee in charge said.

If it is approved, the site of the college would be 16 kilometres from the city centre and will cover 14.5 hectares, according to the ministry.

Mr Wang Qihui said the Chinese government had prioritised the Laos-China railway, adding “China is ready to help Laos to train staff to provide passenger services.”

He said there would be bilateral and multilateral training prior to 2021 and that China would appoint officials to the Chinese Railway Technology Committee who would be responsible for the training.

The Laos-China railway, which will run over a distance of 417km, will feature a single 1.435-metre standard-gauge track and an electrified mixed-traffic line which is to be built to China’s GB Grade 1 standards, suitable for 160km/h passenger and 120km/h freight trains.

The combined investment in the railway is US$5.8 billion, which makes it China’s largest investment in Laos. The railway will run from the Chinese border to Vientiane and will link Laos to China’s network. Currently, the only railroad in Laos is a 3.5km extension of Thailand’s state railway network.

The Boten-Mohan border (between Laos and China) is the starting point of the Lao section of the Chinese railway network.

When the railway is operational, the journey from Boten in Luang Namtha province to Vientiane will be reduced from about three days by road to less than three hours by train.

Duties on 719 types of imported raw materials, and intermediary and consumption goods such as ceramics and textile, were raised from 2.5 per cent to 7.5 per cent.

Levies on 218 consumption goods such as water dispensers, air conditioners and cosmetics were also raised, from 2.5 per cent to 10 per cent.

Furthermore, taxes on 210 kinds of luxury goods, including cars and motorcycles, went up from 7.5 per cent to 10 per cent. The new duties take effect next Wednesday.

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati told a briefing: “We want to show among emerging markets, Indonesia is addressing the situation through policies that reflect we understand existing challenges, respond appropriately, strengthen our fundamentals, fortify our industry, protect ourselves from external imbalance, particularly caused by capital outflow shocks, as well as try to maintain our economy well.”

Ms Sri Mulyani expects the taxes, which will be monitored on a monthly basis, to reduce import value by at least 2 per cent year on year.

The import value of the goods being hit by the tax hikes was around US$6.6 billion (S$9.1 billion) last year, and came in at about US$5 billion from January to last month, according to the Finance Ministry.

Taxes are just one of the instruments the government is deploying to curb imports, which have contributed to a bigger trade deficit and current account deficit, putting pressure on the rupiah.

Indonesia recorded a trade deficit of US$3.09 billion from January to July, reversing a US$7.39 billion surplus during the same period last year, according to Statistics Indonesia.

The high trade deficit has contributed to the widening current account deficit, which could hit US$25 billion this year. In the second quarter this year, it reached US$8 billion, equal to 3 per cent of gross domestic product.

Apart from the growing current account deficit, foreign investors own more than 40 per cent of government bonds.

This had made the country vulnerable to the huge sell-offs that have spread across emerging markets following United States interest rate hikes and escalating economic woes in Argentina and Turkey.

The rupiah has lost more than 9 per cent of its value against the greenback, becoming the second-worst performer in Asia after India’s rupee. It is inching near 15,000 to the US dollar for the first time since the Asian financial crisis two decades ago.

Other economic measures that are being employed include boosting the use of 20 per cent palm oil-blended biodiesel and halting imports of capital goods by two major state-owned enterprises – oil and gas company Pertamina and utility company PLN.

The government has also said it will delay key energy projects that are heavily reliant on imports.

Separately, President Joko Widodo said yesterday that Indonesia’s priority is to boost investment and exports to solve its expanding current account deficit.

Mr Mohammad Faisal, executive director of the Centre of Reform on Economics Indonesia, said the higher import taxes, especially those on consumption goods, will help rein in the trade and current account deficits in the short term.

However, the measure should be supported by policies that enhance the competitive edge of import-substituting goods.

He told The Straits Times: “If the competitiveness of our locally made goods is already strong, they will beat imported goods and, thereby, imports will be under control.”

The US president responded with a one-word tweet asking if the unsigned op-ed could be considered treasonous, after assailing the newspaper for the “gutless” piece.

“TREASON?” Trump posted in response to the piece entitled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” which claimed the president’s own staff see him as a danger to the nation.

In the article, the official stressed they were committed to the Republican agenda, and did not side with opposition Democrats.

But, the official wrote, “we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.”

“Many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations,” the official wrote.

“I would know. I am one of them.”

The piece was published a day after excerpts from a bombshell book that also claimed that White House staff were constantly battling to rein in the president’s worst impulses.

The Times acknowledged the “rare step” of publishing an anonymous editorial but said the official’s job would be jeopardized if they were identified, and that the paper knew who had written the piece.

“We believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers,” it wrote.

The official piece described a “two-track” presidency in which Trump says one thing and his staff consciously does another, for example with regard to what he called the president’s “preference for autocrats and dictators.”

Staff actively worked to insulate themselves from Trump’s “impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective” leadership style, the writer said.

‘The president’s amorality’

“The root of the problem is the president’s amorality,” the official said. “That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.”

Trump lashed out at the author and at the “dishonest” Times.

“They don’t like Donald Trump and I don’t like them,” Trump said. “So if the failing New York Times has an anonymous editorial, can you believe it, anonymous — meaning gutless — a gutless editorial — we’re doing a great job.”

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders branded the piece “pathetic, reckless, and selfish” and condemned the Times for publishing it.

“Nearly 62 million people voted for President Donald J. Trump in 2016,” said Sanders. “None of them voted for a gutless, anonymous source to the failing New York Times.”

Trump later questioned whether the writer of the op-ed actually existed, saying that if they did, their identity “must” be revealed.

“Does the so-called ‘Senior Administration Official’ really exist, or is it just the Failing New York Times with another phony source? If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!” Trump tweeted.

The unsigned piece appeared to reinforce the claims made in the new book by investigative journalist Bob Woodward, which describes a virtual cabal of high-minded White House and cabinet officials scheming to prevent Trump from taking decisions damaging to the US economy and national security.

The writer of the Times op-ed suggests that dissent and resistance inside Trump’s White House are even deeper than Woodward described.

The official said that early on in the administration, some officials quietly discussed invoking the 25th amendment of the US Constitution, which allows the removal of a president judged unable to perform his duties.

“But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.”

No tsunami warning was issued after the relatively shallow quake, which struck 62 kilometres (39 miles) southeast of the regional capital Sapporo.

An aftershock measuring 5.3 rocked the area moments later and smaller aftershocks followed throughout the night.

The Japan Meteorological Agency warned of a slight sea level change in coastal areas as a result of the quake.

An 82-year-old man died after falling down the stairs at his home during the quake, Japanese media reported.

At least four landslides were reported after the quake, government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said, adding that six homes had collapsed.

“We urge residents in areas hit by strong tremors to heed information on television and radio and act by helping each other,” Suga told a press conference.

TV footage shortly after the quake showed people coming out of their houses in the early hours of the morning following the quake.

Hokkaido Electric said 2.95 million homes had lost power after the quake.

“The government will work in unison towards reconstruction while giving the top priority to saving human lives,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters.

Officials warned of the risk of further quakes.

“Large quakes often occur, especially within two-three days (of a big one),” said Toshiyuki Matsumori, in charge of monitoring earthquakes and tsunamis at the meteorological agency.

He added the risk of housing collapses and landslides had increased in the area hit by the quake, saying: “We urge residents to pay full attention to seismic activity and rainfall and not to go into dangerous areas.”

Japan sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” where many of the world’s earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are recorded.

In June, a deadly tremor rocked the Osaka region, killing five people and injuring over 350.

On March 11, 2011, a devastating 9.0-magnitude quake struck under the Pacific Ocean, and the resulting tsunami caused widespread damage and claimed thousands of lives.

Japan is still recovering from the worst typhoon to hit the country in 25 years, which struck the western part of the country on Tuesday, claiming at least 11 lives and causing major damage to the region’s main airport.

However, the entire picture of the damage to the airport facilities could not yet be assessed and it was not clear when operations will resume at the airport.

The typhoon traveled through the Shikoku and Kinki regions and changed into an extratropical cyclone around the Mamiya Strait in northwest Hokkaido on Wednesday morning. According to police and local governments, a total of 11 people were known to have been killed by the typhoon as of 1 p.m. on Wednesday.

Passengers were taken away from the airport island on high-speed boats and buses chartered by Kansai Airports, the operating company for the airport.

Three high-speed boats of the Kobe-Kansai Airport Bay Shuttle service with a capacity of 110 people each began their special operation at 5:50 a.m. on Wednesday. The boats were expected to shuttle all day long between Kansai Airport and Kobe Airport in Kobe, about 22 kilometers north of Kansai Airport.

The chartered buses with a capacity of about 50 people each started after 8 a.m. on the day to ferry passengers from the airport to Izumisano Station of the Nankai Electric Railway in Izumisano, Osaka Prefecture. The buses had to pass over a 3.8-kilometer bridge connecting the airport island with the mainland. During the storm, a tanker had crashed into a span of the bridge carrying what are normally the outbound lanes of traffic, so the buses had to use the span with the inbound lanes.

After seawater poured into the airport facilities due to a storm surge, the 3.5-kilometer Runway A and the aircraft parking apron were flooded across almost their entire area to a depth of up to 50 centimeters.

As the machine room and other places in the basement of the first terminal building of Kansai Airport were inundated with water, parts of the facilities remained without power.

According to the operating company, underground water at the terminal building has almost receded, but water remained on the runways.

According to the Kansai Airport office of the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry, there was no damage to the control tower, but part of the radio facility has not been usable due to the flooding.

The airport operating company said that the resumption of operations at the airport depends on how the connecting bridge, damaged when the ship hit it, is restored.

Japan Airlines and other airline companies were considering flying extraordinary flights arriving and departing at other airports for passengers on international flights who planned to use Kansai Airport.

All 11 crew members on the 2,591-ton tanker Houn Maru, which crashed into the bridge, were rescued on Tuesday night. The tanker then was pulled out of the bridge, in which it was embedded, by three tugboats early Wednesday. The Japan Coast Guard’s Fifth Regional Coast Guard Headquarters has begun its inspection of the tanker.

Death toll at 11

According to a Yomiuri Shimbun tally, the death toll in the typhoon had reached 11 as of 1 p.m. on Wednesday — eight in Osaka Prefecture and one each in Shiga, Mie and Aichi prefectures. In addition, 507 people were injured in 28 prefectures nationwide. Including 16 destroyed or seriously damaged structures, a total of 1,173 structures were damaged in 28 prefectures.

Within the service area of Kansai Electric Power Co., power failures affected about 540,000 households and businesses as of 10 a.m. on Wednesday. Also within the Chubu Electric Power Co. service area, about 110,000 households and businesses suffered from power failures as of 11 a.m. on the day.Speech.

The United Kingdom currently attracts around 450,000 overseas students each year, with around one-third coming from the European Union.

China, with around 95,000 students, is the single biggest national source.

For many years the UK has been second only to the United States in terms of overseas student recruitment, but that position is in danger of being lost to Australia.

Overseas graduates in the US and Canada are permitted to stay for three years, and in Australia for four years.

Britain’s post-study visa was scrapped in 2012 by then home secretary Theresa May, who claimed large numbers of students were outstaying their visas to remain in the country unlawfully, which has since been discredited.

Steve Smith, the chairman of Universities UK’s international policy network, said reintroducing it would show Britain remained a welcoming country and give it a competitive advantage on other countries where graduates might choose to take their talents – which would become even more important after Brexit, scheduled for March next year.

“We are in danger of losing our position as one of the world leaders in international education,” he said.

“The UK as a country needs to make it clear that international students are absolutely welcome. I think now is the time, when we are 29 weeks from Brexit allegedly, to make a grand statement about welcoming in a new era where global talent can come to this country, study, work afterward and thereby deal with the number one issue with the economy, which is productivity, allowing those skilled workers enter the workforce.”

Vivienne Stern, the director of Universities UK International, said the visa proposal was “explicitly not a route to settlement”, but wanted the suggestion considered “in case the opportunity opens up” for a change of immigration policy.

Universities would like an unrestricted post-study visa allowing graduates to seek jobs without a sponsor, while having their progress monitored by their colleges.

A Home Office spokesman said it recognized the “the cultural and financial contribution” made by international students, which was why they are allowed to stay if they got a “graduate level job get an internship or apply to set up a business in the UK”.

Universities UK replied that this is restrictive as students have limited time to find an employer with a specific sponsorship license and a job paying above a specific amount, or secure private sponsorship.

Thepchai called for regional and international media organisations to join hands in showing their support for the two Reuters reporters, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, and their families in their most difficult time.

“The ruling against Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo is a betrayal of Myanmar people’s hope that their country is on its way to becoming a democratic society,” he said.

Thepchai defended the two Reuters journalists for following their professional duty in investigating a massacre of Rohingya Muslims and said that their arrests and jailing came as a severe blow to press freedom in the country.

“What happened to the two journalists goes against the principle of the Confederation of Asean Journalists, whose main objective is to promote a healthy, free and responsible press,” he said.

The Confederation of Asean Journalists, one of Southeast Asia’s oldest press organisations, was set up in 1975 with an aim of promoting free and responsible press and forging cooperation among its regional members.

Its current membership covers major media organisations from eight Asean countries. The Myanmar Journalists Association, which currently has observer status, has applied to join the confederation.

About 1,300 contracts were canceled by the end of May. In July last year, the Supreme Court finalized the Fukuoka High Court’s ruling, which validates the cancellation of bank accounts based on the provisions. That likely provided impetus for the banks’ latest moves.

The survey was conducted from June to July on 119 full members of the Japanese Bankers Association and its sub-associate member Japan Post Bank, with 84 banks sending valid responses. These banks had implemented the provisions by August 2015 and in principle do not comply with requests to open new accounts for gang members.

Of the 84 banks, 59, or about 70 percent, were found to have been in the process of canceling accounts that were established before the provisions were implemented. Asked why, a major commercial bank and others answered “in response to the requests of society,” while a regional bank in the Shikoku region said it “may become a target of unlawful demands and also violate an ordinance.”

Twenty banks said they had not canceled accounts, with 13 of them saying they either planned to do so or were considering it.

Regarding issues that would be taken into consideration, 21 banks said they would lower the cancellation priority for accounts used for daily life, such as making utilities payments. Ten banks said they preferentially canceled accounts of people who were in the top positions in the organization.

There were still about 4,300 accounts belonging to antisocial forces in at least 10 banks. One bank in the Tohoku region said it had kept accounts open because “employees’ safety has not been fully ensured.”

■ Provisions aimed at eliminating transactions involving gang groups

Includes a clause about not forming contracts with antisocial forces, such as organized crime syndicates. Entities can cancel a deal with gang members if they are found to have hidden their occupation. The government presented a guideline in June 2007, and the provisions have been adopted by various types of businesses, including real estate firms, rent-a-car companies and hotels.Speech

ONE Condoms’ new product offers condom connoisseurs a “less sweet” option  – in case they are worried about their sugar intake, reported the Malay Mail online.

Aficionados who cannot get enough of the delicious taste and aroma of Teh Tarik, can now enjoy it while having sex, the Mail reported.

The Teh Tarik Kurang Manis (less sweet) condom is described on the company’s website as “aromatic, delicious and tantalising”.

The new flavour’s arrival comes on the heels of Malaysia’s 61st Independence Day and is intended to celebrate the nation’s common love for local cuisine, the Malay Mail reported.

“Teh tarik is a legendary quintessential Malaysian delicacy that is rivalled by no other,” a ONE Condoms spokesperson told World of Buzz. “Quite simply, teh tarik is the drink that brings Malaysians together. Now, it will bring Malaysians even closer – in the bedroom.”

ONE Condoms has made headlines over the last two years as they debuted condoms with traditional Malaysian flavours such as nasi lemak and durian.

Goh Miah Kiat, CEO of Malaysian company Karex which manufactures ONE Condoms, told the media that the innovative flavours are part of the company’s mission to make condom use more appealing.

“We’ve spent so much over our years in the business in innovating products and trying to make things more fun,” Goh told Channel News Asia in an interview last year.

“My job is to make condom use better than actually having sex without the condom,” he said.