The suspect came from Myanmar and was known within the Melbourne Rohingya community, Habib, a member of the Australian Burmese Rohingya Organization said.

Rohingyas are a Muslim minority group in Myanmar who are subjected to persecution and violence from the country’s Buddhist majority.

“It is very shocking for us, but this is not about race or religion. This is about the mental health condition of an asylum seeker,” Habib said.

Police were yet to reveal the identity of the suspect or his motive.

The man arrived in Australia by boat in 2013 and was living alone in a Melbourne suburb while he was waiting to be accepted as a refugee, Habib said.

He set himself on fire Friday morning inside the Commonwealth Bank branch in Springvale, in Melbourne’s south-west, before being arrested and placed under police guard in hospital.

Many asylum seekers were in a legal limbo as the Australian immigration department was too slow to process their applications, causing mental anguish and depression, Habib said.

In recent months the man faced financial difficulties as he had stopped receiving government benefits.

There are approximately 600 Rohingya asylum seekers currently living in the Melbourne area.

83 million tourists visited China in 2014 making country as the first among the ten most visited countries in Asia. Since 2008 Olympics in Beijing, tourism is a national priority in China. China is promoting tourism as a comprehensive industry and an important driving force for economic development.

While as for this year, the China National Tourism Administration, the Chinese government authority responsible for the development of tourism in the country, says first nine months of 2016 saw 956 million international tourist arrivals..

The World Bank has ranked Malaysia as second most visited country in Asia. In 2014, 27 million 27,437,000 tourists visited the country known for its unique diversity.

Under the Malaysia Tourism Transformation Plan, Malaysia has identified tourism as a key growth area to transform the country into a high-income nation by 2020 having target of 36 million tourist arrivals.

Thailand is ranked third tourists destination in Asia with 24 million tourists visited the country in 2014. At present, according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand, 22.4 million international tourists visited the country between January to August 2016, generating around 31.2 billion US dollars.

India, the world second most populous country is at the 9th place with 7 million tourists visiting the country in 2014 while as 4 million tourists visited the Philippines which figures at 10th place in the World Bank ranking.

South Korea with 14 million tourists arrivals is at the fourth place, Japan with 13 million is at 5th, Singapore with 11 million is at 6th, Indonesia with 9 million is  at 7th and Vietnam with 7,874,00 is at 8th place according to the World Bank data.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, in his inaugural visit to Malaysia, has given Kuala Lumpur the go-ahead to enter his country’s waters in pursuit of kidnappers and militants, who have been terrorising Sabah’s east coast.

Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak calling the news a new development in Putrajaya-Manila ties, saying the two leaders had agreed on the need to stamp out security risks, which also affect Indonesia.
There were several kidnap-for-ransom cases this year, which saw 10 Malaysians grabbed by militants based in the south of the Philippines. Five are still being held captive.
“I appreciate Duterte’s under-standing because this is a practical way for us to help each other. It’s a new development which has been agreed by [Indonesian President] Jokowi with Duterte, and now with me. We need to stamp out this crime as this is affecting the welfare and security of not only Sabahans but tourists who visit the state,” Najib said after meeting Duterte.
The Philippine President was in KL for a two-day visit, his first after assuming the presidency in June.
Defence ministers from Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia will be meeting in Vientiane on Nov 22 to discuss the standard operating procedure and legal aspects of the new development.
While authorities from Malaysia and Indonesia are allowed to enter its maritime borders, they have to inform the Philippine navy of their presence in the area.
“If you are in hot pursuit of the bad guys and we reach maritime boundaries, the bad guys will get away if you stop. So, President Duterte said we should continue the chase and he has given us the licence to do so. We are to inform the Philippine navy and they will assist us if they are nearby,” Najib said.
The PM said the new agreement was a clear sign of the two countries’ commitment to eliminate kidnapping incidents and new orders would be issued to security forces based along the Sabah east coast.
“This new development will also help move relations between both countries forward. While we have been enjoying warm and cordial relations, we have yet to reach our full potential due to security and legal issues,” he said.
On Philippine claims over Sabah, Najib said this issue was not addressed yet. Manila has a longstanding claim to Sabah, which was once ruled by the Sulu Sultanate.
Duterte expressed appreciation on Malaysia’s role in the peace process in southern Philippines, said Najib, adding that the government had agreed to continue placing an international monitoring team there.
Malaysia has been playing the role of facilitator in the Bangsamoro peace process negotiations and is leading the foreign monitoring team.
On the issue of illegal immigrants in Sabah, Najib said both countries agreed to send home in stages the 7,000 Filipinos currently in the state.

THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK

The communist nation approved plans to build the plants in 2009 in Ninh Thuan province with an eye towards easing energy shortages brought about by its rapidly indusฌtrialising economy.
They were slated to have a capacฌity of 4,000 megawatts, developed with assistance from Russia’s Rosatom and a Japanese consorฌtium, and would have been the first nuclear plants in Southeast Asia.
But staterun media reported that the government has asked Vietnam’s rubber stamp parliament, the National Assembly, to suspend the projects.
“The total investment has risen too high,” Le Hong Tinh, deputy head of Vietnam’s Commission of Science, Technology and Environment, was quoted as saying by the Tien Phong newspaper.
He said the proposed cost for both plants had doubled since 2009 to an estimated $18 billion, as the govฌernment sought more advanced technology following Japan’s deadฌly Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
Tinh said the projects could also pose an environmental threat and said the nation could not afford to risk another disaster after a toxic industrial leak triggered mass fish deaths earlier this year.
The leak ravaged local fishing economies and was pinned on a steel plant in the area run by the Taiwanese conglomerate Formosa.
“After the Formosa accident, we are paying more attention to risk and safety factors… we need to be more prudent.
“It is time and necessary for us to stop,” he said.
The plants’ proximity to island chains in the disputed South China Sea, most of which is claimed by Beijing, was an extra concern, he said.

Wants renewable energy
Vietnam has said it will buy power from neighbouring countries and is also looking to boost its own energy production.
The country of 93 million relies mostly on coal and hydropower but leaders have said they want to increase renewable energy producฌtion in the next 15 years.
This week it announced a $2.2billion deal with Ireland’s Mainstream Renewable Power to build three wind farms in the country.
Agence France Presse

Abe and Trump spoke for about 20 minutes and tentatively set a date of November 17 for the meeting, just before Abe goes to Peru for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, a Japanese foreign ministry official told AFP.
During his election campaign, Trump raised eyebrows in Japan by calling on the country to pay more to support the cost of stationing US forces.
He even suggested that Japan might want to become a nuclear power to counter unpredictable neighbour North Korea, which has repeatedly conducted nuclear and ballistic missile tests to international condemnations and prompting UN sanctions.
That statement shocked many in Japan, the only country in the world to have been attacked with nuclear weapons.
Trump has also rejected the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade deal pushed by President Barack Obama and which Abe hopes his parliament will ratify soon.
Abe congratulated Trump soon after his victory on Wednesday, vowing that the countries would maintain their close relationship, calling them “unshakeable allies”.
During their phone talks, Abe “talked about the importance of the bilateral relationship and the Japan-US alliance”, which he stressed underpins the peace and stability of the Asia-Pacific region, the foreign ministry official said.
In response, Trump said he hoped to strengthen the US-Japan relationship further, the official said.
Trump also said he appreciated Abe’s economic policy and looked forward to working with him, she said.
She declined to elaborate on what else they discussed.

Under President Barack Obama, the United States has pursued a foreign policy “pivot” towards the Asia-Pacific, including stationing marines in Australia, against the background of Beijing’s increasing assertiveness.
With tensions high over China’s claims in the South China Sea and fears Trump could be a negative for the region’s trade prospects, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said it was critical that the US remain fully engaged.
“Countries in our region are looking for more US leadership and not less in the Asia-Pacific,” she told Sky News in the first Australian reaction to a potential Trump win over former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
The billionaire populist has claimed a string of swing states for the Republicans and appears poised for a shock victory,  jolting world markets and stunning Clinton supporters.
As parliament sat on Wednesday, Bishop and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull closely watched results flow through on their mobile phones.
Bishop said Canberra wanted to continue working closely with any new administration and meet soon “to ensure it focuses on our region and the importance of US leadership and a US presence in the Asia-Pacific”.
“We have particular areas of interest that must align and we will do what we can to ensure the new US administration is focused on our region because that is in our national interest,” she said.
“The United States is our largest foreign direct investor, our second largest trading partner, so it’s important for the Australian government to be ready to work with whomever becomes the next president of the United States and at this stage it would appear to be Donald Trump.”
The bombastic Trump, who has little or no foreign policy experience, has threatened to tear up free trade deals and seal the US border.
He has also expressed a willingness to work with any country that shares his goals of stability, prosperity and security.
Anti-immigration politician Pauline Hanson, whose One Nation party rode a populist wave in July to win four Senate seats in Australia, congratulated him on Twitter.
“Mr President my door will always be open. Congrats on behalf of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party of OZ,” she said.