During the meeting at the Jakarta Convention Center, Modi also invited the Indian diaspora to come home and see “the New India”.

“It is not only a new name for our country, it also contains a different concept within India and Indonesia’s new friendship. I invite you to come to India and be a witness to our cultures,” he said as quoted by kompas.com.

Said to be a gift for Indians, “New India” will be presented on the 75th anniversary of Indian independence in 2022.

Read also: Jokowi, Modi meeting expected to attract more Indian tourists to Indonesia

“We have made it easier to do business in India. Our government is focusing on improving the ‘ease of living’ for the public with a transparent and sensitive process,” Modi added.

With more than 9,000 start-ups registered in India in the last two years, Modi claimed that the country was the second biggest startup ecosystem in the world.

“The law, the apparatus and the office are the same. What changed was the government, and afterward, the country also started changing,” said Modi, who arrived in Jakarta on Tuesday on his first state visit to Indonesia. (wng)

Thai Tourist Police reported on Thursday that Heng Ratanak, thought to be the owner of the Thai-language website ratstas.com, had uploaded allegedly false information that “is likely to damage the country’s security or cause panic among the people”.

The website allegedly reported on May 23 that the Thai prime minister told his citizens to “fill their [petrol] tanks with water instead of diesel” in response to complaints about rising fuel prices.

Under Thai computer crime law, an offender who fakes information can be liable to a jail term of up to five years and a fine of up to 100,000 baht ($3,125).

Ratanak could not be reached for comment yesterday, but his Facebook post on Saturday said he was safe and receiving support from Cambodian embassy officials in Thailand.

“I will fly home after giving information to Thai authorities on a case where someone had used my personal information to post fake news that affects the Prime Minister of Thailand,” he wrote.

Upon his arrival in Cambodia on Saturday afternoon, Ratanak told local media Fresh News that he had not been arrested, and that information claiming he was could ruin the relationship between Thailand and Cambodia.

However, the Bangkok Post said Ratanak was released on bail following a request from the Cambodian Embassy in Thailand.

This was disputed by Cambodian Military Police spokesman, Eng Hy, who said on Sunday that Ratanak was not arrested by Thai authorities but “went there voluntarily”.

Affirming their support for Trump’s scheduled June 12 meeting with Kim Jong Un in Singapore, seven influential Democrats including Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer warned Trump against signing a deal at any cost, and laid out conditions they want met before any agreement is struck.

“As we approach what could be a historic summit I’m concerned that the president lacks a real strategy in place on North Korea and risks squandering a potentially historic opportunity, putting our security and that of our allies at risk,” Senator Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters.

Schumber added: “We’re all hoping the president will succeed in rooting for peace. We very much hope that he’ll be able to achieve a lasting and strong agreement.

“But the president needs to be willing to walk away from the table if there isn’t a good deal to be had, and he also needs to be willing to take the time to construct a good deal.”

In a letter to Trump, the lawmakers wrote that any pact explicitly or implicitly giving Pyongyang sanctions relief without verification of its obligations to dismantle its nuclear and missile arsenal “is a bad deal.”

Topping their demands is the elimination of “all nuclear, chemical and biological weapons from North Korea.”

Democrats also called on the White House to engage Congress throughout the diplomatic process, and stressed that were the Trump administration to start “veering off course” and sign an unsatisfactory deal, Republican and Democratic lawmakers would act.

“The president has a lot of flexibility when it comes to sanctions but it is always possible for Congress to pass mandatory sanctions or to pass laws to prevent the president from being able to use his waiver authority,” Schumer said.

The White House said its advance team featuring military and security staff was already on the ground in Singapore “finalizing preparations” for the summit.

Thailand was among 50 countries participating in the annual global peace campaign to promote the “International Law and Culture of Peace” last month.

More than 100 cities, including those in South Sudan, Japan, the United States, India and Iraq, took part in the “5th Annual Commemoration of the Declaration of World Peace”, carried out to advocate peace-building led by grass-roots sectors of society such as youth, citizens, civic groups and the media.

The original “Declaration of World Peace” was announced in 2013 by an international peace non-governmental organisation affiliated with the United Nations’ Economic and Social Council – the South Korea-based Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL) – to call for all members of society to work together as peace messengers.

This year’s fifth-commemoration event in Bangkok took place at the Islamic College of Thailand, where around 2,000 students and 150 teachers joined the event.

Participating students wrote “Peace Letters” and put them into post boxes before a “Peace Walk” in the capital.

“I appreciate that they can learn about peace,” teacher Chollada Suawong said. “Like the Arabic greeting ‘As salam aleykum’ means ‘Peace be upon you’. Peace is very important for us.”

Student Napat Sinthong also expressed his feelings: “I felt very proud during the event all day. We did our best. It was a very nice memory. We will surely organise a ‘Peace Walk’ again for the next generation.”

Meanwhile, in South Korea, which recently experienced an inter-Korean summit breaking a decade of turbulence and tension on the divided peninsula, a fifth-commemoration event – themed “Realising Peace on the Korean Peninsula” – a was held simultaneously in 12 cities on May 25, the date the original declaration was announced five years ago.

The themed event aimed to seek ways to interact freely between North and South Korea, based on citizen-centred peace activities, and to encourage citizens to take an active role in the progress of peace-building on the Korean peninsula.

HWPL chairman Man Hee Lee emphasised the importance of the role that politicians should play in supporting the HWPL-proposed “Declaration of Peace and Cessation of War” (DPCW): “All the public have to make the politicians build a peaceful world. If politicians insist that they love the nation and the public, they should agree on all articles of the DPCW. The president, politicians only exist for the nation and public, hence they have a duty to do what the public wants [peace].”

The International Peace Youth Group (IPYG), the Korean host organisation affiliated with the HWPL, has collected “Peace Letters” from government officials, social representatives and citizens with the message content of world peace and reunification of the two Koreas.

‘Peace Letters’ to be delivered to Korean leaders

According to the IPYG, the supporting letters for peace on the Korean peninsula received from the global family will be delivered to the leaders of the two Koreas.

With global conflicts from terrorism and disputes pervading media coverage, international society is throwing back the answer of “peace”.

Citizens around the world, watching disputes arising from religious intolerance or power struggles, are voluntarily seeking practical solutions to achieve peace and taking appropriate action.

Responding to the necessity of establishing a legal framework to eradicate disputes or armed conflicts, the HWPL proposed the DPCW – which embodies the value of the “Declaration of World Peace” – as a solution of world peace not only to the political, religious and educational leaders of international society, but also to youth, women and media.

The DPCW, consisting of 10 articles and 38 clauses, addresses principles of conflict resolution and international cooperation for peace-building, such as respect for international law, peaceful dispute settlement, and spreading a culture of peace.

Civil society throughout the world is carrying out peace education, peace culture projects, and a “Legislate Peace Campaign” to establish a legally binding international law for peace and to create a peaceful environment in society in cooperation with the HWPL, the NGO said.

The plastic bottles, bags, food wrappers and other detritus have gushed out of a drain that ends in the shanty, leaving stinking sewer water clogging the roads.

Stray dogs, goats and cows munch the plastic waste as toddlers run around trying to retrieve footballs and water bottles.

India is to be the focus of World Environment Day on Tuesday, but it is far from the minds of the long-suffering inhabitants of Taimur Nagar.

“You can see how bad the conditions are here. It’s completely choked with plastic,” said Bhola Ram, shaking his head.

Taimur Nagar is one of many slums in Delhi and countless other Indian cities struggling to cope with waste, particularly the plastic pollution that is the main theme of World Environment Day.

India is to organise beach cleanups, an exhibition of green technology and art installations — symbols of its growing economic clout. One engineer, Rajagopalan Vasudevan, has developed a process where plastic waste is shredded up and used in new roads.

Photo/AFP    

A plastic hell 

But a sweeping look over Taimur Nagar underlines the challenges the country faces with its waste.

India generates around 5.6 million tonnes of plastic waste annually, according to government figures, with Delhi among the worst cities for plastic consumption.

The city banned plastic bags in 2009 and later expanded it to all plastic packaging and single-use disposable plastic.

But the ban is rarely enforced. Plastic bags are still the staple for carrying vegetables, fruit, meat and restaurant takeaways.

Taimur Nagar’s residents know little of the hazards of non-biodegradable plastic to the water supply and the animals sat around.

Used to the filth, residents say they are resigned to their fate.

“It’s like living in hell. You can see there is plastic garbage everywhere. We are poor and we have no choice but to live and die here,” said Shreepal Singh, a waste dealer.

Photo/AFP

Conditions were not always not so bad.

“When I came here 40 years ago the drain had clean water. The area was not so dirty. But as more and more people started living here, things have gone worse,” said Saroj Sharma, a mother of three.

In the rainy season, grimy water from sewers enters homes with families having to cope with the sludge and stench.

“My granddaughter keeps falling sick. All the children here frequently miss school because they are down with diarrhoea or malaria,” said housewife Birambati Devi as pigs feasted on a stinking garbage dump nearby.

Taimur Nagar is sandwiched between upper scale residential developments lined with swanky houses, the underbelly of Delhi that remains hidden from main roads.

Photo/AFP

Its insidious conditions tell a sorry tale of India’s lopsided economic growth as well as decades of negligence, despite a pledge by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to clean up the country by the time his term ends in 2019.

India, Asia’s third-largest economy, had 14 of the world’s 15 worst cities for dirty air in a recent World Health Organization survey.

Delhi improved its ranking to sixth from the most polluted city in 2014.

“I don’t think the city will ever get cleaned. The conditions will never improve,” said Sallu Chowdhary, who wore a black mask as he set out for college.

“No one is serious about this problem, not even the locals who have to suffer every day.”

President Donald Trump is due to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on June 12 in Singapore, with Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal high on the agenda.

Reports said the reshuffle could be aimed at eliminating resistance to the peace overtures.

Pyongyang’s armed forces, known as the Korean People’s Army, are immensely influential in the North and a centre of power in their own right, symbolised by the way Kim is habitually flanked by generals on one side and civilians on the other when attending major ceremonial events.

Late last month the North’s state media revealed that Kim Su Gil had been appointed director of the military’s powerful General Political Bureau (GPB), replacing Kim Jong Gak.

According to Yonhap news agency, which cited intelligence sources, the chief of the general staff Ri Myong Su has also been replaced by his deputy, Ri Yong Gil.

Defence minister Pak Yong Sik has been succeeded by No Kwang Chol, previously first vice minister, it added.

The wholesale reshuffle would be unusual if confirmed, Seoul’s unification ministry said.

“We will monitor related developments,” ministry spokesman Baik Tae-hyun told reporters.

According to researchers at NK Leadership Watch, the change at the top of the GPB “represents a continuation of tightening Party control over the KPA”.

The political bureau could be in a position to resist policy decisions by the leadership or try to profit from future South Korean economic aid, it said.

“Both of these things lend themselves to creating alternate power centres,” it noted.

But new GPB director Kim Su Gil was a “highly trusted” lieutenant of leader Kim Jong Un, it added, who appointed him to the Pyongyang party committee — once a power base for his uncle Jang Song Thaek — after having the older man executed for treason in 2013.

Hardliners vs moderates?

Reports said the wider changes could be aimed at preventing objections in the North’s senior military ranks to any sudden changes in the country’s nuclear policy.

The country remains technically at war after hostilities in the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, and Kim’s father and predecessor Kim Jong Il expounded a “Songun” or “military-first” policy that is a foundational plank of the North’s ideology.

Pyongyang has long argued that it needs nuclear weapons to protect itself against a possible invasion by the US.

Yonhap cited the intelligence source as saying No Kwang Chol, the new defence minister, was known as a “moderate”.

“The North appears to have brought in new figures… as the previous officials lacked flexibility in thinking,” the source said.

But analysts said the personnel change was more likely a response to an internal matter.

“It’s meaningless to divide North Korean officials into hardliners and moderates,” said Kim Dong-yub, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University.

The personnel change was probably intended to implement the new economy-centred policies, he said, and officials with a better understanding in the area had been appointed.

No had formerly overseen the military’s financial issues as the chair of the Second Economy Commission, Kim said.

“It looks like they needed someone who can have a firm grip on the military and dynamically push ahead with the new policies amid changes in US-North Korea relations,” he added.

The words are set against a black background and accompanied by a microscope shot of the gonococcus bacteria, which causes the illness now running rampant in California.

Sexually transmitted diseases have made an alarming resurgence across the United States, where 2016 saw a record two million cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis, including 628 cases of congenital syphilis.

But California, the most populous US state, stands out for its willingness to tackle the crisis head-on, with cases of the three ailments up 45 percent in 2017 from five years ago.

Thirty babies were stillborn amid 300 reported cases of congenital syphilis, more than in any other US state last year.

“These are incredibly alarming numbers,” said Heidi Bauer, chief of the STD control branch of the California Department of Public Health. She said it amounts to an epidemic.

Congenital syphilis had been essentially eliminated from the United States, as it had in developing countries such as Cuba, Thailand and Moldova in the former Soviet Union, said Jeffrey Klausner of the UCLA school of medicine.

“But you know the fact that congenital syphilis is roaring back in the states and in California is a shameful reminder of our inadequate public health programs,” he said.

The cases of the stillborn babies are 100 percent preventable and this is “a slap in the face,” he added.

Herein the problem seems to lie: the US health system is more reactive than preventive. And there is a lack of prevention and public awareness campaigns in a society in which people do not like to talk about sex.

Government not a help

The striking billboards in Los Angeles are sponsored by an NGO called the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which aims to prevent or diagnose HIV and provide medical care for those who have it or other sexually transmitted diseases in free clinics.

Another sign about syphilis shows a torso ravaged by open wounds.

The foundation’s president, Michael Weinstein, said the NGO’s campaign has boosted visits to its clinics by 50 percent in Los Angeles.

By comparison, in south Florida, where cities such as Miami Beach or Fort Lauderdale as considered hotbeds of STDs, such campaigns are barred because they are deemed to be bad for tourism.

“You educate, you prevent, you test. You treat. You contact partners,” said Weinstein. “We’re not doing any of those things adequately.”

The discouraging figures will keep rising and “the government is not helping,” he warns.

The financial crisis of 2008 — at the time STDs were not of particular concern — led to deep cuts in health care spending, so many clinics shut down.

Add to this an increase in poverty, homelessness, drug use and pregnancies undertaken without proper healthcare — all considered risk factors for congenital syphilis.

California has the world’s fifth largest economy but the budget for fighting STDs is a paltry $20 million, which includes money that comes from the federal government.

“There’s a fire burning in California. And when a fire is burning, you don’t ask how much it costs to put it out. You supply whatever’s needed to put it out,” said Weinstein, insisting this is not happening in the case of STDs.

He said most of the NGOs patients are under age 25, and that with gonorrhea and syphilis — which are harder and harder to cure because of bacteria’s resistance to antibiotics — a higher proportion of cases involve gay men.

Not enough talk about sex

Sex education is mandatory in California schools.

Many teachers are reluctant to talk about it, but not Leticia Jenkins.

She speaks of it freely to her high school freshmen in the Los Angeles suburb of North Hills, who are working on posters to draw attention to STDs.

They use precise scientific language and are not at all skittish. They write down symptoms of STDs and ways to treat or prevent them. Jenkins said STD figures are out of control these days, and that talking about sex is essential.

“Schools don’t talk enough about sex. We do,” said Jenkins.

Some students said that in fact they do not talk about sex with their parents.

“They’re old,” said Norberto Osorio, 14 — although he had talked about sex with his older brother.

“We didn’t talk and I wouldn’t like to talk now. I think it would make us both uncomfortable,” fellow student Jessie Flores said of his parents.

“I didn’t know any of this stuff before I had her,” the 15 year old said of his teacher.

The volcano expelled hot muddy material that caused the deaths — including of several children — in the El Rodeo and Las Lajas communities located on its southern slope, disaster agency spokesman David de Leon said in a WhatsApp group.

Search and rescue operations for the missing and dead have been suspended due to low light and dangerous conditions, and will resume early on Monday morning, he said.

The eruption of the 3,763-meter (12,346-foot) volcano sent ash billowing over the surrounding area, turning plants and trees gray and blanketing streets, cars and people.

Farmers covered in ash fled for their lives as civil defense staffers tried to relocate them to shelters during the event.

National Coordinator for Disaster Reduction (Conred) chief Sergio Cabanas said earlier that the eruption also left 20 injured and affected more than 1.7 million people.

President Jimmy Morales announced a red alert for Escuintla, Chimaltenango and Sacatepequez, the areas most affected by the eruption, and an orange alert throughout the country.

The president said he and his government would determine whether to ask Congress to declare a state of emergency in the areas, while at the same time appealing to the population for calm.

– Death toll may rise –

Hundreds of personnel from the police, Red Cross and military have been dispatched to support emergency operations, Morales said.

Cabanas said that the dead included a civil protection official.

More than 3,000 people were evacuated due to the eruption, which affected rural communities around the volcano as well as Antigua Guatemala, a colonial-era town very popular with tourists in the Central American country, he said.

Cabanas did not rule out the number of dead increasing, as there are “missing persons, but we do not know how many.”

Dense ash blasted out by the volcano shut down Guatemala City’s international airport, civil aviation said.

People were working to clean ash off the runways to get the airport operating again.

The eruption is the second major one this year from the peak, following another that subsided at the beginning of February after sending ash towering 1.7 kilometers into the sky.

A September 2012 eruption of the volcano saw 10,000 people evacuated, while another in February 2015 forced the closure of the capital’s main airport.

Apart from the Fuego volcano, there are two other active volcanos in Guatemala. One of them, Pacaya, is just 20 kilometers from Guatemala City.

Baggio Leung and Yau Wai-ching belong to Hong Kong’s embattled independence movement, which is calling for the semi-autonomous city to split from China as its freedoms come under threat from Beijing.

The pair were told they had “directly hurt the dignity of the legislative council” by judge Wong Sze-lai, who went on to grant them bail pending appeal.

They were both held in custody after the sentencing while the court awaited their bail money. Yau later waived her right to appeal and chose to serve out her sentence.

Calls for Hong Kong to split from China have incensed Beijing and the past two years have seen a crackdown on any expression of pro-independence views.

Yau, 27, and Leung, 31, are the latest activists to be given jail terms on protest-related charges.

They had pleaded not guilty to unlawful assembly and attempted forcible entry after trying to barge into a legislative council meeting in November 2016.

The duo had been barred from the main chamber pending a court decision over their disqualification from parliament

They ran into the chamber, and after security bundled them out, they and their supporters tried to push their way into a committee room to which the disrupted session had been moved.

In the ensuing chaos, they clashed again with security, with at least three staff taken to hospital and police called in.

Despite being elected by the public, the pair were never allowed to take up their seats after protesting at their swearing-in ceremony.

They deliberately misread their oaths of office, inserted expletives and draped themselves in “Hong Kong is not China” flags.

Beijing intervened to ensure they were not given the chance to retake their oaths by issuing a special “interpretation” of Hong Kong’s mini-constitution.

The ruling said that any oath-taker who did not follow the prescribed wording of the pledge, “or takes the oath in a manner which is not sincere or not solemn”, should be disqualified.

After the interpretation, Hong Kong’s High Court ruled to bar them both.

Hong Kong is set to mark the 29th anniversary of China’s crackdown on democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square with a vigil in Victoria Park on Monday evening. It is the only place on Chinese soil where the anniversary is openly marked en masse.

As officers responded, a policeman was injured by an accidental, self-inflicted gunshot wound to the leg, the San Diego Police Department said in a statement.

There were no immediate reports of anyone else being hurt. Witnesses said they heard four or five shots coming from a parking structure near the finish line of the San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon, according to the local CBS and NBC television affiliates.

“There’s no longer a threat to the community. The scene is secure. The Rock and Roll Marathon has resumed,” police said in a tweet.

The marathon, which draws thousands of runners, was winding down at the time. After a brief halt, runners were allowed to complete the race.

Several streets were also closed briefly.

“We had a number of officers working in the area for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon, and the route was just a couple of blocks to the north from the incident,” police chief David Nisleit said in a statement.

Police first received calls about an active shooter around 10:51 am (1751 GMT).

“As officers were responding, one officer fired two rounds at the suspect, but did not hit her,” Nisleit added.

“We also had an officer have an accidental discharge of his firearm and he shot himself in his leg he has been transported to the hospital and is expected to make a full recovery.”

Reports said a woman on an upper floor of a downtown parking garage, not far from City Hall, had slid under a parked car and was holding a gun to her head.

She was promptly taken into custody.

‘Safe’ to proceed

“The situation involving an active shooter who was engaged with law enforcement was not related to today’s race,” marathon organizers said in a statement.

“By 11:45 am, the course was shut down and approximately 4,900 athletes were rerouted into a designated safe zone.

“While the race was officially stopped, law enforcement gave the clearance at 11:56 am for runners to resume their progress toward the finish line and the post-race finish area, where they were able to meet up with family and friends.”

There was no immediate information on the shooter’s identity or possible motives. But the incident brought back memories of the 2013 Boston Marathon, when two homemade bombs left by brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev killed three people and injured many others.

San Diego, a city of 1.4 million, lies on the Pacific Coast about 120 miles (190 kilometers) south of Los Angeles and on the border with Mexico.

The city’s baseball team, the San Diego Padres, said it had been in “close contact” with police following the incident.

“SDPD has confirmed that it is safe for us to proceed with today’s Little League parade, as well as our 3:10 pm game at Petco Park,” the team said on Twitter.