Wednesday’s repatriation marks an important step after US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held a summit, during which Kim agreed to send home the war dead.

Trump, who has faced criticism over the pace of progress since the June meeting, praised Kim for “keeping his word,” and Vice President Mike Pence met families when the remains arrived back in the US at a ceremony in Hawaii.

Caskets carrying the 55 sets of remains were draped in the blue-and-white flag of the United Nations. Many nations fought in the Korean War, but most of the cases are thought to contain US troops.

More than 35,000 Americans were killed on the Korean peninsula during the 1950-1953 war, with 7,700 of these US troops still listed as missing in action — most of them in North Korea.

“Some have called the Korean War the forgotten war. But today, we prove these heroes were never forgotten. Today our boys are coming home,” an emotional Pence said.

“My dad, lieutenant Ed Pence fought in combat in the Korean War. He came back with a medal on his chest. But my dad, gone now 30 years, always told us the real heroes …were the ones that didn’t get to come home,” the US vice president said.

It could take scientists and historians years to make final identifications.

John Byrd, director of scientific analysis at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), which has a large laboratory in Pearl Harbor, said preliminary findings suggest the remains are likely American.

They “are consistent with remains we have recovered in North Korea… in the past,” Byrd told reporters at Osan US Air Base in South Korea.

The cases had been kept there since Friday, awaiting their repatriation to Hawaii for further forensic analysis.

“There’s no reason at this point to doubt that they do relate to Korean War losses,” Byrd added.

‘Solemn reminder’

Around 500 officials from the United Nations Command (UNC), the United States and South Korea attended a formal repatriation ceremony at Osan earlier Wednesday.

“This is a solemn reminder that our work is not complete until all have been accounted for, no matter how long it takes to do so,” said General Vincent Brooks, commander of the UNC and United States Forces Korea.

After the ceremony, uniformed soldiers carefully loaded each case into two C-17 cargo planes, which later took off for Hawaii.

Byrd told reporters that “there was a single dog tag (US soldier’s identity tag) provided with the remains.”

“The family of that individual has been notified,” he said, though he cautioned that the tag is not necessarily associated with the remains in the box.

The returned material also included military hardware and uniforms, including helmets, water bottles and boots.

DNA, bones, dental records

Former DPAA official Jeong Yang-seung, who previously worked on identifying US remains from the North, said it was unusual to locate dog tags during the search and recovery process.

“It’s once in a blue moon that dog tags are recovered,” Jeong, now professor of forensic anthropology at the Middle Tennessee State University, told AFP.

“I don’t think North Korea is refusing to give dog tags when it has more but it probably doesn’t have dog tags lying around,” he said.

“So when… only one dog tag was provided, it’s probably not to tease the US but rather that it was sent because it could offer clues to the remains.”

DNA analysis, skeletal studies of bones, dental records and details of where the remains were found play a key role in such investigations.

“If it’s identified quickly, it would be around five to six months, but if not, it could take decades,” he said.

Between 1990 and 2005, North Korea allowed 229 sets of remains to be repatriated, but those operations were suspended when ties worsened over Pyongyang’s banned nuclear weapons program.

Following the June summit, Trump had declared that Pyongyang was “no longer a Nuclear Threat,” but Kim did not publicly promise to end work at the country’s nuclear and missile facilities.

Instead, he spoke of committing to “work toward” eventual denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. He did not make any commitment to unilaterally disarm.

Still, experts see North Korea’s return of the remains as an important gesture.

“It’s a sign that they want to improve relations with us… and certainly for the families it’s significant,” Joel Wit, founder of the respected 38 North organization that monitors North Korea, told AFP.

Additionally, new satellite imagery from the Sohae Satellite Launching Station on North Korea’s west coast suggests workers are dismantling an engine test stand, in line with a promise made to Trump.

Abraham Denmark, director of the Asia Program at the Wilson Center, cautioned not to read too much into the repatriation.

“It is not a signal about Pyongyang’s willingness to denuclearize or even reform its ways, and policymakers should not be fooled or distracted from the primary source of tension — North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles,” he said.

She had a series of bilateral talks with her Malaysian, Myanmar, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Brunei and Laotian counterparts on the sidelines of the annual ASEAN foreign ministerial sessions.

Last year, the Moon Jae-in administration announced the “New Southern Policy” aimed at improving relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as well as India and Pakistan.

Government officials say it’s not just rhetoric but a real policy priority, presenting three Ps — people, prosperity and peace — as a slogan.

South Korea has long made efforts to diversify its diplomatic and economic partners, but the liberal-minded Moon has sought notably to reduce Seoul’s dependence on traditional trade partners such as the United States and China.

In her bilateral talks with Malaysia’s top diplomat Saifuddin Abdullah, the first official activity in her weeklong tour here, Kang introduced the Asian diplomatic initiative.

“I can only assure you of my very best cooperation and support for our engagement here but also of course at the bilateral level for South Korea-Malaysia relations,” she said at the opening of the meeting held at the EXPO Convention and Exhibition Center.

It’s the venue for the 51st ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting and related sessions that opened on Tuesday.

The Malaysian minister said his government also values ties with South Korea and supports peace on the peninsula.

He talked about K-pop singers, who are popular in Malaysia, as an example of how Korean culture is influential there.

Kang also had a one-on-one meeting with Myanmar’s Minister for International Cooperation Kyaw Tin.

She briefed him on South Korea’s regional peace campaign highlighted in the two recent inter-Korean summits followed by the landmark talks between the leaders of the U.S. and North Korea.

She also reaffirmed Seoul’s commitment to expanding development cooperation with a nation with great economic potential.

The Myanmar minister requested support for the country’s youth hoping to launch startups.

Kang then met with Vietnamese Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh.

Citing progress in the Korean peace initiative, she told him, “It’s certainly a time of great change on the Korean peninsula, and this is possible because of the support that we had from Vietnam and other members of ASEAN and certainly the international community.”

The Vietnamese official responded, “Our position is very clear that we support the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

Kang also had bilateral talks with her Cambodian, Brunei and Laotian counterparts on bilateral ties and regional issues.

The Southeast Asian nations pledged full support for Seoul’s efforts to denuclearize the peninsla and create a peace regime.

Singapore is the rotating host of this year’s ASEAN gatherings.

The ASEAN bloc, with a population of 630 million, is South Korea’s second-largest trade partner, with the two-way trade volume totaling $149.1 billion in 2017, rising from $118.8 billion the previous year.

    The thieves, who have not been identified, and the jewels are being sought internationally via Interpol, Swedish police spokesman Stefan Dangardt said, noting the objects were a “national treasure” and would likely be “very difficult to sell”.

The 1611 gold burial crowns belonging to King Karl IX and his wife Queen Christina were originally interred with the couple but were later exhumed and had been on display in a locked cabinet in Strangnas Cathedral, located 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Stockholm.

King Karl IX’s crown is made of gold and features crystals and pearls, while Christina’s is smaller and made of gold, precious stones and pearls.

“We have as yet no value of the stolen goods, except that it is a national treasure,” Dangardt told AFP.

“Several people were seen leaving the church by boat or waterscooter after the theft. We have spoken to witnesses, but we are interested in further information from anyone that has made any observations,” he said.

Tom Rowsell, who was having lunch outside the cathedral where he is to be married this weekend, told daily Aftonbladet he saw two men dash from the building toward a motorboat waiting on Lake Malaren.

“I saw a white little boat with an outboard motor on the back. The two men hurriedly jumped on board and it sped off,” he said.

“I knew immediately they were burglars, because of the way they were behaving,” he added.

– ‘Not possible to sell’-

The theft occurred just before noon on Tuesday, and police quickly had helicopters, patrols, and search dogs looking for the thieves but their efforts have so far proved fruitless, Dangardt said.

“There is of course going to be a lot of media interest in these types of objects. There will be pictures in the media. It’s just not possible to sell these kinds of objects,” the national police coordinator for thefts of cultural artefacts, Maria Ellior, told news agency TT.

“So we can only speculate about (the thieves) intentions,” she added.

Similar heists have occurred before.

In 2013, King Johan III’s burial regalia was stolen from Vasteras Cathedral. It was recovered several days later in a garbage bag left on a a countryside road, following an anonymous tip. “One can hope that something like that will happen in this case,” Ellior said.

The perpetrators of Tuesday’s heist risk up to six years in prison for aggravated theft.

Designed to make visitors feel like they’re taking a stroll on a shimmering thread stretching across the hands of gods, the “Golden Bridge” has attracted hordes of guests since it opened in the Ba Na Hills near Danang in June.

Images of the bridge have gone viral on social media, much to the surprise of the architect who had no idea it would attract so much attention.

“We’re proud that our product has been shared by people all over the world,” principal designer and founder of TA Landscape Architecture, Vu Viet Anh, told AFP.

At 150 metres long (490 feet), the bridge snakes through the forest high up in mountains first developed by French colonists as a hill station in 1919.

Today the area is a major tourist attraction, boasting a cable car, replica French medieval village — including faux castle and cathedral — manicured gardens and a wax museum featuring statues of Lady Gaga and Michael Jordan.

The only remnants of the original French occupants are the crumbling remains of their holiday homes that can still be spotted from the cable car.

But visitors are mostly interested in the newly built Cau Vang, which means “Golden Bridge” in Vietnamese.

“The bridge is beautiful with an amazing architectural style, from here we can see Danang City, it’s so nice,” Nguyen Trung Phuc told AFP.

Another visitor, Nguyen Hien Trang, said: “I have travelled quite a lot but I’ve never seen any bridges as beautiful as this one.”

The Ba Na Hills project was built by Sun Group, which has divided opinion with audacious projects elsewhere in Vietnam.

In 2016 it opened a cable car on Vietnam’s tallest mountain Fansipan in the tourist hotpot Sapa, prompting complaints from locals who felt it spoiled the landscape and took business away from trekking guides.

Vietnam is no stranger to off-the-wall attractions.

A “crystal cloud” installation of 58,000 shimmering Swarovski beads in the rice-terraced hills of northern Vietnam opened earlier this year, while the surreal “Crazy House” hotel in central Da Lat, designed to look a trippy treehouse, has long attracted legions of curious visitors.

The communist country has long sought to boost visitor numbers and position itself as a must-see destination in Southeast Asia.

It clocked 13 million foreign visitors last year, mostly from China — a far cry from the 35 million international visitors to Thailand in 2017.

Golden Bridge designer Anh said he already has another project in the works: a silver bridge made to look like a god’s strand of hair that will connect to his existing structure in the Ba Na Hills.//AFP

“Alhamdulillah, at 5:50 a.m. Bobby and Kahiyang’s child was born,” Jokowi said in a statement from the presidential press bureau.

Kahiyang Ayu, Jokowi’s second child, gave birth to a daughter, weighing 3.4 kilograms and 49 cm long.

“Kahiyang gave birth by Caesarean section,” Bobby, Kahiyang’s husband said. Bobby’s mother, Ade Hanifah Siregar, was also in the hospital to greet her granddaughter.

Bobby said he and Kahiyang had not chosen a name for their first child.

Kahiyang married Bobby on Nov. 8, 2017 in Surakarta, Central Java.

The President now has two grandchildren, the first one was a boy, Jan Ethes Srinarendra, from his eldest son Gibran Rakabuming and Selvi Ananda. Jan was born on March 10, 2016.

Selangor Islamic Religious Council (Mais) said the decision to endorse the changes came after an in-depth discussion that was decreed by Selangor Ruler Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah.

Besides the council, the talks also involved the Selangor Syariah Judiciary Department (Jakess), Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) and various relevant people like health experts, academics and NGOs.

“We have decided in unison to ask for an amendment to the Islamic Family Law (State of Selangor) Enactment 2003 to increase the marriageable age from 16 to 18 for girls,” Mais said in a statement yesterday.

The council also proposed that several mandatory criteria be met before underage marriages in the state are approved.

“Judges must get the child to attend a special family course and counselling by the Welfare Department as well as be examined by a government health officer.

“The judge will also look into the financial standing of the future husband and his criminal records, and record statements from him and the bride-to-be, their parents and relevant parties before deciding on approval,” said the statement.

Mais also said there are several procedural matters that will be improved to protect the interests of those who want to marry under the age of 18. The proposals will hopefully be brought to the state assembly soon, it added.

This development followed the public outcry over the recent marriage involving an 11-year-old girl from Narathiwat, Thailand, to a 41-year-old Malaysian man, who already has two wives and six children, in Gua Musang, Kelantan.

It also sparked the campaign #pelajarbukanpengantin (#schoolnotspouse) to end child marriage.

Last week, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Dr Mujahid Yusof said the government was drafting a standard operating procedure to tighten provisions relating to child marriage, with a view to banning the practice.

Four members of the group had spent a night in police custody and a day awaiting a court hearing in Moscow only for a judge to refuse to hear the case over technicalities.

Police then took them back to a station and released them shortly after midnight, one of the members, Pyotr Verzilov, wrote on Twitter.

Pussy Riot activists have faced a bewildering array of legal actions after they briefly invaded the pitch during the World Cup final on July 15 in Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium dressed as police, in what they later called a political protest.

Verzilov, Veronika Nikulshina, Olga Kuracheva and Olga Pakhtusova have already served a 15-day sentence for breaking the rules for spectators at a sporting event. They were also fined 1,500 rubles ($24, 20 euros) each for wearing police uniforms.

“Free after 16 days of arrest!” Verzilov wrote on Twitter, posting a picture of the four dancing in a car park.

They ran onto the pitch in the second half of the game between France and Croatia, watched by President Vladimir Putin and world leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron.

When they were released from police cells after serving their sentence on Monday, they were immediately detained again by police and held for a further night.

The next day they were awaiting a hearing in Moscow’s Khamovnichesky district court for the administrative offences of holding an unsanctioned protest and disobeying police.

Late Tuesday, the judge refused to hear the case and “returned all the administrative materials” to police, a court official told TASS state news agency.

The activists must now return to the police station on Friday, and they said they could face up to 25 further days in jail.

Pussy Riot wrote on Facebook that staging an “artistic action” should not fall under a law regulating public rallies.

In 2012, Pussy Riot came to international attention for holding a protest in a Moscow church. Two members served jail terms, while another was given a suspended sentence.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his North Korean counterpart will attend the gathering in the city-state where US President Donald Trump and the North’s leader Kim Jong Un held their historic summit two months ago.

Pompeo and top diplomats from other countries involved in trying to curtail Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions will scrutinise whether the North has taken concrete steps towards abandoning its nuclear weapons.

At his landmark talks with Trump in June, Kim signed up to a vague commitment to “denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula” — a far cry from long-standing US demands for complete, verifiable and irreversible disarmament.

While there have been small signs of progress, news reports indicate Pyongyang is continuing to build rockets, and there are mounting concerns that the enforcement of United Nations sanctions on the North is being relaxed by some member states.

A US official said Washington was “concerned” by North Korean violations of UN-approved sanctions, including illegal shipments of oil by sea.

Gatherings like Saturday’s ASEAN Regional Forum are “an opportunity to remind all countries of their obligations in adherence” of UN Security Council resolutions, the official said.

‘Lasting peace, stability’

The annual forum, hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), brings together top diplomats from 26 countries and the European Union for talks on political and security issues in Asia-Pacific.

The foreign ministers from all nations involved in stalled “six-party” negotiations with North Korea aimed at reining in Pyongyang’s nuclear programme will be at the gathering: the US, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea.

Cutting off oil and fuel to the North would require enforcement primarily by China, which supplies most of North Korea’s energy needs, but also by Russia, which delivers some oil to Pyongyang.

Despite the concerns about the North’s progress toward abandoning its nuclear weapons, ministers at the forum are expected to strike an upbeat note about the agreement between Trump and Kim.

They will encourage the US and Pyongyang “to continue working towards the realisation of lasting peace and stability on a denuclearised Korean Peninsula”, according to a draft copy of the chairman’s statement obtained by AFP.

US officials have not said if Pompeo will meet his North Korean counterpart, Ri Yong Ho, on the sidelines of the forum.

But even if he does, Sung-Yoon Lee, a Korea expert at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, was sceptical that there would be any fresh signs of progress when it came to denuclearisation.

“Pompeo shall gain nothing substantive other than North Korea’s amenability to further talks about talks,” he said.

‘Free and open’

The US secretary of state will also focus on another major regional flashpoint at the forum — rival claims in the South China Sea and China’s growing presence there.

China claims nearly all the strategically vital sea, including waters approaching the coasts of ASEAN members Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.

Beijing has in recent years expanded its presence in the sea by building artificial islands capable of holding military bases.

Ahead of his trip to Southeast Asia, which will also take him to Malaysia and Indonesia, Pompeo called for a “free and open” Indo-Pacific region and will expand on the theme at the Singapore meeting, according to the State Department.

The disputed waters will be in focus when the 10 ASEAN foreign ministers hold talks among themselves during a working dinner on Wednesday, with the regional bloc and China expected to announce some progress in long-running talks aimed at coming up with a code of conduct for the sea.

They are expected to announce that they have agreed on a single draft text that reflects the starting negotiating positions of countries towards a code.

Analysts however stressed it would be another small step coming over 15 years after negotiations began.

Hoang Thi Ha, an analyst at the ASEAN Studies Centre in Singapore, said the development represented “some initial progress” but noted that drawing up the code “will continue to be a painstaking and painfully slow process”.

“From a check of the records available under the customs information system for seven years in line with the period of record keeping, it was found that there were no import declaration made on the jewellery,” he said when winding up the debate on the motion of thanks for the Royal Address for his ministry at the Dewan Rakyat sitting on Tuesday (July 31).

According to Lim, it was an offence if no import declaration was made on imported items including seizing the goods brought in, Bernama reported.

“If police reports could not link the said consignment with any offence, the Customs can link it to the Customs Act 1967 as it is an offence and can lead to various actions including seizures,” he said.

However, Rosmah in her statement of defence filed on July 23 denied that she had bought the jewellery.

The jewellery were among the money, jewellery, luxury handbags, luxury watches and dark glasses worth an estimated RM1.1bil which were seized from the premises linked to Najib last month.

The water levels in the provinces had risen significantly, they said, leading schools to close to prevent accidents.

Tbong Khmum deputy provincial governor Ly Leng told The Post on Tuesday that at least five communes had been inundated, forcing more than 600 families to move to higher ground.

“We’ve evacuated more than 600 families. No one was injured because we were well prepared. They have lived along the river for a long time so they are accustomed to it,” he said.

Leng said schools in Tbong Khmum have also been flooded, with primaries and secondaries suffering the most.

Stung Treng provincial hall spokesperson Men Kong said the Mekong River waters had risen drastically, inundating some districts, with Samaki and Srash Russei the most flooded communes.

“The water level in the river has gone up notably, but we are not concerned because it hasn’t reached emergency levels yet.

“The flood water that had flowed from Laos into the Sekong River through Siem Pang and Sesan districts has also receded,” he said.

As of Tuesday afternoon, he said 67 families had been relocated from the two districts to safe areas, while over 200 families will be evacuated on Wednesday if the water keeps rising.

The spokesperson denied media reports that more corpses of victims in the Lao dam collapse had been found floating in the province.

“We’ve found only one dead body from Laos. We’ve contacted its consul and they will arrive to collect the body,” he said.

The provincial department of water resources and meteorology said it had set up a water pump to release floods from Stung Treng town.

In Kratie province, provincial hall spokesman Pen Linat said although rising floodwaters had inundated Kratie town and four other districts, no major impact has been caused because of it.

“Kratie has no problem. People are used to living near the river. Even if their houses are flooded, they would not relocate. They just take their animals to higher ground,” he said.

Linat said four schools in the province which were flooded had been ordered closed.

“Some schools have been shuttered to prevent accidents, while the end of the academic year is approaching,” he said.

Grade 12 students, he said, would not be affected by floods as their examination centres are situated on higher ground.

The National Committee for Disaster Management spokesperson Keo Vy said flood levels had risen fast, but the authorities and relevant ministries have already drawn up plans to handle it.

“The water level goes up as announced by the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology. In the next few days, more schools will be inundated, but authorities are already well prepared,” he said.

The ministry’s spokesman Chan Yutha told The Post that the water level will reach emergency levels in some provinces in the next few days.

He added that those along the rivers, including Stung Treng, Kratie, Kampong Cham and Tbong Khmum, will face challenges as nearby areas have already been inundated.