“I am very excited to announce that Meghan and myself had a little boy early this morning — a very healthy boy,” a beaming Harry told reporters in Windsor.

“Mother and baby are doing incredibly well. It’s been the most amazing experience I can ever possibly imagine.”

Buckingham Palace said the boy, seventh in line to the throne, was born at 0526 local time (0426 GMT), weighing seven pounds and three ounces.

“The Duchess’s mother, Doria Ragland, who is overjoyed by the arrival of her first grandchild, is with Their Royal Highnesses at Frogmore Cottage,” it added.

It added that Prince Harry was present for the birth.

“How any woman can do what they do is beyond comprehension,” Prince Harry said in his brief comments.

“We’re both absolutely thrilled and so grateful for all the love and support from everybody out there.”

– Call for privacy –

Prince Harry and Meghan revealed they were expecting their first baby in October, at the outset of a 16-day tour of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga.

Commentators at the time believed the baby, Queen Elizabeth II’s eighth great-grandchild, was due in late April.

The 34-year-old prince and Meghan, 37, reportedly opted for a home birth at their new Frogmore Cottage residence, on the grounds of Windsor Castle west of London.

The move breaks with the tradition followed by Prince Harry’s brother William and his wife Kate, whose three children were all born in the private wing of St Mary’s Hospital in London.

Buckingham Palace also said last month Prince Harry and Meghan wanted to keep the arrival of their first child “private”.

That also contrasted with William and Kate, whose newborns were immediately shown off by the couple in front of the world’s media.

They have three children: five-year-old Prince George, Princess Charlotte, 4, and one-year-old Prince Louis.

– Bookies’ delight –

As April came to an end without news of the birth, Britons have been on tenterhooks with royal-watchers eagerly awaiting the latest addition to the family.

Fans have already been seen gathering in Windsor as news that Meghan had gone into labour broke on Monday lunchtime.

There has been fevered speculation in recent weeks over everything from the newborn’s gender and name — to whether it will have Harry’s ginger hair.

The prince said the couple were still thinking about names.

“The baby’s a little bit overdue so we’ve had a little bit of time to think about it,” he added. “That’s the next bit.”

Some British bookmakers had stopped taking bets last week on when the baby would be born, believing that it had already secretly arrived.

– Breath of fresh air –

Meghan was a popular US actress before marrying Prince Harry last May at Windsor Castle.

She has been hailed as a breath of fresh air in a stuffy institution.

“The Duchess went into labour in the early hours of this morning,” it said in a statement, noting her husband the Duke of Sussex was by her side.

“An announcement will be made soon,” the palace added.

Royal super fan Anne Daley poses with baby-themed balloons as she waits near Windsor Castle, west of London on May 6, 2019, for news of the imminent birth of the child of Britain’s Prince Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex. // AFP PHOTO

    Investigators were on Monday working to understand the causes of the blaze after the Sukhoi Superjet-100 had to return to Sheremetyevo airport shortly after take-off Sunday evening.

But pilot Denis Yevdokimov told Russian media the craft lost communication and needed to switch to emergency control mode “because of lightning” on the Aeroflot flight to the Arctic city of Murmansk.

He did not specify if the plane was struck directly.

    “We managed to restore communication through the emergency frequency on our radio connection. But the link was only for a short time and kept cutting out… it was possible to say only a few words,” he told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

Videos on social media showed the plane crash-landing and then speeding along the runway with flames pouring from its fuselage.

Passengers could be seen leaping onto an inflatable slide at the front and running from the blazing plane as columns of black smoke billowed into the sky.

Another video shot inside the cabin showed roaring flames outside the window and passengers crying out in panic.

Evdokimov said he believed the plane burst into flames on landing, most likely because of full fuel tanks.

At least two children were among the 41 dead and nine more people were in hospital, three of them seriously injured, authorities said.

The aircraft’s black boxes have been found and handed over to investigators, a source in the Russian emergency services told news agencies.

  – ‘Flash of white light’ –

Several of the 78 people on board said they believed lightning was the cause of the tragedy, which came at the end of several days of public holidays following Workers’ Day on May 1.

“I saw a flash of white light,” Dmitry Khlebushkin told the state RIA news agency.

Pyotr Egorov, also on board, told media: “We had just taken off when the plane was hit by lightning… the landing was very hard, we almost passed out from fear.

“The plane bounced on the tarmac like a grasshopper and burst into flames on the ground.”

The jet — carrying 73 passengers and five crew members — left Sheremetyevo at 6:02pm (1502 GMT), and the crew issued a distress signal shortly afterwards, officials said.

Russia’s national carrier Aeroflot was once notorious for its poor safety record but in recent years its image has improved and it has not had a fatal accident in more than a decade.

The Russian Sukhoi Superjet-100 however has been dogged with problems since its launch in 2011.

In 2012, a Superjet performing at an Indonesian air show slammed into a volcano, killing all 45 people on board. Indonesia blamed the crash on pilot error.

Technical problems with the plane have been reported in recent years and Russia has struggled to convince foreign carriers to purchase it.

The government offered subsidies to encourage Russian airlines to buy the Superjet and Aeroflot has became its main operator.

In September 2018, it announced a record order of 100 Superjet-100s.

The Murmansk region — where many of those killed or injured are believed to be from — went into a three-day period of mourning from Monday.

Other Aeroflot flights are expected to be affected in the coming days.

Russian President Vladimir Putin offered his condolences to the victims’ loved ones and said the investigation “should be as thorough as possible”, according to the Kremlin.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev ordered a special committee to investigate the disaster.

    Huge sums of public money were stolen from Malaysian state fund 1MDB and used to buy everything from yachts to artwork, in a scheme that allegedly involved former premier Najib Razak, and contributed to his government’s election defeat.

Goldman’s role is under scrutiny as the Wall Street bank helped arrange $6.5 billion in bonds for 1MDB.

Authorities in Malaysia accuse former employees and some of the bank’s subsidiaries of stealing $2.7 billion during the process, and investigators believe cash was laundered through the US financial system.

    Malaysian Ng Chong Hwa, a former managing director at the bank, travelled to the US last week, a person with knowledge of the matter told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Ng, more commonly known as Roger Ng, has been in custody in Malaysia since November when the US lodged an extradition request.

Ng asked to be sent to the US but Malaysia initially insisted he remain in the country until legal proceedings had been completed.

Malaysian business newspaper The Edge, citing an unidentified source, reported Malaysian authorities and the US Department of Justice had worked out a deal and Ng was now being held by the DoJ.

Malaysia has also charged former Goldman partner Tim Leissner and the bank’s subsidiaries with making false statements in order to steal billions of dollars, and with bribing officials.

Leissner has already pleaded guilty in the US to 1MDB-linked charges.

The DoJ estimates that $4.5 billion was looted from the fund by Najib and his associates. Since losing power, Najib has been hit with dozens of charges linked to the scandal and last month went on trial.

    In a speech late Sunday, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah said a moratorium on capital punishment that already applies to Brunei’s regular criminal code would also extend to its new sharia code, which includes death by stoning for various crimes.

The code, which also punishes theft with the amputation of hands and feet, fully came into force last month in the small sultanate on Borneo island, making it the only country in East or Southeast Asia with sharia law at the national level.

The move sparked anger from governments and rights groups, the United Nations slammed it as a “clear violation” of human rights while celebrities led by actor George Clooney called for Brunei-owned hotels to be boycotted.

    In a televised address, the all-powerful sultan made his first public comments about the furore and took the rare step of addressing criticism, saying there had been “many questions and misperceptions” regarding the sharia laws.

“Both the common law and the sharia law aim to ensure peace and harmony of the country,” he insisted, according to an official translation of his speech.

Some crimes in Muslim-majority Brunei including murder and drug-trafficking were already punishable with death by hanging under the regular criminal code — which is enforced alongside the sharia code — but no one has been executed for decades.

Hassanal said that “we have practised a de facto moratorium on the execution of death penalty for cases under the common law.

“This will also be applied to cases under the (sharia penal code), which provides a wider scope for remission.”

   – ‘Human rights monstrosity’ –

But rights groups said the announcement did not go far enough.

“It really doesn’t change anything,” Matthew Woolfe, founder of rights group The Brunei Project, told AFP.

“This announcement does nothing to address the many other human rights concerns about the (sharia code).”

The maximum punishment for gay sex between men under the sharia code is death by stoning, but perpetrators can also be sentenced to lengthy jail terms or caning.

Women convicted of having sexual relations with other women face up to 40 strokes of the cane or a maximum 10-year jail term.

Whipping and jail terms, as well as severing of limbs for theft, under the new code were not affected by the sultan’s announcement.

It was not clear how far other sharia punishments would be enforced.

The sultan also vowed in his speech Brunei would ratify the United Nations convention against torture which it signed several years ago.

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said that “the entire law is a human rights-abusing monstrosity that should be scrapped.

“It’s a quaint but unrealistic idea that a temporary moratorium on the death penalty is worth something in a royal dictatorship where the sultan’s word is law.”

    – LGBT stigma still strong –

While gay Bruneians were relieved the death penalty for homosexual sex would not be enforced, they said the law still encourages discrimination against LGBT people in the former British protectorate of about 400,000 people.

“There will still be hate against LGBT people,” Khairul, a gay man in Brunei who gave only one name, told AFP.

“This law should be changed — as long as it exists, there will always be stigmatisation against LGBT people and non-Muslims in Brunei.”

The sultan — one of the world’s wealthiest men, who has been on the throne over five decades — announced plans for the sharia penal code in 2013.

The first section was introduced in 2014 and included less stringent penalties, such as fines or jail terms for offences including skipping Friday prayers, but introduction of the harsher penalties was delayed after criticism.

Analysts say he is seeking to burnish his Islamic credentials and shore up support among the country’s conservatives due to the waning fortunes of the oil-dependent economy, which has been ravaged by recession in recent years.

Dramatic footage that went viral on social media showed Aeroflot’s Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft crash-landing and then speeding along the runway at Sheremetyevo international airport, flames pouring from its fuselage.

Passengers could be seen leaping onto an inflatable slide at the front and running from the blazing plane as huge black columns of smoke billowed into the sky.

“There were 78 people including crew members on board the plane,” the Investigative Committee said in a statement, adding that the plane had been flying to the northwestern Russian city of Murmansk.

“According to the updated info which the investigation has as of now, 37 people survived.”

A spokeswoman for the investigators confirmed the death toll was 41.

Another 11 people were injured, Dmitry Matveyev, the Moscow region’s health minister said earlier in the day.

– ‘Horror before our eyes’ –

Witness Alyona Osokina said she was inside the terminal when she suddenly saw a plane on fire rushing along the runway.

“The blaze was devouring the plane,” she told Rain TV.

Osokina said that fire engines had arrived quickly but could not immediately put out the blaze.

“This horror and tragedy happened before our eyes,” she said, adding that those who managed to flee the plane then walked calmly towards the airport.

“I believe they were in a state of deep shock.”

The jet carrying 73 passengers and five crew members had just left Sheremetyevo when the crew issued a distress signal, officials said.

“Flight Su-1492 took off on schedule at 6:02 pm (1502 GMT),” said a statement from the airport.

“After the take-off, the crew reported an anomaly and decided to come back to the departure airport. At 6:30 pm, the aircraft made an emergency landing,” it added.

Russia’s flagship carrier said the plane had to return to the airport “due to a technical reason” and its engines caught fire upon landing. Previous reports had said the fire broke out in mid-air.

The jet reportedly managed to land on its second attempt, hitting the ground with its landing gear first and then its nose.

The plane’s fuel tanks were full and a much bigger death toll could have been a real possibility, aviation experts said.

Investigators said they were looking into various lines of inquiry and it was premature to draw any conclusions about the cause of the accident.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had offered his condolences to the victims’ loved ones, the Kremlin said.

He has also said the investigation “should be as thorough as possible,” the Kremlin added.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev ordered a special committee to investigate the disaster.

The Murmansk region — where many of the casualties are believed to be from — will go into a three-day period of mourning beginning Monday.

Some flights have been diverted to other Moscow airports or Nizhny Novgorod, some 400 kilometres (250 miles) east of the Russian capital.

Numerous Aeroflot flights are expected to be affected in the coming days.

– Blow to aviation industry –

The country’s aviation’s safety record has been chequered and the latest disaster is seen as a huge blow to its already struggling aviation industry.

The Sukhoi Superjet-100 was the first civilian aircraft developed in the country’s post-Soviet era.

At the time of its launch, in 2011, it was a source of national pride and seen as one of Putin’s pet projects.

But numerous technical problems with the plane have been reported in recent years and Russia has struggled to convince foreign carriers to purchase it.

The government offered subsidies to encourage Russian airlines to buy the Superjet and Aeroflot has became its main operator.

In September 2018, it announced a record order of 100 Superjet-100s.

After the tragedy some suggested that Russia may be better off abandoning the Sukhoi Superjet altogether.

The Asean Civil Society Conference and Asean People’s Forum organising committee made the decision during a meeting last week to propose an interface meeting with Asean leaders when they gather for the summit in June in Bangkok.

Representatives of Asean civic groups have never met in person with Asean leaders for three consecutive years but they expect to get a chance when Thailand is chairing the regional grouping.

The Asean Summit in Thailand is scheduled for June 22-23, well behind the normal timetable due to political difficulties after the March 24 election in the host country. The official results of the election are due to be announced tomorrow and the new government is expected to sworn in by mid-June.

Asean civil society organisations will submit a proposal for the interface meeting with both Asean leaders and senior officials of the group. The proposal has been sent via the Thai Foreign Ministry and the Social Development and Human Security Ministry. Meetings with Asean leaders have usually been controversial in the past 13 years since the establishment of the Asean people’s forum, said Chalida Tajaroensak, a member of the Thai Regional Steering Committee.

The problem always occurs on both sides. The people’s side sometimes cannot find a common group of representatives and leaders and in many cases reject the representatives due to their own prejudices, she said. This makes the once-a-year interface meeting with the leaders hard to achieve in successive years.

The previous interface meeting with Asean leaders took place during Malaysia’s chairmanship in 2015. The last people’s forum meeting when Singapore chaired Asean last year was restricted financially and isolated from the leaders’ summit.

A statement of the people’s demands was submitted to leaders via the Singaporean foreign ministry, for it to distribute to Asean member countries. However, the Singapore statement would be attached to the new one to make sure the leaders in Bangkok gathering would get it.

Hopefully, the Bangkok interface meeting, if it takes place, would not be a ceremonial talk shop, said Rachel Arinii Judhistari, a representative of Rational Caucus from Indonesia, said. It should be a meaningful engagement to share concerns about what goes wrong in Asean during the current shrinking civic space due to human rights violations and undemocratic practices in the member countries, she said. While some members of Asean civic groups wanted to address the Thai political setback with the leaders, Rachel said they had not reached a consensus yet.

“In principle, we want Asean members to be accountable for the failures of human rights and democracy in the region,” she said.

Seng Reasey from Cambodia urged Thailand as the chair country to guarantee a safe space where participants are allowed to discuss safely and freely.

The 2019 Asean Civil Society and People Forum is to be held under the theme “Advancing Peoples’ Movement for Justice, Peace, Equality, Sustainability and Democracy in Southeast Asia”.

The PKR president said the relevant authorities are trying to resolve the problem and urged all parties to be wary of information coming from his office as well as social media accounts in his name.

Anwar said cyber attacks were becoming a major issue as people spend more time on digital space.

“Apparently, it has a negative impact as individuals were resorting to using digital tools for immediate gains or to create uncertainty and disorder.

“These issues are also being addressed and will be a focus of the Digital Native Agenda (DNA23),” he said in a statement on Sunday (May 5).