The move could spark more cancellations from other major carriers, an aviation analyst said, as Boeing and US federal regulators get set to face their first public grilling by Congress since the deadly incidents.

“We have sent a letter to Boeing requesting that the order be cancelled,” Garuda spokesman Ikhsan Rosan said.

“The reason is that Garuda passengers in Indonesia have lost trust and no longer have the confidence” in the plane, he said, adding that the airline was awaiting a response from Boeing.

    Boeing officials will visit Indonesia next week to discuss Garuda’s plans to call off the order, he told AFP.

Garuda had already received one of the planes, Rosan said, part of a 50-aircraft order worth $4.9 billion at list prices when it was announced in 2014.

Garuda is also talking to Boeing about whether or not to return the plane it has in its fleet, the spokesman said.

The Indonesian carrier had so far paid Boeing about $26 million, while the company’s head told local media outlet Detik that it would consider switching to a new version of the single-aisle jet.

“In principle, it’s not that we want to replace Boeing, but maybe we will replace (these planes) with another model,” Garuda Indonesia director I Gusti Ngurah Askhara Danadiputra told Detik.

A Boeing spokeswoman in Singapore told AFP on Friday: “We do not comment on customer discussions.”

– ‘Probably not the last’ –

Shukor Yusof, head of Malaysia-based aviation consultancy Endau Analytics, said Garuda’s announcement appeared to mark the first formal plans by a carrier to cancel an order for the 737 MAX 8.

It “will probably not be the last. There is a risk that Garuda’s rival Lion Air, which also has many 737 MAX 8 orders, might make the same decision,” he said.

“That is a risk. This has been made public by the Lion Air CEO. He stated publicly that he is considering” a cancellation.

But he added that it was difficult to predict whether more major carriers would follow suit.

“There are many unanswered questions and each airline has specific needs,” Yusof said.

This month, Lion Air said it was postponing delivery of four of the jets after an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 went down minutes into a flight to Nairobi, killing all 157 people on board.

The Ethiopian tragedy came after a Lion Air jet of the same model crashed in Indonesia in October, killing all 189 people on board.

Budget carrier Lion — Southeast Asia’s biggest airline by fleet size and a major Boeing customer — said the now-postponed planes had been on track for delivery this year.

Lion did not immediately respond to AFP’s request Friday for comment on its current plans following Garuda’s announcement.

Lion Air operates 10 Max 8 jets, part of a then-record $22 billion order from Boeing made in 2011.

The airlines are the only two that use the Max 8 in Indonesia.

Both crashed planes reportedly experienced erratic steep climbs and descents as well as fluctuating airspeeds before crashing shortly after takeoff.

Investigators have honed in on an automated anti-stalling system introduced on the plane that is designed to point the nose of the plane downward if it is in danger of stalling.

From now on, all Boeing’s state-of-the-art model will be outfitted with a warning light for malfunctions in the anti-stall system, an industry source told AFP Thursday, standardising a feature previously sold as an expensive optional extra.

The development comes as the US manufacturer struggles to cope with the fallout from the two crashes, which have cast a spotlight on the safety certification process and shaken confidence in a plane that is crucial to its future plans.

Boeing and the US Federal Aviation Administration are under investigation by the Transportation Department for how the rollout of the jet was handled, including the anti-stall system.

Paramilitary police officers and a medical staff transfer an injuried man as smoke rises from an explosion site behind them in Yancheng in China’s eastern Jiangsu province on March 21, 2019. // AFP PHOTO

At least six people were killed and dozens more injured in the blast that shook an industrial park in the city of Yancheng, Jiangsu province.

    Here are some of the worst accidents to hit China in recent years:

– Zhangjiakou gas leak –

In November, a gas leak at a plant in the northern Chinese city of Zhangjiakou — among the host locations for the 2022 Winter Olympics — killed 24 people and injured 21 others.

Leaked chloroethylene came in contact with a fire source causing the explosion, authorities said in a February report that revealed the Chinese chemical firm responsible for the accident had concealed information and misled investigators.

Authorities pointed to the company’s lack of safety measures and “chaotic” management for contributing to the blast.

– Sichuan chemical plant –

Last July, a blast at a chemical plant in southwest Sichuan province left 19 dead and 12 injured. The company had undertaken illegal construction that had not passed safety checks, according to local authorities.

Photos of the plant showed what appeared to be the burned-out shell of a building surrounded by rubble.

Fire and smoke rise from the site of an explosion in Yancheng in China’s eastern Jiangsu province on March 21, 2019. // AFP PHOTO

– Beijing lab explosion –

Three students were killed in a laboratory blast at a Beijing university in December in an accident that blew out windows and left the building a blackened shell.

A scientific research experiment on wastewater treatment in the university’s environmental engineering laboratory had caused the explosion.

– Tianjin blast –

In 2015, giant chemical blasts at a container storage facility killed at least 165 people in the northern port city of Tianjin.

The explosions caused more than $1 billion in damage and sparked widespread anger at a perceived lack of transparency over the accident’s causes and its environmental impact.

Truong Duy Nhat wrote weekly posts about politics and current affairs for Radio Free Asia (RFA) and last posted about the prospects for change in Vietnam in light of major anti-government demonstrations in Venezuela.

All independent media is banned in Vietnam and bloggers, activists and rights lawyers are routinely jailed. The one-party state has seen an uptick of arrests under a hardline leadership in charge since 2016, with nearly 60 put behind bars last year according to an AFP tally.

Nhat, 55, fled to Thailand in January and applied for refugee status with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, according to RFA.

    His employer and family lost contact with him soon after and he has not been heard from since. The UN said does not comment on individual cases.

Nhat’s friend Pham Xuan Nguyen said he visited Hanoi’s T-16 jail on Wednesday and received confirmation Nhat was being held there.

“I took Nhat’s wife to the jail yesterday. I saw the book the jail gave to her to register future visits,” he told AFP Thursday.

“Inside the book, the date of his arrest was written January, 28 2019… it said that he was transferred to the jail the same day,” he said, adding that they did not see Nhat.

The blogger’s wife Cao Thi Xuan Phuong confirmed the account to AFP, declining to comment further.

His daughter Truong Thuc Doan, who lives in Canada, said she believes he was taken from Thailand against his will.

“It’s clear that my father did not voluntarily go back to Vietnam,” she told RFA.

The circumstances of Nhat’s return have not been confirmed by Hanoi and he has not yet been formally charged.

This is Nhat’s second prison stint. He was jailed for two years in 2014 for “abusing democratic freedoms” after writing blogs critical of Vietnam’s communist leadership.

Hanoi has in the past forcibly returned corruption suspects, including a former state oil executive kidnapped by Vietnamese security agents from a Berlin park in 2017.

Last year a fugitive spy was sent back from Singapore to face trial for divulging state secrets.

    Hanoians were shocked by the death of the critically endangered Swinhoe softshell turtle in 2016, believing its passing was a sign of ominous times ahead.

The reptile is believed to be the last in a long line of large turtles in the city’s central Hoan Kiem lake, revered as symbols of Vietnam’s independence struggle according to mythical lore passed down for generations.

Nicknamed “Cu Rua” which means “great grandparent turtle”, it was thought to be between 80 and 100 years old when it died.

    Visitors welcomed the turtle’s resurrection at the popular Ngoc Son temple on Hoan Kiem lake, where the 170-kilogram (375-pound) creature was put on display last week, sitting atop a red carpet in a glass case with an ornately carved wooden frame.

“It’s great to see it here. Everyone can admire it now, a symbol of Hanoi,” tourist Tran Thi Anh told AFP Thursday.

The enormous creature sits near another which was similarly embalmed and encased in glass in 1968.

They are not the only preserved heroes in Vietnam: the country’s revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh is on display at a sprawling concrete and grass Ba Dinh square in the city’s French Quarter.

And in a unique take on the encasing custom, a restaurant owner who served Hanoi’s famous pork noodles to the late chef Anthony Bourdain and former US president Barack Obama has preserved their dining table in a glass box.

The turtles on display at Hoan Kiem lake — which means “Lake of the Restored Sword” in Vietnamese — are believed to be the protectors of an ancient sword in the green-tinged waters.

According to popular legend, former emperor Le Loi was given the weapon in the 15th century by the lake’s Golden Turtle God, which he used to fight off Chinese invaders before returning it to Hoan Kiem.

There are believed to be just four surviving Swinhoe turtles left in the world — two in a Chinese zoo and two others in Vietnam, according to the Asian Turtles Program.

Superstition is ubiquitous in Vietnam, and any sightings of the giant turtles are deemed auspicious.

The same holds true today for other turtle species living in the lake.

“I just saw some smaller turtles coming to the surface of the lake… it seems good luck to see them, don’t you think?” said visitor Nguyen Tri Ton, laughing.

“It’s good they embalmed Mr Turtles here to keep them alive for all the people of Vietnam,” he added.

Local officials initially tried to suppress news of Cu Rua’s death in 2016, fearing it would be seen as bad luck ahead of a party congress to choose the country’s top leaders.

Mayor Datuk Nor Hisham Ahmad Dahlan said he has yet to receive any feedback from the Singapore-based company.

“No word from them,’’ he said when asked about the matter, adding the company has until April 15 to respond.

“We will go ahead and sell them as scrap if we do not hear from them before the deadline,’’ Nor Hisham said.

“It is something that is happening everywhere, not just DBKL. “Even in MBPJ (Petaling Jaya City Council) and MPSJ (Subang Jaya Municipal Council), I hear their depots are filled with oBikes,’’ he said.

When told about requests that DBKL donate the bicycles to poor children or educational institutions so they could be utilised, Nor Hisham replied it was not practical.

“The bicycles are all in bad shape, vandalised, broken and are missing many components. We will sell it (for scrap).”

StarMetro in its front-page story “Broken cycle of hope” on March 13 had reported that thousands of the yellow bicycles were piling up at DBKL depots.

DBKL enforcement officers had to collect the bicycles that had been left to rot around the city.

oBike is an on-demand and dock-less bicycle-sharing platform.

Users who downloaded the app could search and reserve a bike, and use a QR code to unlock it.

oBike was off to a flying start in Kuala Lumpur when the company partnered with DBKL to provide free rides during the 2017 SEA Games in August that year.

However, things fell apart soon after, and the problem of uncollected bicycles and complaints of obstruction started cropping up.

oBike was launched in February 2017 in Singapore. It ceased operation on June 25 last year and subsequently filed for insolvency.

The service had a presence in 24 countries, including Australia, Thailand, Taiwan and several European countries.

However, it ran into problems in many places due to fines imposed by the local authorities for having to collect the abandoned bicycles.

Seungri filed an application Monday to delay his enlistment, requesting that it be postponed while the case is under investigation.

The MMA said his original enlistment date of March 25 has been delayed for three months, with the possibility of an additional extension.

On Tuesday, drug use was added to the still-growing list of allegations against the 29-year-old singer, which notably includes procuring prostitutes and illegal gambling.

According to local broadcaster TV Chosun, investigators from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency privately summoned Seungri for questioning Monday after a nightclub staff member testified that the singer had used illegal drugs.

The probe, however, reportedly is in trouble, as the exact time and place of the supposed drug use has not been revealed. Seungri has firmly denied any drug use, the report said.

The singer voluntarily cooperated with the investigation, appearing before police and submitting samples Feb. 27, and a drug test produced negative results. However, with the new testimony, police have resumed the drug use investigation.

Read also: Arrest warrant sought for Jung Joon-young

Meanwhile, a Chinese national known as Anna who worked at the Burning Sun club tested positive for multiple drugs, local media outlets reported Tuesday.

Anna reportedly worked as a promoter for the club and was tasked with taking care of VIP customers from China. She is now under police probe on allegations of selling drugs to clubgoers.

According to Seoul police on Tuesday, Anna’s hair and urine samples tested positive for party drugs ketamine and ecstasy.

After more than six hours of questioning, Anna reportedly admitted to using drugs but denied selling them, claiming she had received them from Chinese customers.

Police said they are searching for the identities of Chinese customers and investigating whether the club’s employees knew about drug use at the club.

The Seoul Central District Court on Tuesday night dismissed an arrest warrant request for Burning Club CEO Lee Moon-ho. “It’s difficult to accept the necessity of arresting the suspect at this time” in consideration of many factors, including the process of the investigation, the suspect’s attitude during the probe and his lack of any criminal history, the court said.

While Lee has denied using drugs and said he did not know that drugs were traded at his club, he tested positive in a drug test, although police did not specify the drug or drugs.

Police said they would make another request for an arrest warrant after investigating further, as they found that Lee had paid a former police officer to cover up the fact that Burning Sun let minors enter the club illegally.

Early on Monday morning, a Chinese-American man, Wan, had a heated argument with his spouse, Chang, at Taiwan’s Taoyuan Inter­national Airport.

When they reached a stairway on the fourth floor, he scooped her up and tossed her over the guardrails.

During the 15m fall, Chang hit a side wall before she was caught by a safety net, Taiwanese media reported.

Shortly after she fell, Wan leapt over the guardrails and landed on top of her.Chang lost consciousness from head injuries while her husband suffered fractured ribs.

The bloodied pair were later freed from the safety net by airport security staff and taken to Min-Sheng General Hospital for treatment.

According to Taiwanese police, the incident took place at the departure hall of Terminal 2.

The couple, who had flown to Taiwan to visit Chang’s family for Chinese New Year last month, had an argument over domestic affairs.

When the incident happened, Chang was trying to stop her husband from returning to the United States, where they are based.

On Tuesday, Apple Daily Taiwan reported that Chang had regained consciousness and her vital signs were stable.

She has been transferred to another hospital for further treatment.

Police said Wan, who has since been discharged from hospital, is now under investigation for attempted homicide.

When reporters asked why he threw his wife off the stairway, the agitated man said: “I have died today; I don’t have a tomorrow.”

Wan also refused to cooperate with Taiwanese police, and said repeatedly: “I’m an American citizen – Trump, please save me.”

When Richard Hill posed for this picture, he did not realise Lamduan Armitage’s body was wrapped around the rocks behind him. // Photo: Richard Hill

For 15 years, Lamduan Armitage, nee Seekanya, lay buried as an unidentified woman in northern England, thousands of kilometres from her homeland. An investigation into her death, long shelved as a cold case, has now resumed, with Lamduan’s British husband firmly denying any wrongdoing.

“We want her skeleton back for a ritual based on northeastern beliefs and traditions,” Lamduan’s mother Joomsri Seekanya said yesterday at her home in Udon Thani.

Joomsri, 72, and her husband Buasa, 75, had not heard from Lamduan since 2004.

“The last time she called us, she said her husband assaulted her and she wanted to come home,” Joomsri said. “So what do you expect us to think about it?”

Lamduan’s widower, David Armitage has reportedly been living in Thailand for years, working as a schoolteacher. Yesterday he denied killing her.

The London-based Sun tabloid quoted Armitage, 55, as saying, “I didn’t kill my wife. Absolutely not!”

Recent DNA tests have confirmed that the body of an Asian woman discovered near Pen-y-ghent in the vast, rural dales was that of Lamduan.

Police did not at first suspect foul play, but evidence mounted hinting at the possibility of murder. A British coroner rendered an “open verdict”, meaning there was no proof as to the cause of death.

Lamduan’s parents, worried when she no longer called them, sold off their cattle and land to finance a search. They told reporters that during her last visit home, Lamduan husband had urged them to sell their land in response her husband’s urging.

“We spent Bt330,000 and found nothing,” Joomsri said earlier this year.

She said yesterday her grandson – one of three children Lamduan had with Armitage – once visited on his own, looking for his mother. He’d heard that she’d left England to marry another man. “But I never heard she’d remarried,” Joomsri said.

The parents were in the news after a former neighbour who married a Briton and moved to England returned home with a police sketch of “the Lady of the Hills”.

Cold case investigators released an artist’s impression of the woman found near Pen-y-ghen. // NORTH YORKSHIRE POLICE

“She saw the sketch online and thought it looked like Lamduan in some ways,” Joomsri said. The neighbour helped Joomsri contact a network of Thai women living in Britain. The network in turn arranged for the DNA tests that identified the mystery woman as Lamduan.

Lamduan’s parents are currently focused on arranging their daughter’s funeral. “Let the police handle the legal proceedings against the murderer,” Joomsri said.

Justice Ministry deputy permanent secretary Tawatchai Thaikyo said such matters could be brought before a Thai court even when the suspect is a foreigner and the crime is committed overseas.

“The court can render verdicts in such cases and also order compensation be paid to victims,” he said.

For the past 15 years Lamduan has lain buried in a churchyard in Horton-in-Ribblesdale, a town close to where she was found, the service paid for by the local parish.

The gravestone bears a plaque that reads, “The Lady of the Hills. Found September 20, 2004. Name Not Known. Rest in Peace.”

Photo: BBC

The French capital was the only eurozone city in the top 10, rising from second most expensive last year and from seventh position two years ago.

Paris is “extremely expensive to live in”, with an average two-piece business suit for men setting buyers back around $2,000 and a typical women’s haircut costing $120, it found.

Only “alcohol, transport and tobacco” offer value for money compared with other European cities, the survey said.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) said it was the first time in the more than three decades of the survey that three cities were equally ranked top, after Singapore led the chart outright a year earlier.

The top ten list was dominated by Asian and European cities, with Osaka and Seoul in joint fifth and joint seventh places respectively, and Zurich ( 4th ), Geneva (joint 5th) and Copenhagen (joint 7th) also in the elite club.

North America was represented by the US cities of New York, seventh, and Los Angeles, tied 10th with Israel’s Tel Aviv.

Read also: These are the world’s most expensive cities for expats

Currency appreciation, inflation and devaluation as well as political upheaval played a part in this year’s rankings, said EIU, which surveyed 133 cities worldwide.

It compared 400 individual prices across 160 products and services, including food and drink, clothing, home rental, transport, schooling and recreation.

The survey is aimed at helping companies calculate compensation packages and allowances for expatriate staff and business travelers.

Caracas dethroned Damascus as the world’s cheapest city amid a power struggle in Venezuela that plunged the country into a deepening crisis.

“As Damascus and Caracas show, a growing number of locations are becoming cheaper because of the impact of political or economic disruption,” EIU said.

Asia’s economic divide was underscored, with cities including Bangalore ( 129th ), Karachi ( 127th ), Chennai ( 125th ) and New Delhi ( 123rd ) ranking near the bottom.

“Put simply, cheaper cities also tend to be less liveable,” EIU said.

In his statement, Don said it has been his pleasure to witness the achievements of the cooperation, which have far exceeded expectations since Thailand’s first proposal for its establishment in 2012.

The third anniversary of MLC – which comprises six Mekong riparian nations, namely China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand – falls this week.

On Monday, two memorandums of understanding were signed at the Foreign Ministry in Bangkok and an exhibition was launched to mark the occasion.

Don said over the past three years, MLC has successfully convened two leaders’ meetings and four foreign ministers’ meetings.

“Moreover, our collective efforts and China’s proactive role in the sub-region have resulted in the establishment of several institutional mechanisms, such as the MLC Water Resources Cooperation Centre, the MLC Environment Cooperation Centre and the MLC Special Fund, to further enhance our cooperation,” he said.

The implementation of cooperation was in five priority areas, namely connectivity, production capacity, water resource, cross-border economy and agriculture, and poverty reduction.

These cooperations have advanced at an impressive pace, Don said.

“The tangible outcomes echo the shared aspirations inscribed in the Sanya Declaration, the Phnom Penh Declaration as well as the MLC Five-Year Plan of Action,” he said.

Given the present momentum, he is convinced that the MLC cooperation will further flourish in the years to come.

“Thailand, as Asean chair and a strong advocate of Acmecs [Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy], is determined to work closely with our MLC family to advance multidimensional connectivity in the sub-region to build a community of shared peace, prosperity and sustainability,” Don stated.