In the first incident at around 8am on Sunday (July 15), Tharm Wai Weng from Penang was taking part in the swimming event when he drowned after covering a distance of 750m.

A police spokesman said Fire and Rescue Department personnel tried to resuscitate the victim but he did not respond.

He was then rushed to the Port Dickson Hospital but was pronounced dead.

In the second incident, 42 year-old Hong Kong national Jeffrey Yuen Chi Yuen was reported missing when he failed to return to the beach after having competed in the swimming event.

“His wife lodged a report with the organisers after failing to find him at the beach, in their hotel room and in the dining area.

“A bicycle which he was supposed to have used in the next event was also in the same place and not used. “In fact, his water bottle was also full and all these indicate that he did not take part in the cycling event,” he said.

A report was then lodged at the mobile police unit and a search was mounted for the victim.

US broadcaster NBC News reported Saturday that LAPD has confirmed the matter and is currently looking into it, quoting an officer of the LAPD’s media relations section.

Jimin, a vocalist of the seven-piece boy band, recently received a death threat from an anonymous Instagram user who posted a photo of a gun and a statement that the user plans to shoot the artist at BTS’ upcoming concert in Los Angeles.

It marked the third death threat against Jimin, following similar ones made ahead of the group’s concert in Anaheim in April last year and its Forth Worth concert in May.

The group’s agency Big Hit Entertainment promised fans that it would keep a close eye on the situation and take all necessary measures to ensure the member’s safety.

BTS is scheduled to hold concerts at Staples Center from Sept. 5 to 8 as a part of its sold-out “Love Yourself” world tour that will kick off in Seoul on Aug. 25. After the US stops, the tour will continue in cities such as London, Amsterdam, Berlin and Paris.

While some welcomed the decision announced by Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng, others believed the stations could have been retained to ease traffic congestion in city centres.

The six stations are Lien Hoe in Tropicana, PJ, Temasya near Glenmarie, Persiaran Hishamuddin and Sirim both in Shah Alam, Taman Perindustrian in Bukit Raja and Bandar Botani, both in Klang.

Among those celebrating the announcement were Temasya Anggun Glenmarie residents who had been strongly against the Temasya station located several metres away from their home.

Temasya Anggun Residents Association chairman Ravindar Singh said they had been opposing the location of the station since September 2017.

They sent letters to the Transport Ministry and the Prime Minister’s office after the recent general election expressing their objection to the station’s location.

Ravindar said they were worried for the safety of the 60 homes in the neighbourhood since the road expansion works to accommodate LRT3 would see roads becoming as close as 1m from some of the houses in the neighbourhood.

“Now that the Temasya station has been scrapped, we hope the government will consider moving the line, 34m away from our homes.

“Even now without the line our homes are close to the road,” added Ravindran.

Construction work for LRT3 is ongoing along Persiaran Kerjaya near Hicom Glenmarie and the Shah Alam Malawati Stadium. — Photos: SSK KANESAN/ The Star

He also said there was no need to have four stations within a kilometre range, the other stations include Glenmarie, Persiaran Kerjaya and Stadium (near Malawati stadium).

“The station is also not a park- and-ride facility which would mean that vehicles will be parked haphazardly around the area causing congestion,” he added.

Meanwhile, a resident in Bandar Botanic in Klang E. Selvamani said it was a shame that the LRT station in the neighbourhood had been cancelled.

“There are 10 precincts in this township plus several low-cost flats that could have benefited from the station.

LRT3 works ongoing along Persiaran Kerjaya near Hicom Glenmarie and the Shah Alam Malawati Stadium.

“People from Port Klang could have used this station too. Although the nearest stations are located in Aeon and Tesco Bukit Tinggi, I think this station could ease the congestion over that side,” she added.

Selvamani said the Aeon Bukit Tinggi and Tesco Bukit Tinggi carparks were always crowded and additional vehicles by LRT users would only increase the congestion.

A station in Bandar Botanic would ease the number of vehicles there, she added.

However Bandar Bukit Tinggi Residents Association chairman Gan Ee Chai said he did not see a problem in the situation.

He said geographically, Bandar Botanic and Bandar Bukit Tinggi were close to each other.

One of the construction sites for the LRT3 in Persiaran Dato Menteri where the Shah Alam Convention Centre is located has been partially closed off.

“As for the parking issue, I believe we have enough for everyone including residents of Taman Botanic. I do not see much of a congestion problem either,” he added

For him, reducing the cost of the LRT3 construction was important to ensure the country was not bogged down financially because of the project.

The LRT3 project is a 37km extension line from Bandar Utama to Klang through Shah Alam. When it was launched in 2015, it was projected to cost RM10bil, including RM1bil for land acquisitions.

The six scrapped stations were part of the government’s cost-cutting measures to bring down the price from RM31.65bil to RM16.63bil.

Apart from the stations, there were other cost-cutting measures including reducing six-car trains to three cars, purchasing 22 trains in total as opposed to 42 initially and extending the completion date from 2020 to 2024 to not have to pay extra costs to speed up the construction time.

Meanwhile Sentosa assemblyman G. Gunaraj believes the stations may still be built, but at a later date.

“So for the Botanic station, I believe it may be built later due to our current economic state. We will continue to look at the viability of the project for the people’s convenience,” he added.

Gunarajah said although it is advisable to build amenities sooner rather than later, this is a small sacrifice Malaysians including him have to make for nation building.

Singapore’s scores have improved across most of the study’s 10 areas, particularly infrastructure and employment.

It scores above the Asean average on all indicators except economic stability, where its ranking has fallen 24 places from 2009 to this year.

This was due to Singapore’s nature as a small open economy, said Mr Vincent Chin, senior partner and managing director at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), which carried out the annual study.

It assesses economic stability based on three indicators: inflation, inflation volatility and GDP growth volatility.

Singapore’s relatively low score for economic stability – 81 out of a possible 100 – is driven by its GDP growth volatility, said Mr Chin.

“This can be explained by the fact that as a small open economy, Singapore’s economic growth and business cycle fluctuations are more pronounced relative to other countries that are less economically open and outwardly oriented,” he noted.

“Since (the study) measures relative performance of a country compared to 151 other countries, the decline in economic stability over the past decade also reflects that some countries are performing better in this dimension.”

Over the last decade, Singapore’s overall ranking has fluctuated between ninth and sixth. The biggest relative gains have been in employment and equality.

In contrast, the country has fallen 25 places for its performance in terms of the environment, which is also its lowest-scoring area.

BCG noted that countries that are better at generating well-being for their citizens also “tended to post faster economic growth and recover more quickly from recession in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis”.

“Policymakers do not need to choose between boosting near-term economic growth and improving the quality of life for citizens,” it concluded.

BCG measures the ability to convert wealth into well-being by comparing a country’s actual score with the score it would be expected to have given its per capita income, based on the average global relationship between both variables.

On this measure, Singapore does slightly worse than average, with a score of 0.98 compared with the average coefficient of 1.

“There has not been a blue whale harpooned by anyone for the last 50 years until this one,” Sea Shepherd, an international non-profit marine conservation movement, said in a statement on Wednesday.

The group, which published photos of the mammal being butchered for export at an Icelandic whaling station on the night of July 7, said the fishermen “posed for photos next to and even on top of the whale in a sign they knew very well this was a rare blue whale”.

But Icelandic experts are not completely certain whether it is indeed the world’s largest leviathan, which the International Whaling Commission has been protecting since 1966.

They’re also not sure if it could be the endangered fin whale, the second largest animal on the planet, which can only be legally hunted in Iceland despite an international moratorium on whaling.

Kristjan Loftsson, CEO of Hvalur hf, the whaling station which slaughtered the animal, said they did so believing it was a fin whale.

Most of the fin whales killed are exported as meat to Japan.

“We see blue whales all the time and identify them by their blowholes…but we leave them alone,” he told AFP.

DNA tests

For Gisli Vikingsson, a scientist at the Marine and Freshwater Research Institute in Reyjkavik, the butchered whale’s characteristics are similar to both the blue and fin whale.

“There is a large dorsal side with a small dorsal fin like a fin whale…this explains perhaps why it was hunted as such,” he told AFP, adding its “size and markings on the side are like those of a blue whale.”

He added the whale could even be a hybrid species resulting from cross-breeding between the fin and blue whale, which is a rare phenomenon.

Since 1987, five such animals have been observed in Icelandic waters and they are known to be infertile.

All killed whales in Iceland undergo DNA tests after the hunting season and the results are released during the fall.

However, due to the controversy surrounding this particular case, a test will be done earlier than planned and the results are expected at the end of July.

But Sea Shepherd said the fishing crew which butchered the animal mixed its parts with previously caught fin whales, making “it difficult or impossible to locate during potential inspections by the authorities”.

“This shows how inaccurate and imperfect this hunting is and there is no need to continue it,” Sigursteinn Masson, Iceland representative for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, told AFP.

Should the killed whale be confirmed as a hybrid, then things could become even more complicated as there are no laws to protect them.

“Hybrids are much more rarer than the blue whales,” Masson said.

The decision followed a June 11 inter-ministerial meeting convened by the foreign ministry and attended by officials from government agencies overseeing national security, police administration, investigation, immigration, tourism, and economy and trade.

The visa-free treatment for nationals from these three countries will continue for another year from August 1, 2018, through July 31, 2019.

This measure is being continued to attract visitors from Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy partner countries for tourism and business purposes, and to increase people-to-people exchanges.

The programme may be extended after a review of the results.

According to statistics from the Taiwan’s Tourism Bureau, nationals from New Southbound Policy partner countries made a total of 2,284,382 visits to Taiwan in 2017, a significant year-on-year increase of 27.65 per cent over the 1,789,503 visits made in 2016. The country saw its visa-free policy as achieving the expected effect.