The two countries have agreed to ensure the safe return of Rohingya who have been taking shelter at the Bangladesh-Myanmar border since August 2017, the minister said upon returning from Dhaka, where he had gone on a working visit on Wednesday and Thursday.

Thailand has provided Bt5 million in aid via the World Food Programme for the refugees, he added.

Don, in his capacity as Asean chair, was in Myanmar for the same purpose on March 7-8, when he met key officials in Nay Pyi Taw, including de facto leader and his counterpart Aung San Suu Kyi.

“It is a very good sign, based on the spirit of cooperation, as the two countries want to see an end to the repatriation stalemate,” he said.

The first batch of 2,000 refugees was set to return to Rakhine state in mid-November, but they resisted out of fear for their safety.

The latest conversation with Myanmar authorities indicated that Nay Pyi Taw would only take back screened refugees, he said, adding that they would receive verification documents.

“But these papers are not national IDs,” he said. “This issue will be have to be addressed later as it’s a complicated one that will take time to solve.”

More than 700,000 Rohingya fled from Rakhine in August 2017 after militants attacked Myanmar security outposts, prompting a “clearance operation”. Thousands were killed, while many others suffered from atrocities including arson, torture, murder and gang rape. The United Nations found elements of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar’s actions and tried to refer cases of “genocide” to the International Criminal Court and other special tribunals.

However, Asean – of which Myanmar is also a member – decided in a Singapore summit in November to participate on a humanitarian basis and help coordinate and facilitate the repatriation.

The Asean Emergency Response and Assessment Team visited Rakhine state from March 4 to 13 and should have a report on the visit soon, Don said.

Senior Asean officials will meet later this month to discuss their role in the repatriation, he said, noting that both Myanmar and Bangladesh appreciated the bloc’s actions.

“We might need quiet diplomacy to get the work done,” he said.

The Southeast Asian nation announced in March it was joining the world’s only permanent war crimes tribunal after a reform-minded government came to power last year.

But the move sparked an outcry from opposition politicians and the powerful sultan of southern Johor state, who were furious the country’s revered Islamic royals would not be exempted from potential prosecution by the court.

Malaysia’s decision not to join the ICC is a severe blow to the tribunal in The Hague, which has been under pressure following high-profile acquittals, while Burundi became the first country to quit the court in 2017.

    “We have made a decision that we will not recognise the Statute of Rome,” Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told a nationally televised press conference, referring to the ICC’s founding treaty.

“(Opposition politicians) have been able to create confusion in the minds of the people, that this law negates the rights of the Malays and the rights of the rulers.”

Ethnic Malay Muslims are the country’s majority group, while the rulers refers to the country’s Islamic royal households.

Nine of Malaysia’s states are ruled by Islamic royalty and the households take it in turns to provide the national monarch, in a unique system.

While they do not have any formal powers, the Islamic rulers are greatly respected by Malays, and criticising them is strictly forbidden.

The new government has been attacked for not doing enough to protect Malays, who have traditionally enjoyed privileges such as preference for civil service jobs and discounts on buying property.

Malaysia had already signed the Rome Statute but still had to ratify it to formally become a member of the court.

It is the government’s latest policy flip-flop. It comes fives months after they did a U-turn on signing a UN treaty against racial discrimination after Malays expressed concerns it could erode their privileged position.

MacKenzie Bezos said she would give all of her stake in The Washington Post and the space exploration firm Blue Origin to her husband – the world’s richest man – as well as voting control of her remaining Amazon stock.

Jeff Bezos, 55, and MacKenzie, 48, a novelist, married in 1993 and have four children. Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in their Seattle garage in 1994 and turned it into a colossus that dominates online retail.

In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Amazon, which has a market capitalisation of some US$890bil (RM3.63tril), said MacKenzie Bezos will control 4% of the company’s outstanding common stock.

At Amazon’s current share price that would be worth some US$35.6bil (RM145.31bil).

According to Forbes magazine, the divorce settlement makes MacKenzie Bezos the third wealthiest woman in the world after L’Oreal heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers and Walmart’s Alice Walton.

Jeff Bezos, who now owns 12% of Amazon, remains the world’s richest man and the largest shareholder in the company with an estimated fortune of US$110bil (RM449.02bil), Forbes said, ahead of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett.

Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos announced their separation in January and posted Twitter messages on April 4 revealing the divorce settlement.

“Grateful to have finished the process of dissolving my marriage with Jeff with support from each other and everyone who reached out to us in kindness,” MacKenzie Bezos wrote.

“Happy to be giving him all of my interests in the Washington Post and Blue Origin, and 75% of our Amazon stock plus voting control of my shares to support his continued contributions with the teams of these incredible companies,” she said.

“Excited about my own plans. Grateful for the past as I look forward to what comes next.”

‘Partner, ally, and mother’

Jeff Bezos, in a Twitter message of his own, said his wife had been “an extraordinary partner, ally, and mother”.

“She is resourceful and brilliant and loving, and as our futures unroll, I know I’ll always be learning from her,” he said.

“I’m grateful for her support and for her kindness in this process and am very much looking forward to our new relationship as friends and co-parents,” Bezos added.

Bezos has largely kept his personal life private during his years steering Amazon.

But it was thrust into the spotlight with the announcement in January that he and his wife were divorcing after 25 years of marriage and the revelation by the National Enquirer that he had been having an affair with a former news anchor, Lauren Sanchez.

When the National Enquirer, controlled by President Donald Trump’s ally David Pecker, threatened to release lurid, intimate pictures of Bezos and Sanchez, Bezos fought back by releasing the details of his exchanges publicly.

“Rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail, I’ve decided to publish exactly what they sent me, despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten,” Bezos wrote in a blog post.

A lawyer for the National Enquirer denied that the supermarket tabloid had tried to extort and blackmail the Amazon founder.

Trump has been a frequent critic of the Post, which Bezos purchased in 2013, claiming that the newspaper is biased against him and calling it the “Amazon Washington Post”.

Amazon shares closed down 0.1% at US$1,818.86 (RM7,424.59) on April 4.

    The red notices are issued by the international police organisation to authorities worldwide asking for the arrest of individuals pending their extradition to the member state that wants to detain them.

But rights groups have repeatedly complained the system has been abused by government to nab dissidents, as well as dangerous criminals, and say problems remain despite a major revamp.

Russia, China and also Turkey — which stepped up a crackdown on wanted fugitives in the wake of the 2016 failed coup bid against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — are regarded as the most egregious abusers of the red notice.

    But they are now being joined by a growing number of autocratically-ruled Latin American and Middle Eastern states.

– ‘No detailed information’ –

“There isn’t detailed public information around which states issue the most politically motivated or abusive Red Notices,” complained Alex Mik, Campaigns and Networks Director of the justice NGO Fair Trials.

“As well as Russia, China and Turkey, we’ve seen examples from Egypt, Azerbaijan, UAE, Venezuela, Iran, Indonesia, Bahrain, and more.”

After persecution and torture at home on Egypt, Sayed Abdellatif fled his home country and sought asylum in Australia in 2012.

But he was detained on the basis of an Interpol red notice issued by Interpol at Cairo’s request and spent five years held in a refugee detention centre before the warrant was lifted.

Footballer Hakeem al-Araibi, who was granted refugee status and residency in Australia in 2017 after fleeing his native Bahrain, was arrested while on honeymoon in Thailand in November on an Interpol notice.

Following a spell in detention that raised questions about the neutrality of Interpol, he was eventually allowed to go back to Australia.

Turkish-German writer Dogan Akhanli was unable to leave Spain for several months in 2017 after being briefly arrested on the basis of a red notice issued by Turkey.

– ‘Cases are reexamined’ –

From late 2014, the Secretary General of Interpol Juergen Stock launched a reform imposing new controls aimed at better ensuring the system was not abused by member states.

It also reviewed the working of its Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files (CCF) which allows the examination and contestation of red notices.

The controversies come during a turbulent period for the group that saw its previous president, a former Chinese police official arrested by his home country, and his potential replacement by a Russian official raise fears of Kremlin meddling.

Financier Bill Browder, once a key investor in Russia who has hounded the Kremlin since the death in a Moscow prison of his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009, has been the target of repeated notices and even called a best-selling book about his experience “Red Notice”.

In comments to AFP, Stock defended the system, saying that “the review of notices and diffusions is done based on the information available at the time the request is made.”

“Whenever new and relevant information is brought to the attention of the General Secretariat, the case is re-examined,” he said.

– ‘Preposterous situations’ –

But Alain Bauer, professor of criminology at France’s National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts (CNAM), said greater and faster oversight was needed.

“There needs to be a speeding up of the timescale in which the CCF is used, with a kind of referral procedure for particularly preposterous situations.”

But Bauer argued completely ending the controversies is a near impossible task.

“Otherwise you will end up destroying what the whole machine was set up for in the first place. Interpol is an institution for transmitting information. And there are also true criminals in dictatorships”.

Also controversial are countries’ recourse to Interpol diffusions, which are less formal than a Red Notice but still serve as an international alert mechanism.

Stock insisted that Interpol is not “blind to the realities of shifting geopolitical situations. Interpol was created because of them.”

“It is precisely our efforts in supporting international police cooperation, especially where diplomatic relations do not exist, or when armed conflicts rage, which makes Interpol a vital part of global security.”

Eight Asean countries agreed on Asean Payment Connectivity, which aims to cut transaction fees for migrants, tourists and businesses, during the meeting of Asean Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in Chiang Rai Wednesday.

Bank of Thailand (BOT) Governor Veerathai Santiprabhob and Perry Warjiyo, governor of Bank Indonesia (BI) signed the memorandum of understanding on Cooperation in the Area of Payment Systems and Financial Innovation.

Veerathai and Bank of Laos governor Sonexay Sitphaxay also signed an MoU on Cooperation in the Areas of Financial Innovation and Payments Systems. The MoU targets enhanced collaboration on financial innovations and payment services to promote more efficient and secured domestic and cross-border transactions as well as to promote the use of local currencies.

The two central banks are working together to develop interoperable QR Code for payments and real-time remittance to facilitate cross-border retail payment services between Laos and Thailand.

“Our financial institutions have been collaborating to offer cross-border QR payments to enable easy and convenient payments for Lao and Thai tourists, as well as for SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises] in both countries to receive payments in an efficient, convenient way. Progress was also achieved in the area of corporate funds transfers between the two countries using blockchain technology,” said a BOT statement.

Thanachart Bank (TBANK) has already joined the initiative for cross-border QR payment. TBANK has partnered with BCEL (Banque Pour Le Commerce Exterieur Lao Public), the largest commercial bank with the biggest market share in electronic banking in Laos, to launch QR payments for Lao tourists visiting Thailand.

“The two banks will officially launch QR payment services for Thai tourists visiting Laos,” said Anuwat Luengtaweekul, executive vice president of TBANK.

The Thai central bank also agreed to cooperate with central banks in Cambodia, Malaysia Myanmar, Philippines and Singapore on financial connectivity.

Banks and non-bank operators in Asean have joined the bandwagon.

“Today, we have witnessed collaboration among banks, non-banks and card companies to develop cross-border payment services using modern technologies, ranging from interoperable QR Code, Blockchain technology, Application Programming Interface [API], and card networks. These new services can serve the needs of different customer segments; improve efficiency of the regional financial system; facilitate business transactions and international trade; reduce the cost of service providers and customers; and enhance financial inclusion for a broad range of Asean population,” said Veerathai.

“The cooperation will cut the cost of exchange-rate risk and streamline financial transactions,” said BOT assistant governor Siritida Panomwon na Ayudhya.

Currently, migrants who send money back to their hometowns face high service fee for remittances. For example, people in Thailand transferring US$500 (Bt16,000) out of the country are charged a $36.40 service fee while the fees in Singapore and Malaysia are $16 and $15.50 respectively, she added.

Among Asean financial institutions, CIMB Group is already providing a cross-border money transfer service. CIMB has introduced the so-called SpeedSend for some years and plans to aggressively expand this market segment this year.

The group’s money transfer service uses API technology. It is an international remittance service offered at affordable fees and attractive rates, the group said. Not only does SpeedSend connect the 10 Asean countries, it also connects Asean with 31 other countries worldwide. This has been achieved through the adoption of API technology and establishment of partnerships and strategic alliances with financial institutions and other money transfer operators.

Currently, the majority of transactions originating at CIMB Thai are money transfers to Philippines.

“Customers will enjoy speedy delivery with our vast network and can collect the money in just minutes. Our large network base and same-day delivery for cash-to-cash service will enable your family and friends to collect money within 10 minutes, with service fee starting at Bt150 per transaction ” said Paisan Thumpothong, executive vice president at CIMB Thai Bank.

                                                                                                                                         U Kyaw Kyaw Maung

U Kyaw Kyaw Maung, governor of Myanmar Central Bank, said migrant Myanmar workers – estimated to number 3 million in Thailand – would benefit from the remittance service provided by Krung Thai Bank and Myanmar-based Shwe Bank.

Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said that Thailand and Singapore will next year link Thai PromptPay and Singapore’s PayNow, which are payment systems that tie bank accounts with mobile phones, allowing customers to use mobile application for financial transactions.