“It is and will always remain a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit,” May, her voice breaking with emotion, said in a statement outside her Downing Street residence.

Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May announces her resignation outside 10 Downing street in central London on May 24, 2019. // AFP PHOTO

The resignation will signal the formal start of a leadership contest during which May would remain as caretaker prime minister.

“I will resign as leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party on Friday, 7th June,” May said.

“The process for electing a new leadership should begin in the following week,” she said.

The leadership race is expected to take several weeks.

    The weddings, which came a week after lawmakers took the unprecedented decision to legalise gay marriage despite staunch conservative opposition, places Taiwan at the vanguard of the burgeoning gay rights movement in Asia.

Some dozen couples were among the first to arrive at a government office in downtown Taipei to legally register their relationships as marriages.

They embraced and kissed in front of the gathered press before proudly holding aloft their wedding certificates as well as new identity cards listing each other as spouses.

    Among those tying the knot were social worker Huang Mei-yu and her partner You Ya-ting.

They held a religious blessing conducted by a progressive Buddhist master in 2012 but longed for the same legal rights granted heterosexuals.

“It’s belated, but I’m still happy we can officially get married in this lifetime,” Huang told AFP after signing her marriage certificate, clutching a bouquet and beaming.

Legal recognition of their love, she said, was a crucial step and might help others accept their relationship.

“Now that same-sex marriage is legally recognised, I think my parents might finally feel that it’s real and stop trying to talk me into getting married (to a man),” she said.

Shane Lin and Marc Yuan, a couple who fell in love at college, were the first to register.

“It’s not been an easy journey and I’m very lucky to have the support of my other half, my family and friends,” Lin told reporters through tears.

“Today I can say in front of so many people that we are gay and we are getting married. I’m really proud that my country is so progressive,” he added.

– Long fight for equality –

Taiwan made history last week when it became the first place to legalise gay marriage in Asia, home to 60 percent of the world’s population.

But the issue has also caused deep divisions on an island that remains staunchly conservative, especially outside of the cities and among the older generation.

Some 300 same-sex couples are expected to register on Friday, according to local authorities, around 150 in the capital Taipei which boasts a thriving and vocal gay community.

The city hall hosted an outdoor wedding party at the foot of the famous Taipei 101 skyscraper with dignitaries from Canada, Spain and Britain giving speeches welcoming Taiwan into the handful of liberal democracies that have legalised same-sex marriage.

For veteran gay rights activist Chi Chia-wei — dressed in an eye-catching red suit with a rainbow headband — Friday’s registrations were the culmination of a three-decade fight trying to persuade successive governments to change the law.

It was Chi who eventually petitioned Taiwan’s Constitutional Court leading to a 2017 judgement that denying same-sex couples the right to marry was unconstitutional.

Facing an imminent court deadline, parliament finally passed a bill last Friday allowing same-sex couples to form “exclusive permanent unions” and another clause that would let them apply for a “marriage registration” with government agencies.

“I feel very happy that same-sex couples can finally register and be listed as each other’s spouse. I am honoured to witness Friday’s marriage registrations,” he told AFP.

– Conservative pushback –

In the last decade Taiwan has become increasingly progressive on gay rights with Taipei hosting by far Asia’s largest pride parade.

But the issue has polarised society.

Conservative and religious groups mobilised after the court ruling and comfortably won a series of referendums last November in which voters comprehensively rejected defining marriage as anything other than a union between a man and a woman.

Conservative lawmakers put forward rival bills that offered something closer to limited same-sex unions but those measures failed as parliament comfortably passed the gay marriage law.

However, the new law still contains restrictions not faced by heterosexual couples.

Same-sex couples can currently only adopt their partners’ biological children and can only wed foreigners from countries where gay marriage is also recognised.

Gay rights groups say they are willing to accept partial equality for now in the hopes of winning later legal battles over issues such as adoption, surrogacy and marrying foreigners.

Opponents have vowed to punish President Tsai Ing-wen and the lawmakers who supported the gay marriage law at January’s elections when Taiwanese will elect both a new president and a new parliament.

“He has been detained in [the police’s] Special Branch for questioning this evening,” said a senior police officer, who requested not to be named until the findings were made public.

“According to our initial findings, he is thought to have some links with a group of terrorists behind a series of bombings on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka. But at the moment it is really hard to make the investigation public because he claims to be innocent and further investigations are under way.”

The officer said that 39-year-old Abdul Salam Irshad Mohmood had stayed at a guesthouse in Panbedan Township, part of the central business district in Yangon, and was referred to the Special Branch by police in Kyauktada, another district in the Myanmar capital.

“We [Myanmar Police Force] will publicise our findings about the Sri Lankan, once everything is clear after further investigations,” he said. “It may take time but we will try to make it as soon as possible.”

On Thursday morning, the warning about the overstaying foreigner spread quickly among Facebook users in Myanmar.

The rumours emerged from a letter by the Directorate of Hotels and Tourism (DHT) to all the registered hotels and guest houses in Bagan, one of Myanmar’s ancient capitals and popular among tourists.

“Regarding this case, our Ministry actively cooperated with Myanmar Tourist Police and related authorities,” said Aung Aye Han, deputy director general of the Hotel and Tourism Inspection Department. “Following a warning by the Tourist Police yesterday (May 22), our Bagan branch alerted all the hotels and guest houses in the area to inform [us] whether or not he [the Sri Lankan] had stayed in any of the hotels in the Bagan zone.”

In the letter sent to more than 80 registered hotels in the area, the DHT reiterated Myanmar Tourist Police’s warning that the Sri Lankan – his reported birthdate was December 11, 1980 – arrived in Yangon on a JetStar plane with a tourist visa on January 16 last year.

He is alleged to have overstayed in Myanmar for more than 14 months and may have been plotting criminal activities in the country, said the Tourist Police.

Following the circulation of the letter, Major General Aung Thu, deputy minister for home affairs, inspected Yangon international airport on Wednesday.

The announcement was made on Thursday morning by promoter PK Entertainment on Instagram. “Due to the recent events in Jakarta, the Lauv concert scheduled for May 24th at Tennis Indoor Senayan has been cancelled.”

“Lauv holds the safety and comfort of his fans and touring staff as paramount and sends his deepest apologies. On behalf of the artist and all involved, we apologize for any inconvenience. We are actively looking for a date for Lauv to return to Jakarta,” it said.

The singer also posted stories on his Instagram and a video on Twitter, saying, “It breaks my heart, but I love you, guys. I just got to make sure everybody’s safe and my entire team is safe. I’m going to be rescheduling the show as soon as I possibly can.”

“Once again, I’m so sorry, guys. It breaks my heart to do this and I hope everybody’s okay. I love you guys so much and I’ll see you as soon as I can.”

The promoter said that information about ticket refunds will be available on lauvjakarta.com.

Tickets had been sold out months prior to the concert. In a recent interview with The Jakarta Post, Lauv stated: “The fact that I’m flying all the way over to Indonesia and I have sold out a show is something that I don’t take for granted for a second. It’s going to be such a special night, I’m so excited.”

This May, Lauv is traveling to Asia as part of his Asia Tour 2019, starting in Mumbai on May 13 and finishing up in Tokyo on May 30.

On Tuesday evening, election protests turned violent in Central Jakarta, escalating to riots in Tanah Abang and Petamburan on Wednesday.

    The city-state has some of the world’s strictest anti-tobacco laws and smoking is banned in most public places, with a fine of up to Sg$1,000 ($725) if caught. E-cigarettes are also banned outright.

The new cabins, which are fitted with a Danish filtration system that can purify cigarette smoke before it is released into the air, can reportedly fit up to 10 people at a time.

But tobacco enthusiasts appeared unimpressed, with many choosing to light up at a nearby open-air smoking corner instead.

    “The atmosphere in there is stifling, honestly. Because it’s so small and squeezy, I feel a bit like a second-class citizen smoking in there,” e-commerce executive Azfar Zain told AFP after using the cabin.

“There are no seats, either. I’m not comfortable with smoking there unless they make the room bigger.”

Office worker Rama Dass said he preferred to smoke outside, adding, “sometimes I just need a bit of fresh air”.

Singapore-based Southern Globe Corporation, which launched the cabin on Tuesday, said it planned to deploy 60 such structures by the end of the year.

Singapore first introduced anti-tobacco laws in the 1970s as part of a national effort to reduce smoking.

It has since expanded the number of public places where lighting up is prohibited, including university campuses, common areas around apartment blocks, and inside private cars with the windows down.

    At least six people were killed — reportedly including a 17-year old high school student — after two nights of rioting as police clashed with protesters opposed to the re-election of President Joko Widodo.

The violence has been fanned by claims from Widodo’s rival Prabowo Subianto, a retired general, that the April 17 poll was a fraud.

Indonesia’s election commission on Tuesday confirmed Widodo had beaten Subianto who has until early Friday to file a formal challenge at the Constitutional Court.

    The 67-year-old has appealed for calm and said he would pursue legal channels to contest the results, as he did, unsuccessfully, against Widodo in 2014.

Election officials and analysts have discounted Subianto’s claims.

But many of his supporters appeared convinced of rampant cheating in the world’s third-biggest democracy, after India and the United States.

The streets of the capital were relatively quiet Thursday with police and military personnel keeping a close watch on the heart of the city, including the election supervisory agency building — the centre of much of the violence — and the presidential palace amid fears of more unrest.

Nearly 60,000 security personnel were deployed Thursday, nearly double the previous number, after Widodo vowed that he “won’t tolerate” more riots.

Authorities have blamed the violence on “provocateurs” that they claimed had come from outside Jakarta to stir up trouble.

“We’ve detained more than 300 suspects and are now interrogating them,” said national police spokesman Dedi Prasetyo.

The elections commission office has been barricaded with razor wire and protected by scores of security personnel for days.

Since the violence broke out, the volume of online hoaxes and fake news linked has spiked in the world’s biggest Muslim majority nation, including claims that police raided a mosque. Authorities have denied the claim.

Among the half dozen dead was a 17-year-old high school student and a 19 year-old, according to local media.

Authorities said the victims died from gunshot or blunt force trauma, but denied that they fired live rounds on the crowds.

The plight of Sanruethai Wansiri, 41, of Udon Thani, was publicised on Facebook by user “Edd Zafeero Sriyotha”, who posted photos of her lying in bed.

She reportedly fell into a coma after a dental operation and has been on a respiratory system in intensive care since May 17 at great expense.

Chak Samutklin, a provincial labour official, visited her 68-year-old mother, Suwanmalai Wansiri, in Kudjab district. She purportedly said her daughter entered South Korea on a tourist visa and had since been working illegally.

She said she heard the news from her daughter’s South Korean boss.

“Wansiri’s husband is a taxi driver in Bangkok and they have two children, aged 11 and nine. She sent some money back home to help me pay the debts from her flight to Korea,” her mother said.

Suwanmalai expressed her sadness that her daughter was sick overseas and she could not visit.

Chak said he would ask his superiors to see if help could be provided.

“Everybody who wants to work in South Korea should go through the Labour Ministry’s project so that if they fall sick, their expenses can be covered,” he added.

    The 99-year-old was offered money to move as authorities hoovered up land for a planned $2.6 billion Japanese-funded coal plant in the remote Van Phong Bay she has called home since birth.

But when she said no, around 100 authorities showed up, forcibly removed her from the house and bulldozed it as she and her grandson looked on.

They were helpless to prevent the destruction of the property two years ago, but Ca, frail and wizened, has rebuffed all attempts to evict her from the land since.

    “The authorities carried me away, but I refuse to move,” explains Ca, who now lives in a makeshift shelter of corrugated tin, wooden beams and coconut fronds next to the pile of rubble that was once her home.

“My house is here, my land is here, so I will be buried here,” she tells AFP, sitting on a small cot where she spends much of her time.

It’s a story playing out across Vietnam, where a strong-fisted government is powering ahead with coal projects to meet the soaring energy demands of a turbo-charged economy.

Coal accounts for about a third of Vietnam’s current energy production and is slated to rise to about 50 percent by 2030.

That means building more coal plants in places like Van Phong Bay despite a chorus of opposition from locals who complain of land grabs, loss of livelihood and environmental damage.

– ‘I can’t do anything’ –

Some 300 people have already been relocated from Ca’s community in south-central Khanh Hoa province.

They were offered cash compensation and rooms in state housing — but the residences were far from their farms and fishing grounds.

The $43,000 inducement to leave their 9,000 square-meter plot was not enough to upend Ca’s family.

“We cannot work there, there is no land for cultivation,” says Ca’s son Ho Huu Hanh, referring to the proposed relocation area.

He insists that they were never told about the planned coal plant and accuses authorities of bending the law to strongarm residents to leave.

The family lost their farmland anyway. Now Hanh works as a day-labourer or catches snails and small fish to get by, earning about $170 a month.

“I can’t do anything, I feel so sorry for myself,” he adds, crying.

Others in the area are worried about what the coal plant will do to fish and coral reefs in the bay where water temperatures could rise due to the plant’s runoff.

Like many of the 20 or so coal plants already operating in Vietnam, the bulk of the funding for the yet-to-be-built Van Phong plant is external.

The Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) last month approved a $1.2 billion loan for the project, which is sponsored by the Sumitomo Corporation of Japan and is set to come online in 2023.

Sumitomo says assessments were conducted to measure the environmental, social and health impacts of the project which were “managed and mitigated appropriately”.

It says consultation meetings were held with residents and that compensation and resettlement was “carried out under the responsibility of local authorities in accordance with the laws of Vietnam”.

Vietnamese officials did not reply to AFP’s request for comment.

– Covered in ash –

Developing economies like Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia are particularly attractive for investors from Japan, South Korea and China as the developed world turns away from coal in search of clean energy.

Foreign investment has skewed Vietnam’s energy strategy, locking it “into expensive and dirty power for decades,” warns Julien Vincent, executive director at Market Forces, a non-governmental energy investment watchdog.

But for power-hungry Vietnam coal is for now cheaper, more reliable and more familiar than renewables, which currently provide less than one per cent of the country’s power generation.

That number will inch upward to 2.3 per cent by next year, according to Vietnam’s power plan, with private investment already rushing to fund wind and solar projects.

But renewables alone cannot meet Vietnam’s insatiable appetite for power.

“Wind and solar are environmentally friendly but very unstable… we cannot just use renewable energy to supplement our big energy needs,” says Bui Van Thinh, the director of Phu Lac wind farm in Binh Thuan province.

Still, many are pushing for renewables to be favoured over the 30 or so coal plants slated to come online by 2030.

“After 2020 we don’t need to build new coal power plants,” argues Nguyen Thi Hang, the head of the clean air and water program at Vietnamese NGO GreenID.

“Energy efficiency and renewable energy should be prioritised, gas can be considered as a midterm bridge.”

Just down the road from the coastal perch of Thinh’s 24-MW wind farm sits one of Vietnam’s largest coal plants, the sprawling 6,200-MW capacity Vinh Tan complex.

The enormous site in a once-sleepy fishing village has for locals come at a price.

“It used to be nice, clean and pure here,” recalls resident Nguyen Tai Tien.

“Now there is smoke… and every morning and afternoon we have to sweep our house and the roads because of all the ash,” he adds.

Kelantan police chief Datuk Hasanuddin Hassan said the cooperation between the Royal Malaysian Police (RMP) and the Thai authorities in controlling the border had so far been good, especially with the Thai marine police and the border patrol team.

“We also want to advise any parties that want to commute across the border to use legitimate routes.

“If they are detained by the authorities, they could land themselves in very deep trouble and might also have to pay a very costly fine,” he told reporters after attending the Pengkalan Kubor Region 3 Marine Police Force iftar programme near Kuala Takbai here Tuesday (May 21) night.

Commenting on illegal border-crossing activities, Hasanuddin said during any festive season, certain parties might make excuses for doing so, citing the long distance as the reason they committed the act.

However, he said no matter what the excuse, residents along the border must abide by the law.

“Ahead of the festive season, many would assume that the security control will be loosened, but for us, that would be the time when control is intensified.

“Other agencies at the border, such as the Malaysian Border Security Agency, the General Operations Force and the Immigration Department of Malaysia, will also work together with us to tighten border control,” he said.

​​​​​Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan had previously said that six people had been killed during the riots as of Wednesday morning.

“As I said before, we are still checking,” National Police spokesperson Insp. Gen. M. Iqbal said at a press conference at the Office of the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Human Rights office in Central Jakarta on Wednesday.

He denied, however, several claims that have gone viral on social media regarding the police’s actions during the rioting.

“First, Brimob [the National Police’s Mobile Brigade] never attacked a mosque. Second, there are photographs supposedly showing foreign Brimob personnel with slanted eyes. We guarantee that all Brimob personnel are purely Indonesian citizens,” he said.

“Third, as I said yesterday, the Indonesian Military commander and the National Police chief have ordered that security forces not be armed with or firearms or live rounds in securing the demonstrations. So, if someone used live rounds it was not the security forces.”