“His Majesty the Yang di-Pertuan Agong Sultan Muhammad V expresses his gratitude to the Government who had planned the official events in conjunction with His official birthday celebration for 2018,” the statement read.

The statement however continued to state that the other events in conjunction with the Agong’s birthday will go on as planned.

The leaders of the two nations held at the meeting at BIMSTEC summit venue in Soaltee Hotel.

Likewise, PM Oli is scheduled to meet his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi at 3pm today.

Similarly, the Prime Minister will also hold a meeting with Sri Lankan President Maitripala Sirisena on Saturday morning.

Earlier, on Thursday, PM Oli had held meetings with Myanmar’s President Win Myint, Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina Wazed and Chief Advisor to the Interim Government of Bhutan Gyalpo Tshering Wangchuk.

The eldest daughter of Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad took to Twitter when the Women, Family and Community Development Minister had said in an interview with radio station BFM that she would not condone the LGBT community lifestyle, adding that it was haram (forbidden).

Marina tweeted, “Dear @drwanazizah, did you just call a lot of people including me who have shown the slightest bit of compassion towards marginalized people in our society haram??”

She also posted on Twitter a link to Nikkei Asian Review‘s article which featured PKR-elect president Anwar Ibrahim, quoting him as saying: “Malaysian society must live with different beliefs and ways of life and must respect people who are different, including gays, bisexuals and those who identify as transgender.”

Marina had previously hit out at Dr Wan Azizah when the latter said no criminal action could be taken against a 41-year-old man over his marriage with a 11-year-old girl in Kelantan.

“How much more watertight evidence do we need? This 41-year-old man has been interested in her since she was 7 and married her at 11….that’s all the evidence you need!!!” Marina wrote in her Facebook account.

James Ricketson has been held in jail since his arrest in June last year after he flew a drone over a rally held by the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), which was dissolved months later.

The CNRP’s dissolution paved the way for strongman premier Hun Sen to win a clean sweep of all parliamentary seats in July’s national election, which Western democracies have said was flawed in the absence of a viable opposition.

After a six-day trial, Judge Seng Leang found the 69-year-old Ricketson guilty on two charges of espionage.

“We have decided to convict (him) to six years in prison for espionage and collecting harmful information that could affect national defence,” he said.

The prosecution had accused Ricketson of working as a filmmaker in Cambodia for years as a front for spying.

“Unbelievable — which country am I spying for?” Ricketson asked out loud in court.

His lawyer Kong Sam Onn told reporters waiting outside the court that he plans to request a royal pardon from the Cambodian king.

Earlier this week 14 opposition lawmakers and activists jailed before the election were released after sending apology letters to Hun Sen, which the premier said he sent on to the monarch.

Calling the result “devastating”, Ricketson’s son Jesse said he could not comment on whether an apology letter to Hun Sen was forthcoming to secure his father’s release.

Human Rights Watch’s Phil Robertson decried the court’s findings on Friday, saying that the trial “exposed everything that’s wrong with the Cambodian judicial system”.

Robertson said the Australian was used as a “scapegoat” by the government to crack down on political opposition.

He also criticised what he said was inaction by the Australian government in “failing to publicly and consistently challenge this ludicrous charade and demand Ricketson’s immediate and unconditional release.”

In the months leading up to the election, the Hun Sen-backed government cracked down on opposition lawmakers, journalists and activists.

Ricketson has faced legal problems in the past. He was handed a two-year suspended prison sentence in 2014 for allegedly threatening to broadcast allegations that a church working in Cambodia had sold children.

Two years later, he was fined after a court found him guilty of defaming an anti-paedophile NGO by accusing the group of manipulating witnesses.

The ministry wants 5.298 trillion yen ($47 billion) for the next fiscal year from April, the seventh straight annual increase and 2.1 percent more than last year.

Among the items on the defence ministry’s shopping list are two sets of US-made Aegis Ashore missile defence systems to defend the country against North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats, with a combined price tag of 234.3 billion yen.

It also wants six more F-35 fighter jets and two E-2D Hawkeye radar and maritime aircraft, with plans to expand the air force patrol team by adding 30 servicemen to a current team of 830.

The budget request came hot on the heels of the ministry’s annual defence review, which said North Korea still poses a “serious and imminent threat” despite a diplomatic detente earlier this year.

After the historic June 12 summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore, there has been little tangible progress in denuclearising the Korean peninsula.

In recent weeks, Washington-Pyongyang relations appear to have taken a turn for the worse, with Trump abruptly scrapping a planned visit to the North by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The defence review also took aim at China’s rise as a military power, saying Beijing was sparking “strong security concerns in the region and international community, including Japan”.

Tokyo is wary of Beijing, which is seen by several countries in the region as becoming increasingly aggressive over various sovereignty claims, including a long-festering row with Japan over small islands in the East China Sea.

For its part, China announced in March an 8.1-percent defence budget increase to 1.11 trillion yuan ($175 billion) for 2018, as it bids to modernise the world’s largest military.

The National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting issued a warning.

Water levels rose to 3.86 metres at Tan Chau Station on the Tien River on August 25 and 3.38m at Chau Doc Station on the Hau River.

By August 31, floods were expected to rise to 4.2m at Tan Chau and 3.7m at Chau Doc.

On September 5, water levels are forecast to peak at 4.15m at Tan Chau and 3.65m at Chau Doc.

This is expected to affect agricultural production and the livelihood of residents in low areas.

From September 12 to 14, the peak of flooding is predicted to reach 4.5m at Tan Chau and 4m at Chau Doc Station.

This will cause serious flooding that threatens to destroy infrastructure and livelihood of local residents.

Downstream areas could also be flooded.

On Monday, the Central Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control issued an instruction on immediate response to mitigate possible losses and damage caused by heavy floods in the delta.

Localities must be prepared to deal with heavy floods, including ensuring safety for children and students.

Authorities have also been told to closely monitor changes in floods and rains, ensure information flow to local governments at all levels, adjust production schedules and warnings, and relocate people living in areas under threat of inundation and landslides.

Group patrols and guard forces must regularly check dyke systems, embankments, drainage and water systems, riverbanks and coastlines, especially in upstream areas.

Provinces in the delta are responding to natural disaster risks by ensuring the safety of local residents and farm production.

An Giang and Kien Giang, for example, have agreed to release water from two flood-regulating dams, Tha La and Tra Su, tomorrow, three days earlier than scheduled, according to Lu Cam Khuong, deputy director of An Giang’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The annual release of water from the dams will ensure safety for the dyke system and agricultural production activities downstream of both areas outside and inside the dyke.

On Tuesday, flood waters peaked at 3.95m at Tha La Dam and 3.99m at Tra Su, exceeding the second warning level.

Water levels topped 3.66m on the Vinh Te Canal, threatening 700 hectares of autumn-winter rice in Tri Ton district’s Lac Quoi Commune.

Tran Van Cuong, head of Tri Ton’s Sub-department of Agriculture and Rural Development in An Giang, said authorities had helped farmers reinforce and upgrade a sewage system to protect 150 hectares of rice yields.

On Saturday, farmers said the drainage system began leaking because of powerful floodwater currents rising on the Vinh Te Canal.

To minimise losses, farmers have been told to harvest crops earlier than usual.

Tra Vinh province is implementing 14 construction projects with total investment of more than 1.7 trillion dong, according to the local Committee for Disaster Prevention and Search and Rescue.

Of the figure, about 647 billion dong will be used for erosion-prevention projects along riverbanks and the coast.

The projects include building dykes along the Co Chien River to protect the My Long residential area in Cau Ngang district and anti-erosion works; planting mangrove forests to protect sea dykes in Hiep Thanh and Dan Thanh communes, Duyen Hai and Tra Cu districts, and Dinh An Town; and reinforcing dykes and embankments.

More than 581 billion dong has been allocated to upgrade sea dykes and river dykes, while nearly 189 billion dong will be used for the upgrade and expansion of Dinh An fishing port in Tra Cu and build shelters for fishing boats.

The rest will be invested in two projects that aim to prevent saltwater incursion, and dredge and upgrade canal systems, increase the number of clean water-supply construction for local residents affected by severe drought and saline intrusion.

Kim Ngoc Thai, vice chairman of Tra Vinh’s People’s Committee, said since the beginning of the year, high tides have damaged several roads in Tra Vinh City and Tieu Can district’s Tan Hung Commune.

The province has recorded dykes totalling a length of 1,300m and about 300 square metres of embankments damaged by high tides.

Additionally, heavy rains along with tornadoes have destroyed about 100 houses and numerous hectares of crops in the province.

In the first eight months of this year, total losses and economic damage caused by natural disasters reached over 3 billion dong, Thai said.

To minimise the loss, the province issued regulations against illegal encroachment on rivers, canals, and coastal areas and is planting more mangrove trees to cover riverbanks, sea dykes and coastlines.

It is also limiting the development of prawn farming along rivers or near dykes.

Local authorities are encouraging local residents to plant nipa palm trees and water hyacinth to create mud flats that could prevent landslides.

Trump tweeted on Tuesday evening: “Report just out: ‘China hacked Hillary Clinton’s private Email Server. ‘Are they sure it wasn’t Russia (just kidding!)? What are the odds that the FBI and DOJ are right on top of this? Actually, a very big story. Much classified information!”

The tweet was followed by another post shortly after midnight, in which he said: “Hillary Clinton’s Emails, many of which are Classified Information, got hacked by China. Next move better be by the FBI & DOJ or, after all of their other missteps (Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Ohr, FISA, Dirty Dossier etc.), their credibility will be forever gone!”

In a brief statement, the FBI said: “The FBI has not found any evidence the servers were compromised.”

FBI and Department of Justice officials have said publicly that there was no evidence Clinton’s server was hacked by a foreign power, The Associated Press reported on Wednesday.

Former FBI director James Comey said at a July 2016 news conference that the FBI did not find direct evidence that the sever had been successfully hacked, though he also acknowledged that, “given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved”, it would have been unlikely for the bureau to find such direct evidence, according to the AP.

China’s Foreign Ministry said such accusations were nothing new.

“It is not the first time that we were accused of such things,” the ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Wednesday.

Cybersecurity is a global issue concerning the interests of all countries and must be protected by the international community, Hua said.

“China is a staunch champion of cybersecurity and firmly opposes and cracks down on all forms of cyberattacks and espionage activities,” she said.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the city are estimated at 38.5 million tonnes per year, making up about 16 per cent of the country’s total.

Of that amount, CO2 emissions from automotive exhaust account for 45 per cent.

With such alarming figures, the city is seeking ways to urgently reduce CO2 emissions, particularly from automobiles and motorbikes.

In 2010, the city had 4.5 million motorbikes and 420,000 cars, but last year the figure reached 7.5 million motorbikes and 790,000 cars.

By 2020, the number of vehicles is expected to surge by 30 per cent, with nearly nine million motorbikes and 800,000 cars.

Vehicles, including boats, join with industry to discharge CO2, carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxide (NOx) and sulphur oxide (SOx) into the atmosphere through exhaust pipes, propeller nozzles and flue gas stacks.

To minimise pollution, the Ministry of Transport’s Vietnam Register has proposed raising the emission standard for cars to level 2.

Specifically, the department has proposed reducing the CO emissions ratio for vehicles using gasoline from 4.5 (level 1) to 3.5 (level 2), and HC (hydrocarbon concentration) from 1,200 parts per million (ppm) to 800 ppm.

Vehicles using diesel fuel will have to reduce emissions from the current 72 per cent HSU to 60 per cent HSU.

Obstacles

Lam Dai Vinh, director of a private transportation company in HCM City, said that he supported changing the levels, but said it would affect residents and transport companies, especially small and medium-sized firms.

“I would have to renew about 30 per cent of my cars to meet the standards, and it will cost me a lot of money. I don’t have enough financial resources to change [so many] vehicles at the same time,” he said. “Most transport companies face the same problem.”

He said that authorities should help transport companies, especially SMEs, by remitting some taxes and fees when the companies upgrade their cars to meet new emission standards.

Besides the increased cost of upgrading their vehicles, the quality of domestic fuel is also an obstacle to raising emission standards.

Most of the local fuel used for vehicles does not meet the European emission standard of 4. The lower quality fuel can damage vehicles that have been upgraded.

To meet the standards for better vehicles, the authorities should import fuel that will lower the costs of local companies, Vinh said.

Phạm Xuan Mai, former head of the Traffic Engineering Department at HCM City Polytechnic University, said: “I estimate the cost for enterprises to buy vehicles that meet Euro emission standards 4 or higher will increase at least 30 per cent. In developed countries, they have support policies to encourage people to purchase vehicles meeting new standards.”

Cars and trucks with expired registrations are also a significant contributor to air pollution in HCM City.

The law stipulates that vehicles that transport goods cannot be used for more than 25 years after the date of manufacture. The time limit for buses is 20 years.

At the end of a vehicle’s legal life, car owners are supposed to go to their local registration offices where the paperwork can be revoked and the car destroyed.

Officials rely on a car owner’s goodwill to turn their cars in.

Most car owners do not participate in the programme, which would then require them to buy new vehicles. The fines for breaking the law are low, only 4-6 million dong (Bt5,600-Bt,8400), according to a decree issued in 2013.

Many vehicles on the road are old and do not meet registration requirements, according to officials.

Experts have said that limiting the use of personal vehicles in the city is another way to protect the environment.

Solutions

Economist Luong Hoai Nam said the city should improve the public bus system as it steps up efforts to restrict the use of personal vehicles. The first subway line of the metro will not be available for another few years.

Worsening traffic congestion has been caused by poor management, short-term planning, and overloading of vehicles on most roads in the city, especially during rush hour, he added.

Nam said the city should improve road infrastructure and better manage urban planning, especially land use.

To do it effectively, the city should conduct research on consumer demand for travel, improve co-operation among agencies, and develop a master plan for traffic with a clear roadmap, he suggested.

Bui Xuan Cuong, director of the city’s Department of Transport, said the department was drawing up a plan that would include several solutions, including a special consumption tariff and higher fees on personal vehicles, as well as an environmental fee to mitigate air and noise pollution caused by personal vehicles.

The department also plans to limit the number of newly licensed vehicles through an annual quota, and require each citizen who wants to buy a new motorbike or car to bid for vehicle ownership.

The number of personal vehicles has increased over the years.

In 2013, the city had 6.4 million personal vehicles, of which 5.87 million were motorbikes, accounting for 91.7 per cent of the total number of vehicles. The rest were automobiles.

By November 2014, the number of personal vehicles in the city had increased to 6.95 million, including 580,000 automobiles and 6.37 million motorbikes.

In 2016, the number of passenger trips on city public buses for the entire year was only 567 million, a drop of 1.39 per cent over the previous year, according to the Department of Transport.

As of the first quarter of last year, the city had nearly eight million vehicles, of which motorbikes accounted for 92 per cent of the total number. The number of motorbikes rose by 5.4 per cent compared to the same period last year.

By 2020, the number of vehicles in the city is expected to be around 10 million, including 800,000 cars. Most families in HCM City own at least one motorbike.

The church was formally responding to a five-year royal commission into institutional child abuse, ordered by the government after a decade of pressure to investigate widespread allegations across the country.

“Many bishops failed to listen, failed to believe, and failed to act,” said Catholic Bishops Conference president Archbishop Mark Coleridge, vowing there would be no more “cover-ups”.

“Those failures allowed some abusers to offend again and again, with tragic and sometimes fatal consequences. The bishops and leaders of religious orders pledge today: Never again.”

The commission was contacted by more than 15,000 survivors who detailed claims of abuse involving churches, orphanages, sporting clubs, youth groups and schools, often dating back decades.

Among the inquiry’s recommendations was that priests break the traditional confidentiality of confession if they are told of abuse, but the church said such a requirement impinged on religions liberties.

“The only recommendation we can’t accept relates to removing the seal of confession,” said Coleridge.

“This isn’t because we regard ourselves as being above the law or because we don’t think the safety of children is supremely important — we do.

“But we don’t accept that safeguarding and the seal as mutually exclusive. Nor do we believe that abolishing the seal will make children any safer.”

The national inquiry, which heard horrific stories during often confronting and emotionally exhausting public and private hearings, delivered its final report in December.

It found that Australian institutions “seriously failed” children in their care with tens of thousands sexually assaulted

Sister Monica Cavanagh, president of Catholic Religious Australia, said the church accepted 98 percent of the recommendations, calling the inquiry “an important and necessary period for the Australian community”.

“The process is already under way to reform the church’s practices to ensure that safeguarding is integral in all that we do as part of our ministry and outreach in the community,” she said.

“Making the Church a safer place for our children and vulnerable persons is at the heart of our commitment to mission.”

The report had previously been seen by media organizations including AFP before formal publication.

“The report is on hold because we disagree on certain elements of the report and on the conduct of the business itself,” Vassily Nebenzia told reporters after the UN Security Council meeting attended by its 15 members.

A diplomatic source speaking on condition of anonymity said Russia’s objection stemmed mainly from a part of the report that said North Korea had exceeded its 2018 import cap for oil that was set by the 2017 sanctions.

The US in July demanded without success an end to all oil exports, citing satellite photos and expert reports to claim illegal ship-to-ship transfers had allowed Pyongyang to evade the sanctions.

The 62-page report, which AFP obtained a copy of earlier this month, also listed violations of a ban on North Korean exports of coal, iron, seafood and other products that generate millions of dollars in revenue for Kim Jong Un’s regime.

Pyongyang “has not stopped its nuclear and missile programs and continued to defy Security Council resolutions through a massive increase in illicit ship-to-ship transfers of petroleum products, as well as through transfers of coal at sea during 2018,” it added.

At a historic June summit with US President Donald Trump, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed up to a vague commitment of “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” in the hope of getting UN and US sanctions relief.

Trump, however, has repeatedly warned Pyongyang that the sanctions must remain in place and could even be tightened as long as there is no progress on ending its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.