Now placed among the top 1.3 per cent of universities in the world, UBD is also one of only 13 universities from Southeast Asia to be ranked in the top 400 in the world.

Other achievements for UBD include being ranked 105th in Asia, up from 123 the previous year, and it is also placed 37th among universities in the world founded less than 50 years ago. According to the QS Top 50 Under 50, UBD is sixth in Asean and 16th in Asia of universities under the age of 50 years.

According to a press release, UBD was ranked top in Asia for student exchange, demonstrating the demand for its Degree, Master and PhD programmes not only from within the country but also from international students.

Through its flagship GenNEXT programme, UBD takes a multidisciplinary approach to teaching and learning, allowing graduates to not only master their major subjects but also explore areas of interest in other faculties.

This provides graduates with wider options upon completion of their studies. A particular area where GenNEXT shines is the annual UBD Shell Eco-marathon team, comprising individuals from across the university, utilising their diverse backgrounds and various skills to work towards producing efficient vehicles. Last year’s team broke the national record for the Prototype Battery Electric Car category. With its goal to become a ‘University of Innovation and Enterprise’, UBD also incorporates the entrepreneurial mindset in modules throughout its faculties, encouraging students to be more enterprising with their ideas regardless of whether they intend to go into entrepreneurship or not.

Spearheaded by UBD, the Entrepreneurship Village (EV) facilitates workshops, trainings and forums helping students to realise their ideas into actual business plans as well as viable products and services.

Some of the incubatees have successfully launched their own businesses, and they continue to give back to the community by helping out and mentoring other aspiring student entrepreneurs.

Through its cutting-edge technology and facilities, impactful research thrusts and internationally recognised academic staff, UBD graduates are equipped with the knowledge and skills to face current and future challenges in an increasingly competitive world.

And even after they have completed their studies in UBD, the university continues to offer additional modules and programmes as part of its belief in lifelong learning.

Along with other faculties, the Centre for Lifelong Learning (C3L) enables graduates as well as other members of the public to pursue further knowledge in various areas of interest. With its Blended Learning programmes, students are able to study at the pace, place and along the path of their own choosing.

China has gone so far as to ban the trading of virtual currencies, and Europe and the United States are searching for ways to strengthen regulations. In Japan, an exchange that lost a huge amount of virtual currency was subjected to an on-site inspection by the Financial Services Agency on Friday. The virtual currency market, which has grown extremely rapidly, appears to be at a turning point.

On Thursday, the Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley indicated in a speech to the nation’s parliament that his government would seek to put a stop to illegal financing and other transactions linked to virtual currencies. The government does not consider crypto-currencies legal tender, he said in the speech. Virtual currency markets have subsequently seen a significant sell-off, reflecting concerns that the markets could be more tightly regulated worldwide.

According to CoinDesk, a website that specializes in virtual currencies, the price of one bitcoin (BTC) temporarily fell below $8,000 on Friday. This represents a drop of about 30 per cent compared to five days before, and is less than half of the peak value of about $20,000, reached in mid-December 2017.

De facto ban in China

A variety of countries are considering regulations on virtual currencies.

There has long been concern that the strong anonymity offered by virtual currencies will lead to malicious use, such as money laundering. Moreover, virtual currencies have been repeatedly stolen via cyber-attack as the rapid worldwide growth in the usage of virtual currencies has led exchange operators to hold vast amounts of customer assets.

Behind the calls for increased regulation also lies a dramatic increase in the number of people who hold virtual currencies for speculation purposes.

Asian countries have taken a particularly hard line. China, which once had the largest trading volume in the world, now has the strictest rules.

China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China, implemented a total ban on initial coin offerings (ICO), in which companies and other vendors raise funds from investors by issuing their own virtual currencies or coins. China has essentially banned trading in virtual currencies, which has caused exchanges to close.

Chinese authorities say they acted because of negative effects on the financial market, but some analysts believe China wants to stop capital flight overseas.

Indonesia’s central bank, Bank Indonesia, indicated in January that it would not permit virtual currency trading.

Europe and the United States are also exploring regulations. Senior officials of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and others are scheduled to testify Tuesday in a U.S. Senate hearing on virtual currency scams and ICOs.

Germany and France have called for international cooperation. They are expected to jointly propose regulations at a March meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors from the Group of 20 nations.

Japan’s rules ‘not keeping up’

Japan was one of the first in the world to introduce a registration system for exchanges by establishing relevant legislation that takes virtual currencies into account as a means of payment.

However, rather than being used for payment, virtual currencies are being used more as a financial product for speculation purposes.

So Saito, a lawyer who is knowledgeable about virtual currencies, said Japan’s regulations “did not envision [this kind of situation] and have not kept up with the current state of affairs.”

Concerns have been voiced over a general lack of transparency — including suspected market manipulations — for some virtual currencies and exchange operators.

Some corporations have started to review their stances toward virtual currencies. Peach Aviation, a low-cost carrier, announced Friday that it would indefinitely postpone a plan to allow customers to purchase tickets using bitcoin.

The latest virtual currency theft will likely lead to heightened discussion in Japan regarding whether, or how, its regulatory scheme should be reassessed.

Yet another sexual harassment scandal is brewing in South Korea, this time around Kumho Asiana Group Chairman Park Sam-koo. According to posts on anonymous online community Blind, Park has made inappropriate physical contact with female employees on numerous occasions.

Park, 73, heads the country’s second-largest carrier Asiana Airlines, and makes monthly visits to the headquarters of the carrier. He purportedly calls over female flight attendants in the lobby when he visits, who then “cheer, clap and hug their boss,” according to posts on Blind, an anonymous chat app for local employees.

One anonymous post said Saturday that female flight attendants and airline staff of Asiana Airlines were ordered by executives to “run to Park and put their arms around him and hug him” as part of the company’s greeting ceremony for Park, taking place once a month in the company’s lobby early in the morning.

Blind users who said in the anonymous message board that they work as flight attendants at the carrier said they were consistently exposed to unwanted physical contact with the chairman during the greeting.

Allegations they shared include that Park pulled them toward him and held their hands, while those who seemed reluctant to do so were later “sent to the executives and reprimanded.” Also during the company’s orientation program for newly hired employees, female flight attendants reportedly had to compose a song to greet Park ahead of his visit and “practice ways to elicit tears,” one of the users wrote.

“We are being treated like Kim Jong-un’s Pleasure Squad,” read one of the posts, referring to the North Korean leader’s rumored group of women to see to the entertainment of high-ranking officials. “And this should stop now.”

Regarding allegations of sexual harassment, a Kumho Asiana Group official denied any wrongdoing.

“The claims are not verified,” the official told The Korea Herald. “And the monthly visit to the headquarters “is part of the company’s ‘on-site management policy’ to encourage employees,” the official added.

The new allegations come after a South Korean public prosecutor went public with a story of being sexually harassed by a senior official and then demoted when she complained.

In an effort to bring the #MeToo campaign to a hierarchical society where sexual harassment is too often tolerated, local district prosecutor Seo Ji-hyeon said in a televised interview last month with a local cable news network that a senior prosecutor groped her during a mourning dinner in 2010.

Seo said she raised the issue with her superiors to obtain an apology, but was instead transferred to a remote village. Seo said she “wanted to encourage other victims to speak out,” adding, “I want to say to all sexual assault victims that it’s not your fault.”

Her exposal has sparked anger with the public, prompting the prosecution to carry out an investigation into sexual harassment within the organization.

Marcia Eugenio, director of the Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor and Human Trafficking under the US Labor Department, acknowledged efforts by the Thai government, but said there were complications.

File photo: Marcia Eugenio

“Some laws might be complicated, for instance, as to who has the responsibility to monitor enforcement,” she said. “There are also issues related to recruitment and access to resources. [Workers] tend to end up being exploited if they don’t have enough resources, including social services and social protections.”

Human trafficking in Thailand, notably in the fisheries sector, has been watched closely since the country was issued a “yellow card” for illegal fishing by the European Union. Thailand also remained on the Tier 2 WatchList of the US Trafficking in Persons report last year.

Eugenio noted that the Thai government was also chastised in a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on rights abuses and forced labour in fishing.

While regulatory controls on improving conditions of work at sea have been made stronger, the HRW report blamed poor implementation and enforcement that “has perpetuated a culture of abuse and impunity”.

Its research indicated practices such as retention of identity documents, wage withholding and recruitment linked to debt, forcing workers to work very long hours and end up in slave-like conditions.

The HRW report also blamed the Thai government for delaying the implementation of articles in the new labour law, which will harshly punish employers of unregistered workers.

“In the absence of strict enforcement measures to compel brokers to obtain formal licences or employers to use only licensed brokers, it seems unlikely that this legislation will disrupt the deeply entrenched informal systems driving recruitment in the fishing industry,” the report reads.

HRW has called on the US, one of Thailand’s main seafood export destinations, to urge the Thai government to pass such laws as well as investigate and prosecute government officials who may enable forced labour and trafficking.

In 2016, processed fish and crustaceans sent from Thailand to the US accounted for 27 per cent (US$623 million or Bt19.6 billion) and 22 per cent ($517 million) of the market respectively.

The HRW received a prompt response from the Thai Foreign Ministry, which cited various legal moves, including the implementation of the 2015 fisheries laws imposing higher fines, resulting in severe punishments that have led to a curb in human trafficking.

During past two years, the ministry claimed, more than 4,249 cases had been brought before criminal courts, 85 of which were prosecutions for human-trafficking crimes. More than 50 defendants were punished with the maximum jail term of 14 years and fined the maximum of Bt2.5 million.

A law governing recruitment agencies was also issued, resulting in the prohibition of debt bondage and the licensing of more than 100 agencies.

Eugenio acknowledged that the Thai government had gradually engaged more with the US and the EU, which closely monitors Thailand’s fisheries situation, by taking a greater leading role, passing legislation to provide additional protections to labourers and gearing more towards the private sector.

“Still, it can be a bit hard to control since many of the cases happen at sea. There is more that could be done,” she said.

Thai Foreign Ministry spokesperson Budsadee Santipitaks said the Thai government had allocated more than Bt3.6 billion in the 2018 fiscal year to fight human trafficking and measures to speed up the legal procedure to prosecute human traffickers.

Repatriation of refugees to Myanmar was conducted on a voluntary basis with respect for safe return, the Thai Foreign Ministry said.

Professor Lee was appointed as the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar in 2014. She visited Bangladesh and Thailand last month to assess the situation since the government in Nay Pyi Taw denied her access to Myanmar.

In her statement last Thursday in Seoul, she said refugees who had fled from conflicts at home to the Thai border decades ago to live in “so-called temporary” shelters were “unable to enjoy their basic human rights, where they are once again faced with a perilous situation”.

Lee said: “Karen refugees told me that the humanitarian assistance they depend on is declining, while Shan refugees informed me that their aid has been cut by foreign donors entirely.

“This is occurring in a context where people are being encouraged to return home despite feeling that it is premature or unsafe to do so. They are left to choose between empty stomachs on the Thai side of the border and a return to a precarious peace on the Myanmar side, and the risk of being made refugees all over again.”

She added that representatives from different ethnic groups along the Thailand-Myanmar border had expressed their concern that, while the world’s attention is focused on the atrocities in Rakhine state, potential war crimes are being committed in Shan and Kachin States. This was happening “without so much as a murmur of disapproval from the international community”.

Over the Christmas period and into the New Year, clashes between the Tatmadaw (Myanmar military) and ethnic armed groups occurred in both Shan and Kachin states, resulting in the deaths of civilians and driving thousands of people from their homes, Lee said.

Decades-old camps

Thailand has sheltered more than 100,000 refugees from Myanmar since the 1980s, when the ethnic conflict in the country erupted. They are now in camps along border provinces including Mae Hong Son, Tak and Kanchanaburi.

In a statement rejecting Lee’s findings, the Thai Foreign Ministry said: “All Myanmar displaced persons have access to shelter, food, education, health services, birth registration and religious practices.

“These facts are well recognised and appreciated by various UN organisations, particularly the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees,” it said.

Outside the refugee camp along the border, millions of migrant workers from neighbouring Myanmar live and work. Thai authorities help legalise them under its registration scheme to ensure they receive legal protection and access to basic services, the ministry said.

On the issue of repatriation, it said that Thailand had always adhered to the voluntary, safe and dignified return of displaced persons from Myanmar.

“The political development and peace process in Myanmar were crucial in making the first voluntary return of 71 Myanmar displaced persons possible in October 2016, and it is also important for the preparation of more voluntary returns in the future.”

Russia’s meteorological service said Moscow had seen more than half its average monthly snowfall in the space of 24 hours, with 43 centimetres (17 inches) blanketing the capital by Sunday morning, agencies reported.

A girl walks on a street covered with snow during heavy snowfall in Moscow, Russia, 03 February 2018. Long lasting snowfall has been predicted in Moscow. EPA-EFE PHOTO

“One person died from a falling tree that hit an electric power line,” Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on his VKontakte social media page, adding that 360 trees had already been brought down by the extreme weather.

“According to the latest information, five have been injured. Be careful. The forecast says the weather will get worse,” he later said via Twitter, warning of strong winds to come.

Dozens of flights were delayed and several cancelled at the city’s airports.

Earlier an official from Moscow’s meteorological office told Interfax news agency the equivalent of 14 millimetres of water had fallen in 12 hours on Saturday, topping a previous record from 1957.

The Amtrak train traveling between New York and Miami collided with the CSX freight train and derailed in Cayce, near Columbia, the state’s capital, at around 2:30 am on Sunday.

Amtrak said in a statement that the lead engine derailed along with some passenger cars. Eight crew members were on board.

The Lexington County Sheriff’s Department confirmed all passengers had been evacuated from the train. Officials added that although 5,000 gallons of fuel spilled following the crash, there was no danger to the public.

Meanwhile, the Red Cross said it was providing support to victims.

The accident comes days after another Amtrak train carrying several dozen Republican lawmakers including US House Speaker Paul Ryan collided with a garbage truck in Virginia, killing one person and sending six others, including a congressman, to hospital.

In December, three people were killed when an Amtrak passenger train derailed in Washington state near the city of Tacoma, sending cars flying off a bridge and onto a busy interstate road.

Suu Kyi was not home when the crude bomb landed inside the gate of her lakeside villa on Thursday, causing little damage other than a fire that burned a water pipe.

But the incident unnerved supporters of the Nobel laureate, who championed Myanmar’s democratic transition but has suffered a fallout with the international community over her failure to condemn army abuses against Rohingya Muslims.

Using photos taken by a witness of the attack, officers arrested Win Naing, 48, in the early hours of Friday, according to a report posted on Yangon police’s official Facebook page.

“He confessed that he took a bottle filled with petrol…and threw it into the compound,” the report said, adding that Win Naing does a security job for a construction company.

Police said they believe Win Naing has “mental health problems” but will continue to take legal action against him.

He told officers that he was motivated to throw the bomb because he had been “cursed by magic”, the police report said.

Suu Kyi has not commented on the incident, which took place almost exactly one year after the assassination of one of her top legal advisors Ko Ni.

Ko Ni, one of few Muslims to hold a prominent government position in mainly Buddhist Myanmar, was shot in the head as he waited outside Yangon airport while holding his grandson.

The murder horrified the Muslim community and the ruling party in particular in a country where political assassinations are rare.

Requiring the use of lasers, acid, or chemicals, the latest craze in genital beautification can leave men with burns, scars, taut skin, or the exact opposite of what they were after in the first place — a darker penis or a spotted one, the experts warned.

“I think it should not be done in a patient that doesn’t need it,” Milanese plastic surgeon Massimiliano Brambilla, who specialises in genital procedures, told AFP.

“Most of the substances that are used to whiten… are quite aggressive. Whitening is one of those things that I am very careful of.”

Earlier this month, a Bangkok clinic said 100 men a month were making use of its penis whitening service just six months after it started offering the procedure.

The clinic charged about $650 (520 euros) for five laser sessions.

According to global statistics produced by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS), Thailand ranked 21st in terms of the number of cosmetic procedures performed in 2016.

The data also showed a massive rise in genital beautification procedures globally.

Labiaplasty, which involves trimming the inner vaginal “lips” or labia minoria, was by far the fastest growing surgery sector in 2016, with a 45-percent rise from 2015, according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS).

– ‘Pornographisation’ –

Genital whitening was not listed among the data, but industry experts say demand is growing.

“I think it’s linked to the pornographisation of society,” said plastic surgeon Fabien Boucher from Lyon, France, another practitioner of “intimate” procedures.

“What people see is… a genital aesthetic that in my view is not realistic,” he explained, with sex organs shaved and otherwise manipulated to represent those of very young people — hairless, smooth, and pink.

It is normal for the privates to be more darkly coloured than the rest of the skin, said Boucher.

“I do sex-change surgeries, constructing penises for female-to-male transformations, and these patients want exactly the opposite” of genital whitening — many opting for colour-in tattoos, he added.

“A key defect of our penile reconstruction procedure is that we end up with white penises which are visibly not natural.”

Another reason for the Thai trend is cultural.

The Asia Pacific region is a major market for skin lighteners.

Boucher stressed there has been little scientific research into the use of lasers and chemicals for penis-whitening, and no bleaching techniques or products have been developed uniquely for use in this sensitive area.

“The skin of the penis is different” to that of the face or body, for which the existing products were conceived, said Boucher.

“It is a thin skin… and we do not yet fully understand how it will react.”

– Satisfaction not guaranteed –

The Thai health ministry has also warned against the procedure, saying it may cause irritation or infection, even presents a threat to sexual pleasure and reproduction.

“Honestly, I don’t think they should be doing it,” echoed Boucher, who said he wouldn’t perform the procedure until the science shows it is safe.

Brambilla said he has turned down about three whitening requests in his 15-year career.

“If the colour is uniform, I really see no need,” he explained.

“But even if there is a reason for intervention, such as an accident, the instruments that we have now to do it, they cannot guarantee first of all the satisfaction, secondly a realistic result, and thirdly the safety of what you’re doing,” he said.

Penis enlargement, meanwhile, dropped by 28 percent in 2016, according to the ISAPS, likely due to the rise of new, less-invasive booster techniques.

Myanmar troops are accused of waging an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya, nearly 700,000 of whom have fled to Bangladesh since last August.

Myanmar denies the allegation, saying it launched a proportionate crackdown on Rohingya rebels, but has blocked reporters and UN investigators from independently accessing the conflict zone.

On Saturday government media reported that Rakhine state authorities had refuted a recent Associated Press investigation that said testimony from Rohingya refugees and time-stamped cell phone videos revealed the existence of five previously unreported mass graves in Rakhine’s Gu Dar Pyin village.

After an inspection of the village, a team of officials, police and locals “refuted the AP report,” said the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar.

“The villagers reiterated they had not heard of any massacres near their village,” it added.

However, authorities said there had been deadly clashes between security forces and Rohingya militants in the village on August 28, several days after the sweeping military crackdown was launched.

Nineteen “terrorists” were killed in the violence and buried, according to the report, which did not elaborate on the location or nature of the graves.

Myanmar’s government spokesperson could not be reached for comment.

Myanmar has overwhelmingly denied any wrongdoing in the Rakhine crackdown, despite a flood of testimony from refugees describing security forces murdering civilians, committing mass rape and torching Rohingya villages to the ground.

Last month the army made a rare admission that four members of the security forces helped kill 10 Rohingya militant suspects on September 2 and left their bodies in a hastily dug pit.

Rights groups say that incident is the tip of the iceberg of abuses carried out by a military force with a grim history of atrocities across the country, which it ruled for five decades before ceding some power to a civilian government in 2016.