The Malaysian has been identified as Siti Nur Ismawida.

Malaysia’s Deputy Ambassador to Indonesia Zamshari Shaharan said that the Embassy is trying to get detailed information on the incident.

He added that there are 150 Malaysian students on Lombok and said that all are safe.

The accident site was about 80 kilometres from Attapeu province, which was inundated last Monday after the collapse of a rock-filled saddle section of the Xe Pien-Xe Namnoy dam, releasing tonnes of water onto six nearby villages.

Rescue workers who rushed to the accident scene found debris from the truck about 50 metres below a road bridge.

They had to use ropes to abseil from the bridge to the truck below.

The injured passengers were raised from the truck by stretchers. They told rescuers that they were Laotians and had left Pakse in Champasak province to deliver things donated by Thai and foreign authorities to those affected by inundation in Attapeu when the accident happened.

One of them said the truck was taking a turn when its brakes appeared to malfunction. The vehicle then skidded off the road, hit the bridge’s rail and plunged into the river.

The strong tremor, which sent people running in panic from homes and hotels in the early morning, was followed by two strong secondary quakes and more than 60 aftershocks.

“The earthquake killed at least 10 people, some 40 people are injured and dozens of houses were damaged,” said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency.

“We estimate the number will keep rising because we are not done collecting data,” Nugroho said.

A 30-year old Malaysian woman was among the victims, he said, adding those hurt were hit by debris.

The jolt was felt some 100 km (60 miles) away in the bustling holiday island of Bali, although there were no immediate reports of damage there.

As authorities scrambled to assess the damage to buildings and infrastructure, popular trekking trails on the remote Mount Rinjani were closed because of landslides, according to the disaster agency.

“The earthquake was very strong… and everybody in my house panicked, we all ran outside,” said Zulkifli, a resident of North Lombok, close to the epicentre.

“All my neighbours also ran outside and the electricity was suddenly cut off,” Zulkifli, who goes by one name, told AFP.

The epicentre of the shallow earthquake struck 50 km (30 miles) northeast of Lombok’s main city Mataram, the United States Geological Survey said, far from the main tourist spots on the south and west of the island.

It said two of the aftershocks measured more than 5-magnitude.

“People in East Lombok and Mataram felt the strong quake for 10 seconds, residents were panicking and running outside of their homes,” Nugroho said earlier, adding people had run for open spaces like football fields.

No tsunami alert was issued, according to Indonesia’s geophysics and meteorology agency.

At the holiday island’s hotels, tourists raced outside as the quake struck soon after dawn.

At the Katamaran Hotel & Resort in Senggigi beach, some 30 guests gathered in the hotel lobby for around half an hour before venturing back to their rooms.

“They calmed down and returned to their room once we explained the earthquake did not trigger a tsunami, everything is back to normal now,” receptionist Ni Nyoman Suwarningsih told AFP.

Indonesia, an archipelago of thousands of islands, sits on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, a seismic activity hotspot.

It is frequently hit by quakes, most of them harmless. However, the region remains acutely alert to tremors that might trigger tsunamis.

In 2004, a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 9.3 undersea earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, in western Indonesia, killed 220,000 people in countries around the Indian Ocean, including 168,000 in Indonesia.//AFP

The 65-year-old strongman smiled as he held up an inked finger at a polling booth on Sunday morning in an election devoid of his only serious opposition.

Hun Sen is part of a small coterie of world leaders to hold power for three decades, adapting to the shifting political landscape in the poor Southeast Asian country since the Cold War.

His ruling Cambodian People’s Party is set to win big on Sunday after the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) was dissolved by the Supreme Court in November 2017.

In his final campaign speech days before the poll, Hun Sen was in typically bombastic form, bragging about the legal action to “eliminate traitors who attempted to topple the government”.

Critics say victory will be the culmination of years of state-sponsored violence, intimidation and deft legal footwork by Hun Sen to head off an opposition which emerged as a serious threat at the last election in 2013.

It will also mark a nadir for Cambodian democracy.

“Few of Hun Sen’s opponents have had the combination of ruthlessness, guile, and political acuity that have carried him through repeated cycles of Cambodian history,” said Sebastian Strangio, author of “Hun Sen’s Cambodia”.

He was a cadre in the Khmer Rouge, an ultra-Maoist organisation that overthrew the US-backed government of Lon Nol and killed one quarter of the population from 1975 to 1979.

But to escape ever-deeper purges he defected to Vietnam, returning as their army toppled the Khmer Rouge and taking credit as Cambodia’s saviour from a group he once belonged to.

The ambitious former fighter was installed as prime minister in 1985, aged just 32.

– ‘Uncle’ wants your vote –

Hun Sen lost the first election he ever ran for in 1993, the UN-sponsored vote meant to be the dawn of a new democratic era.

But he seized control in a bloody 1997 coup, a year before the death of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot.

He’s been accused of stacking the military with fiercely loyal allies, while handing key security roles to relatives and his sons in an attempt to build a dynasty.

China has in recent years turned Cambodia’s patron ladling out cash and soft loans for infrastructure that left Hun Sen less reliant on a critical West.

A visible presence across the country, he travels frequently to the provinces, giving straight-talking speeches riddled with warnings that without him Cambodia will crumble.

As times change he has remodelled his approach, spreading his message via a Facebook page with 10 million “likes” — on a platform that could have served the opposition.

He has even co-opted garment workers who once marched with the opposition, raising wages for the near three quarters of a million people employed in the key sector.

“I love him the same as my parents,” said garment worker Phoeung La during a recent visit by the premier to nearly 25,000 labourers in Kampong Chhnang province.

Ever-attuned to populist opportunities, Hun Sen handed out $5 in envelopes, while pregnant employees were given $200 by a premier who called himself “uncle” to the crowd.

“You ask for schools from uncle, you ask for roads from uncle, so uncle asks for votes back,” he said.

– Genius of survival –

The ruling Cambodian People’s Party has won every election from 1998 onwards.

But frustration with corruption among a young population with little memory of the horrors of the Khmer Rouge era gave an opening to new challengers.

Formed in 2012, the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) won more than 44 percent of the vote in 2013 and almost the same in local 2017 polls.

But their emerging threat was snuffed out.

Sam Rainsy, who co-founded the CNRP but now lives in self-exile in Paris, said Hun Sen’s years in the Khmer Rouge were formative in creating a culture of violence and impunity which defines Cambodian power.

A nemesis through endless thwarted years of opposition, Rainsy strikes a reluctant note of admiration for Cambodia’s enduring strongman.

“Hun Sen’s strength, I would even say his genius, is to survive,” he said.//AFP

All eyes will be on voter turnout, with opposition figures urging a “clean-finger” boycott to send a message to the ruling party in what is essentially a referendum on Hun Sen’s popularity.

“This election is very important to me, I come to vote because I want happiness, development and peace for the country,” said voter Im Chanthan, 54, who said she was “happy” to be casting a ballot in the same polling station as Hun Sen in Kandal province.

The bombastic leader and his wife Bun Rany arrived shortly after voting at 7 am. Smiling, he greeted voters before casting his ballot and holding up his ink-stained finger as cameras flashed.

More than eight million voters are registered in the sixth general election since the United Nations first sponsored polls in 1993, as the country emerged from decades of war.

Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) has won every election since 1998 and the 65-year-old has trumpeted the peace, stability and economic growth of his years in power.

The premier was has been in office since 1985 and was a former member of the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge regime but defected and was installed as leader during the Vietnamese occupation of the 1980s.

But dissatisfaction with corruption and a growing youth population with no memory of the Khmer Rouge helped the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) win more than 44 percent of the 2013 vote and carve out a similar share in local elections last year.

That success spurred a crackdown by Hun Sen, who accused the opposition CNRP of being involved in a plot to topple the government.

Police last year arrested and charged one of the opposition leaders with treason and the Supreme Court later banned the party.

In the lead-up to Sunday’s vote authorities have also hemmed in independent media and NGOs while former opposition members have fled the country in fear.

The United States and the European Union have pulled funding and assistance for the vote, but Cambodia’s staunch ally China has provided support.

– ‘Sham election’ –

Hun Sen has maintained a tight grip on the country through a mix of political and family alliances in the police, military and media.

With control over vast parts of the state, he has also placed his sons in key positions in what analysts see as an attempt to create a dynasty.

Hun Sen portrays himself as a saviour of the country but elides his early membership in the Khmer Rouge.

The brutal group ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 and its attempts to create an agrarian paradise resulted in the deaths of a quarter of the population.

The government says 19 other parties are contesting Sunday’s democratic poll, but critics say the groups are obscure or newly created to give it a veneer of credibility.

Rights groups have slammed the election as a sham and a farce.

But authorities have vowed to take action against anyone who urges others not to vote, creating a climate of fear.

Cambodia’s leaders have faced international criticism but only limited travel and financial sanctions have been passed by western governments.

Sam Rainsy, an opposition leader who lives in self-exile to avoid court cases he says are politically motivated, commended the US House of Representatives for passing the Cambodia Democracy Act earlier in the week.

The act proposes sanctions for members of Hun Sen’s inner circle.

“The timing comes just a few days before Hun Sen is crowned king in a sham election that will be easy to win after he cracked down on civil society, banned the CNRP, imprisoned its president and exiled its leaders, and destroyed the free press,” Rainsy said, urging the Senate to follow suit.//AFP

People are suggested to follow news from Lao mainstream media outlets, which acquire information first-hand from officials authorised to provide the information.

The premier issued the warning in a press briefing in Vientiane last week after returning from the flooding in the province.

The warning came after misinformation and fake news have been seen posted online via social media as well as reported and broadcast by some foreign mainstream media outlets.

Photos of severe disasters which happened elsewhere and some time ago were also posted on social media pages as if they were pictures of Attapeu’s flooding.

Since the flash flood, caused by the fracture of Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy hydropower reservoir’s saddle dam D, lashed villages in Sanamxay district on Monday night (July 23), reports carried by social media and most foreign mainstream media have exaggerated the death toll and the number of missing victims.

So, members of the public should analyse content critically and assess its veracity.

In the press briefing, the Prime Minister expressed heartfelt gratitude to all sectors for extending sincere assistance to the rescue operation and relief effort.

On behalf of the Lao government and people, he extended heartfelt thanks to governments and peoples of friendly countries and international organisations for sharing sympathy, expressing the intention to and extending assistance and support for the search, rescue and relief effort.

“They have given physical and spiritual support to the victims to enable them to return to normal lives as soon as possible,” PM Thongloun said.

He called on Lao compatriots within the country and living abroad to extend assistance and support to help address and overcome the disaster.

“I am confident that the incident [disaster] will be overcome.  The situation will return to normalcy soon,” he said.

Nam Theun 2 power company announced this week it had completely switched off five of its six electricity generators at its power plant in the central province of Khammuan since July 24, ceasing water discharge into the  Xe Bangfay River.

The water discharge suspension is an obligation of the power company as outlined in its concession agreement.

It comes into force whenever the Xe Bangfay River is close to topping its banks at Mahaxay, a town close downstream from the point of discharge.

This suspension also aimed to prevent any worsening of situations and incidents caused by natural floods during this time of the year, according to the company statement.

“During the wet season, natural flood events occur along the Xe BangFay River, which overtops its banks nearly every year.

“To avoid aggravating the natural floods, the Nam Theun 2 Power Company (NTPC) has a contractual obligation to cease power production when pre-defined flood risk levels are reached in the Xe Bangfay River,” the company said its media statement.

A source at the Nam Theun company said that only a single 42 MW power generator was operating to generate electricity for internal usage.

However, the company confirmed that the operation of this electricity generating unit does not require release of any additional water into the Xe Bangfay as it discharges into a different channel.

According to a media release from the company, on 26 July 2018, village and district authorities from Xebangfay, Yommalath, Mahaxay, Xaybuathong and Nongbok visited the Nam Theun 2 Power Station to witness an confirm that NTPC had stopped releasing water.

The company will only begin releasing water via the downstream channel after river water levels have fallen to below the designated warning level, the company said.

A company source said that such suspensions could be considered a regular occurrence in the annual rainy season and this would be unlikely to cause a reduction in the annual electricity generation      target.

The Nam Theun 2 power station has an installed capacity of 1,080 MW that can generate 6000 GWh of electricity per year.

About 95 percent of the power is exported to Thailand.

The company is an industrial and development investment owned by two private shareholders (EDF and EGCO) and the Lao government, backed by commercial lenders and international financial institutions including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

The company is also committed to achieving the highest standards of environmental stewardship and protection of the environment for current and future generations.

The company is a crucial lynchpin for Lao development and is expected to generate some US42 billion in revenue to the government over the 25-year concession period.

With mainly obscure groups on the ballot the ruling Cambodian People’s Party is all but assured of victory, extending prime minister Hun Sen’s 33 years in power and solidifying the drift towards a virtual one-party state.

Hun Sen backed a crackdown on the his political opponents last year. Authorities charged one of its leaders with treason while the Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of the main opposition party.

The US and EU have declined to send assistance or monitors.

But officials have drawn on participation from observers with ties to the UK Independence Party, Italy’s Fratelli d’Italia, a pro-government party in authoritarian Belarus and India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, among others.

“We’re here for the people, to do this for the people,” said Richard Wood, who stood for parliament in 2015 for UKIP.

He dismissed questions about whether their presence might legitimise a poll tainted by the lack of choice for those who supported the opposition.

“It’s not my position to say who’s who and what’s what,” he said. “I’m here for one reason only, to make sure that I observe.”

The National Election Committee says there are 538 international observers, adding to tens of thousands of domestic monitors, many with links to the ruling party.

A group of 23 election monitoring groups denounced the lack of independent observers in a statement Saturday.

They cited the withdrawal of two prominent local organisations and the participation of some foreign observers in other elections that lacked transparency including in Kazakhstan, Zimbabwe, and Venezuela.

Some observers interviewed by AFP painted a positive picture of the political situation in Cambodia, with little mention of the banned opposition.

“All we see is people dancing on the streets of Cambodia,” said Vijay Jolly, a member of India’s ruling BJP, on Friday morning on the last day of campaigning.

“I don’t think that anyone has to cast aspersions on the decisions of the Cambodian people.”

Luca Romagnoli, a member of the populist right-wing Fratelli d’Italia and a former MP in the European Parliament, said he was observing in a “casual” way and not as a representative of his party.

“We were in Azerbaijan a few months ago,” he said, referring to an observer mission to that country’s election in April, which was also criticised as unfair.

Opposition leaders from the now-banned Cambodia National Rescue Party have called for a boycott of the Sunday vote but election authorities have said urging others to not show up is tantamount to a crime.

In the message to the King of Thailand, His Majesty hoped that under the King of Thailand’s leadership, Brunei Darussalam and the Kingdom of Thailand would continue to enjoy a close and long-standing friendship and looked forward to working closely with the King of Thailand in strengthening the much-valued relations and people-to-people ties in the year ahead.

In ending the message, His Majesty conveyed the kindest regards and best wishes for the good health and happiness of His Majesty King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun, all members of the royal family and the people of the Kingdom of Thailand as well as for the lasting peace and prosperity of the nation.

It recommends using the cash to finance school classes on “digital literacy”, teach public awareness around the issue and better fund data watchdog the Information Commissioners Office.

The proposal is one of many made in the House of Commons committee paper as it rounds on tech giants including Facebook, Twitter and Google.

Such firms act “irresponsibly” over data collection, “influencing what we see” in an unregulated social media landscape akin to the “wild west”, the report claims.

“We are facing nothing less than a crisis in our democracy — based on the systematic manipulation of data to support the relentless targeting of citizens, without their consent, by campaigns of disinformation and messages of hate,” said Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee chairman Damian Collins.

“Throughout our inquiry these companies have tried to frustrate scrutiny and obfuscated in their answers.”

The paper outlines recommendations for audits of social media security mechanisms and for the introduction of a new category of tech company that bridges the gap between platform and publisher.

The committee hopes to force social media firms into assuming liability for harmful or illegal content on their sites — which they profit from but abdicate responsibility for by claiming they are only a “platform” according to the findings.

“The light of transparency must be allowed to shine on their operations and they must be made responsible, and liable, for the way in which harmful and misleading content is shared on their sites”, said Collins.

It also renewed calls for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to appear before the committee to answer “questions to which Facebook has not responded adequately”, after he neglected to appear following the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.

The report was leaked online by Dominic Cummings, a chief official in the Vote Leave movement during the Brexit referendum campaign, who refused to appear before the committee to address concerns over their online efforts in the run-up to the 2016 vote

He branded the report itself “fake news” which “knowingly/incompetently makes false claims” about pro-Brexit organisations.

A government spokeswoman said: “The Government takes disinformation very seriously, as with all types of online manipulation and internet harms.”

“We note the Committee’s report and will consider its final recommendations.”