The media-entertainment colossus announced its Disney+ streaming service would launch in November in the United States and gradually expand internationally.

The new service’s subscriptions are due to start at $6.99 per month — less than streaming leader Netflix’s most basic $8.99 plan.

Disney+ will be packed with blockbuster movies and TV shows from the Disney library, including its recently acquired assets from 21st Century Fox.

That includes shows and films from Pixar animation studios, the Marvel franchise of superheroes like “Spider Man” and “Captain America,” National Geographic documentaries and of course the “Star Wars” series.

Disney said it would include all 30 seasons of “The Simpsons,” family-friendly titles like “The Sound of Music,”and “Malcolm in the Middle” and its forthcoming “space opera”series “The Mandalorian.”

Analysts says Disney’s announcement shows it is giving no quarter as it battles Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu and an upcoming service from Apple.

“The biggest surprise was the price — $6.99 per month, which was much lower than many people were expecting,” said Alan Wolk, co-founder of the TVREV consulting firm.

“It’s also ad-free, which was unexpected, as the conventional wisdom was that they would go to a hybrid Hulu-style model, with both ad-supported and ad-free options.”

Wolk said the programming “is exactly what you’d expect from Disney and will appeal to families with children.”

Wolk said the content will mean the new service won’t compete head-on with Hulu, which is 60 percent owned by Disney.

The move “allows them to position Hulu as their edgier, adult offering,” he said.

Disney has predicted it will sign up 60 million to 90 million users over the next five years.

Some analysts have said they expect Disney’s new service to grow quickly and eventually top Netflix’s 140 million worldwide subscribers.

– ‘Smaller but deeper’ –

Analyst Neil Macker at Morningstar said Disney “came out swinging at its investor day with an aggressive price point” for its streaming service.

“We were pleasantly surprised by the content levels” announced at Thursday’s investor event, Macker said.

“While it is smaller than Netflix, we think the Disney+ library will be deeper in terms of quality.”

Tuna Amobi of CFRA Research said Disney+ will launch with “an unparalleled array of branded TV/film content” and as a result “could be a potential game-changer in a rapidly evolving streaming landscape.”

Amobi said Disney also has the potential to “bundle” its new product with Hulu and its recently launched ESPN+ sports streaming service to give consumers a wider choice of content.

But some analysts argue that rivals will not take the competition sitting down and that nimbler internet firms may prevail.

Richard Greenfield at BTIG Research noted that Disney’s venture may be hurt by long theatrical “window” that keeps films out of streaming for months, and from longstanding deals giving rivals some of its content.

“We wonder how the company will explain what is and is not available on Disney+ both domestically and abroad,” Greenfield said in a research note. “Will consumers understand that a new Marvel movie is available in theaters, but not on Disney+ for eight months?”

– Winning the war –

John Meyer, analyst at the investment firm Transpire Ventures, said Netflix still has the upper hand in the market.

Meyer said Disney may “carve out a small niche” among families and young viewers but doesn’t pose a serious threat to Netflix.

“Netflix now knows what people want more than anybody,” Meyer said.

“After all, they are a tech company at heart and have enormous power with the data they capture on their millions of subscribers, which helps them design what original content to create.”

Laura Martin, analyst at Needham & Co., disagrees, saying Disney with its well-known brands and franchises will eventually overwhelm Netflix.

“We believe Netflix cannot win” such a war because of Disney’s cost advantage from owning a vast amount of content.

“Disney products reach 100 million households per year, which lowers Disney’s customer acquisition costs,” Martin said in a note to clients.

Martin said that in polling, US customers say they plan to use only two or three streaming services and that as a result, any growth in Disney+ will significantly weaken Netflix.

The 37-year-old Rhodes scholar and Afghanistan war veteran is the two-term mayor of his hometown of South Bend — a left-leaning bubble in America’s so-called “Rust Belt” region, where the decline of industries such as steel and automobile manufacturing has hurt local economies.

Voters in states such as Michigan and Wisconsin helped hand Republican US President Donald Trump his victory in the 2016 election.

Buttigieg, who is credited with helping turn South Bend around, has couched himself as a can-do reformer who can speak to voters across the political spectrum.

“Here you have this moment, probably the only moment in American history, where it just might make sense for somebody my age, coming from experience in the industrial Midwest, non-federal, different background, bringing something that will actually help Americans,” Buttigieg told NBC’s “Meet The Press” last weekend.

Buttigieg was expected to officially launch his candidacy Sunday afternoon in South Bend, giving his already surprisingly strong campaign an additional boost.

In the three months since he declared an exploratory committee to test a presidential run, he has gone from relative obscurity to drawing large crowds at campaign stops.

He has raised $7 million dollars, more than most other candidates, and jumped to third place in the latest polls of voters in Iowa and New Hampshire — the earliest states to vote in next year’s primary elections.

– Buttigieg versus Pence –

The popular mayor who speaks eight languages and plays classical piano has been the focus of countless news stories and profiles.

The fascination has been in no small part due to his background: he would be the youngest, first openly gay, first millennial, and first mayor to become president.

He has had headline-grabbing moments, the most recent being his faith-based challenge of Vice President Mike Pence’s views on same-sex marriage and LGBT rights.

Former Indiana governor Pence, a religious conservative, infamously supported a 2015 law that was widely interpreted as codifying discrimination against LGBT people. It was quickly changed after nationwide outrage.

“Speaking only for myself, I can tell you that if being gay was a choice, it was a choice made far, far above my pay grade,” Buttigieg said in an April 7 speech.

“And that’s the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand, that if you’ve got a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me. Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator.”

It was a soundbite-ready moment — like several others he has enjoyed — that replayed throughout the week in American media.

– ‘Destined for national politics’ –

Buttigieg’s Sunday launch event was scheduled to take place at an expansive South Bend building that once housed an assembly plant for defunct auto manufacturer Studebaker.

The plant’s closure in 1963 still reverberated in the city in 2011 when he was elected mayor. He set out to tear down decaying, abandoned homes and restore the blighted Studebaker complex to make it suitable for new high-tech companies.

In an unlikely feat, the city has reversed decades of population decline and attracted new businesses and development, with the mayor’s popularity growing in the process.

“His appeal, for many people in South Bend, is his ability to look forward and to focus on better days ahead,” South Bend-based political science professor Elizabeth Bennion of Indiana University told AFP.

“Once people looked at his resume and heard him speak, many started talking about the fact that he was destined for national politics.”

While most new beekeepers buy insects from those with already established colonies, Yip prefers a more organic method, trekking into the hills and catching wild bees using skills he developed through trial and error from the age of seven.

The 62-year-old effortlessly moves through bush and dense thickets, far from the official hiking trails, and pauses at a hole in the hillside he knows will contain a bee colony.

Lighting five incense sticks to placate the bees, he waits for the smoke to take effect and then reaches into the hole, removing chunks of the hive along with handfuls of bees.

Remarkably he is only stung twice. The trick, he explains, is to remove as much of the hive as possible without killing or losing the vital queen.

“If you wear gloves, then you don’t know how much strength you’re using,” he tells AFP. “If you use too much strength and accidentally kill the queen, it’s very troublesome, it’ll be very hard to take the hive back.”

Moving slowly and carefully, he blows on the hive to herd the bees into a wire cage covered with a white drawstring bag.

He searches for the queen as stragglers buzz around him — a crucial part of the operation as the other bees in the hive are fiercely attracted to her.

“Without the queen, they will get angry and go looking for her everywhere. If they can’t find her they will fly right back out of the cage. They’ll fly around everywhere to find her and start stinging like crazy,” he said.

Although he was once stung more than 200 times when he lost the queen during an extraction, Yip says he has no need for gloves or other protective gear.

“Why would I need those things? I know their nature like I know my own hand. No matter how mean they are I still have a way to tame them,” he explained.

Back at his farm, Yip uses wire to attach the honeycomb to wooden frames, which are then slotted into wooden crates. Then he pulls out handfuls of bees from the drawstring bag and places them gently in their new home.

Yip generally collects honey three times a year from over 200 hives, extracting the golden liquid by spinning each frame in a metal drum.

– Hard times –

It was on the Chinese mainland Yip learned his skills, in the wake of Mao’s famine when millions starved and people took whatever steps they could to survive.

Yip worked as a teacher in Guangdong province, supplementing his meagre income by trading honey for food coupons.

He switched to full-time beekeeping after economic reforms under Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s allowed private businesses to flourish.

After his wife’s family successfully relocated to Hong Kong in 1983, Yip followed — although it took him some five years as he was caught each time he tried to smuggle himself across the border before eventually making it through legally.

He had to start his beekeeping from scratch, building boxes for the colonies out of scraps of discarded wood.

Within a year he had 150 healthy hives, laying the foundations of a business which has since grown into one of the city’s biggest local honey producers.

– Rising temperatures –

But as the global climate warms and fuels bigger storms, his livelihood — and Hong Kong’s bee population — face increasing challenges to their survival.

Ever expanding urban developments in the densely populated city already threaten wild bees and their food supply. And ever stronger tropical storms are exacerbating the damage.

Last year Typhoon Mangkhut — the most intense storm on record in Hong Kong — tore through the city, knocking down tens of thousands of trees and flattening huge swathes of pollinating flowers.

“Last year this hole was full to bursting, but it wasn’t like that this year,” he said, referencing the hillside where he had just plucked out the hive.

Another colony he visited earlier that day had also fared badly.

“That first hive I picked up has not recovered at all,” he lamented. “Typhoon Mangkhut was too strong, it felled over half of the trees and flowers… without the plants, the bees naturally reproduced more slowly.”

Scientists warn rising temperatures will increase the frequency of more powerful storms like Mangkhut.

While Yip plans to continue trekking into the hills as long as he can, he hopes the typhoons of the future will give Hong Kong and his favourite bee colonies a miss.

Thousands of supporters, comprising members of the public, volunteers and members of political parties supporting the incumbent and his running mate, Ma’ruf Amin, gathered at the venue to express their support for the pair.

The event started with a carnival that set off from the National Monument (Monas) in Central Jakarta and included a concert featuring hundreds of singers supporting the Jokowi-Ma’ruf ticket at the GBK. It wraps up a seven-month campaign season that began in September.

“We want this open rally to be the biggest election campaign in Indonesia,” campaign team chairman Erick Thohir said on Saturday. “Hundreds of thousands of people will attend this event.”

Supporters wearing white clothes took their seats on the benches and many were standing on the racetrack and soccer field of the stadium, which—if filled to its maximum capacity—can accommodate 143,000 people.

The carnival started at 12 p.m. with a parade representing the country’s 34 provinces moving along a 7-kilometer route from the National Monument to the thoroughfares of Jl. Thamrin and Jl. Sudirman before finally reaching the GBK.

A traditional mask dance performance was held outside the stadium.

“Jokowi wants the electoral contest to be full of joy,” Erick said. “A political event should not be so gloomy, and this carnival is a celebration of democracy.”

According to a statement from the campaign team, 200,000 people had flocked to the GBK before the concert started at 2 p.m.

The concert featured prominent musicians that have expressed their support for Jokowi, including legendary rock band Slank, composer Addie MS and singers Glenn Fredly, Sandi Sandoro, Krisdayanti, Once Mekel and Inul Daratista.

Slank guitarist Abdee Negara said the concert would bring together artists and performers from a diverse range of backgrounds.

“All of us will be united under the spirit of moving Indonesia forward,” he said.

Jokowi-Maruf campaign team secretary and Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) secretary-general Hasto Kristiyanto said officials of political parties in the coalition had chosen to gather outside of the GBK to leave more room for the public.

“The GBK is the people’s podium, and we want to prioritize members of the public and volunteers to attend the campaign inside,” Hasto said.

Jokowi was set to address his supporters from the center stage of the stadium in the afternoon, before he and Ma’ruf would depart for the fifth election debate for a final face-off with rival Prabowo Subianto and Sandiaga Uno. The debate was scheduled to be held at Hotel Sultan at 8 p.m. on Saturday.

Prabowo and Sandiaga had held their largest rally at the same stadium last week, albeit in arguably a different atmosphere, since the rival camp’s rally was marked with mass prayers, religious chanting and ubiquitous Islamic attire worn by the supporters.

But what happens when their birth beach has been turned into something other than a nesting place?

In the Maldives, a female sea turtle’s homecoming wasn’t at all welcoming. The beach where it was born is now an airport.

Without a choice as its biological nature dictates it lays eggs on the same spot it emerged as a hatchling,  the sea animal made the runway its nest on Maafaru island, local news website The Edition on Tuesday reported.

“Despite the unfortunate circumstances that befell the turtle mother, she is reportedly in good health and was released back into the ocean by locals,” wrote The Edition.

The incident has sparked fresh debates on the environmental and social costs of the tropical nation’s tourism-propelled growth.

“The question remains on how much of Maldives’ biodiversity must be sacrificed in order to propel our country forward industrially and economically,” the website said.

The airport,  which has a 2.2 kilometer-long and 40 meter-wide runway, was inaugurated in August last year. The UAE-funded project was built on Maafaru, one of the inhabited islands of Noonu Atoll, which is a traditional nesting place of the marine turtles.

Once a green turtle hatches and heads into the ocean, it rarely returns to land. When they reach sexual maturity, they travel long distances to go back to their natal place to mate and lay eggs.

The green turtle (Chelonia mydas) is on the list of endangered species of animals by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

There is no clear estimate of its population but the IUCN said its number could have dropped by more than 50% over the past decade.

Human encroachment, destruction of habitat, meat and egg trade, domestic and industrial pollution and commercial fishing are among the major threats to the species’ existence.

A conservative leadership that came to power in the one-party state in 2016 has carried out the sweeping campaign, going after high-rolling executives once thought to be untouchable in Vietnam, one of Asia’s most corrupt countries.

Dozens have been jailed already, mostly from the country’s lucrative finance and state-run oil sectors, sending a chill through business and political circles.

The latest ensnared in the anti-corruption drive is Pham Nhat Vu, the former chairman of a television company Audio Visual Global (AVG), whose brother has a net worth of $7.6 billion according to Forbes.

Vu is caught up in a scandal that erupted last year when the government started investigating state-run Mobifone telecommunications’ attempted purchase of AVG.

While the deal did not go through, officials have said it would have caused $300 million in losses to state coffers.

Police have “decided to investigate, arrest and search the house of Vu … who has been accused of providing bribes,” said the Ministry of Public Security on Saturday.

The amount Vu is alleged to have paid in bribes was not reported.

Vu’s older brother, Pham Nhat Vuong, is Vietnam’s richest man and the head of VinGroup, the country’s largest conglomerate with a portfolio that includes holiday resorts, luxury condominiums, shopping malls, convenience stores and supermarkets across the country.

Vuong’s cradle-to-grave empire is also making Vietnam’s first homegrown cars and smartphones and is the financial backer for the country’s first Formula One race next year.

But the family keeps a very low public profile like other wealthy elites in the country who have kept their heads down amid the anti-corruption sweep.

Two of Mobifone’s top executives were arrested last year for their role in the scandal, and high-ranking state officials, including two former communications ministers, have been caught in the crackdown as well for their involvement in the loss-making AVG deal.

Vietnam is among Asia’s fastest-growing growing economies, but it has long been plagued by endemic corruption.

According to Transparency International, the country ranks 117 out of 180 countries on the corruption index, behind Thailand and the Philippines.

The anti-graft drive has been spearheaded by the longtime conservative apparatchik Nguyen Phu Trong, the communist party chief who last year also became president, consolidating two of the country’s top roles to become Vietnam’s most powerful man.

Malaysian fugitive businessman Jho Low who in the centre of 1MDB scandal and sought after by police from several countries,  is believed to be in China.

He is said to be moving around Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing and Hainan Island recently.

Sources said the Malaysian police is working closely with public security of China to trace Low.  Up till now, China is unable to trace him.

As former Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s SRC International trial on money laundering has started but Low`s whereabout is still unknown, he is on wanted list of the Malaysian police.

Low`s passport has been revoked by the Malaysian government. His name is also listed under INTERPOL Red Notice. The notice would not be removed until he shows up.  Low is also on wanted list of Singapore police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation of United States besides Malaysia.

According to report, Low holds a Hong Kong resident pass. His company in Central, Hong Kong is still operating as usual. He has some assets in overseas and luxury homes in Hong Kong.

When Low learnt about his three-storey luxury home in Tanjung Bunga, Penang was seized after he was placed on wanted list by the Malaysian police, Low issued a statement online ticking off the Malaysian government of passing sentence without trial. He is still free to move around outside Malaysia.

Earlier, he was said to be in Bangkok. The Malaysian police had also contacted its counterpart in Thailand. Thai police did not report Low`s presence in Thailand.

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad who will be attending the 2nd One Belt One Road International Collaboration Summit in China this month is expected to be seeking help from China to trace Low and extradite him back to Malaysia.

The 2nd One Belt One Road International Collaboration Summit is scheduled to be held on 26 and 27 Apr in Beijing.

News background

Sarawak Report and The Edge financial daily reported in March 2015 that 1MDB and PetroSaudi International signed a US$1 billion joint venture investment project on 28 Sept, 2009.  The US$700 million originally supposed to be the sum paid by 1MDB to the joint venture company was transferred into Good Star company set up by Low instead.

In April 2016, Singapore police issued warrant of arrest against Low for allegedly involved in money laundering and dishonestly receiving stolen property. Hong Kong police rejected request by Singapore police to arrest Low in Hong Kong.

Low and his father Larry Low Hock Peng were slapped with charges over money allegedly stolen from 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) on 24 Aug 2018. The charges for money laundering were brought against duo ` in absentia` by the Attorney -General`s Chambers. Warrants of arrest were also sought to extradite both believed to be in overseas.

The Inspector-General Police Mohamad Fuzi bin Harun then instructed the police to issue INTERPOL Red Alert, seeking help from Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, China, United Arabs Emirates, Indonesia, India and Myanmar to arrest Low.

The 38-year-old TVB host said he wants to revolutionise Hong Kong-style toast bread, a must-have food, and replace peanut butter with durian.

“Durian and toast is definitely the best combination.

“Durian can be made into a melted, stringy pull just like cheese,” Lai said.

“People have to line up for tasty food and they are sold out within hours,” he exclaimed, adding that Hokkien Prawn Mee tops his must-eat list in Penang.

Lai was here in Penang to film his cooking show, Men’s Kitchen, which ended yesterday.

“I passed the places I visited during my first trip and it brought back a lot of memories,” he added.

Joining Lai was his celebrity guest Jacqueline Wong Sum Wing who came here for the first time.

Describing herself as a person who loves sightseeing and art, Wong said Penang was attractive and interesting.

“My friends warned me before I came that I will definitely gain weight. I cannot wait to explore Penang and try the delicious dishes here,” said the 30-year-old actress.

The duo were filming a scene at Kebaya Dining Room of Seven Terraces in George Town.

Men’s Kitchen is a 10-episode Cantonese series of 30 minutes each, comprising shooting locations in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Japan, Turkey and France.

Out of the 10 episodes, two will feature locations in Malaysia, including Penang, Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur.

Celebrity guests are invited to various locations where they will sample and learn about the local food while completing a challenge to concoct a creative dish using local ingredients.

Present at Seven Terraces was Penang Global Tourism chief executive officer Ooi Chok Yan.