Unlike most brides who receive gold, money or the latest brand name bags as a dowry, Intan received a diamond necklace set and mutual funds published by nine different asset management companies.

“I chose mutual funds as a dowry because our passion is to invest in our future. We also know that the Indonesian capital market generated the biggest return in the past 10 years,” said Teja as quoted by tempo.co.

Speaking to The Jakarta Post on Tuesday, Teja said he and his wife worked in the capital market industry and it was his idea to give mutual funds as a dowry.

“Fortunately, [Intan] agreed to it,” said Teja.

“My wife is also a [stock] trader, so she’s used to opening stock trading apps and buying capital market products,” said Teja, “She personally chose the mutual funds.”

The stock market enthusiast shared that he had initially planned to buy stocks instead of mutual funds but his employer did not allow him to do so. However, among the nine mutual funds, the majority are equity funds.

Teja hoped he could educate the public about stock savings through his wedding.

Since the wedding went viral, Teja has been receiving messages from strangers on Instagram, asking him to teach them about stocks and mutual funds.

Teja shared that there were plenty of opportunities to learn about the capital market, such as through the Indonesia Stock Exchange’s (IDX) representative offices in each province and various Instagram accounts.

“[You can take] the capital market classes. You will get knowledge, a learning module and even free snacks and lunch,” he said.

As for avid social media users, Teja recommended following @ngertisaham and @pahamsahamon Instagram as the two accounts frequently shared information about the capital market.

“If you are still confused [do not hesitate] to send a direct message to the admin,” he said.

In addition to the two platforms, Teja shared that many investor communities could help aspiring investors.

“There are securities companies in [other provinces] that can help guide aspiring investors,” he said.

The accused, who also include chief executives, financiers, the chairman of a prominent law firm, a winemaker and fashion designer, allegedly cheated on admissions tests and arranged for bribes to get their children into prestigious schools including Yale, Stanford, Georgetown and the University of Southern California, federal prosecutors said.

They paid a bogus charity run by Californian William Singer more than $25 million over seven years both to arrange for people to fix SAT and ACT entrance exams for their children, and also to bribe university sports coaches to recruit their children, even when the children were not qualified to play at that level.

The case sparked outrage across the country, especially among parents who stress about the intense competition for places in universities and, more broadly, about privileged behavior among the richest Americans.

    In all, 50 people were charged: 33 parents who paid to give their kids undeserved entry into high-end college life; 13 university sports coaches and test organization operators; and Singer and three others who operated the fraudulent scheme.

Thirteen of those accused, including Huffman, were arrested and slated for arraignment late Tuesday in Los Angeles. Others appeared in courts in Boston, New York, Connecticut and elsewhere. Loughlin was not arrested because she was in Canada.

None of the universities or the companies who run the tests were implicated, and none of the students involved were charged.

“These parents are a catalogue of wealth and privilege,” said Andrew Lelling, the US attorney in Boston, Massachusetts where the case was announced.

“Every year hundreds of thousands of hard-working, talented students strive for admission to elite schools,” he said.

“There can be no separate college admission system for the wealthy, and, I’ll add, there will not be a separate criminal justice system, either.”

– Preying on parental anxiety –

The scheme aimed to take advantage of the two years of the anxiety s parents across the United States often endure as they put high school-age children through the standardized tests needed to gain entry into heavily competitive colleges and universities.

Even legally, wealth plays a role. Parents who can afford to pay heavily for test preparation and have their children take the tests two or three times to better their scores.

In this case, however, Singer arranged for someone to take the test for the students, or paid insiders to fix their scores.

And, in a second part of the scheme, the “side door” operation, Singer would create bogus athletic profiles for the students and manage payoffs to university coaches in minor sports like soccer, crew, water polo and sailing so that the student could be accepted on that basis.

The payments were made to Singer’s fake Newport Beach, California charity, Key Worldwide Foundation, and to non-profits managed by the coaches, which allowed the parents to deduct the payoffs and bribes from their taxes.

Singer agreed to plead guilty to fraud charges and assisted investigators in obtaining evidence against his customers and co-conspirators.

 – Not ‘Shameless’ –

Parents paid as little as $15,000 and as much as $6 million to benefit from Singer’s operation.

Huffman, 56, and her husband William Macy, the star of Showtime’s hit series “Shameless,” paid $15,000 for their first daughter to perform well on the test, but decided not to do the same with their second daughter. Macy was mentioned in the case but not charged.

Loughlin, the 54-year-old star of “Full House,” and her fashion designer husband Mossimo Giannulli allegedly paid $500,000 to gain their two daughters entry into University of Southern California as coxswains for crew teams — a sport they hadn’t participated in before.

Gordon Caplan, co-chairman of New York law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, allegedly paid $75,000 to have his daughter’s test grades fixed.

And William McGlashan, an executive at the huge investment group TPG Capital who specialized in technology investments, allegedly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for both testing and being placed in University of Southern California as a student athlete.

“What is going to happen when they see his application, he’ll be flagged as an athlete,” Singer told him in a phone conversation recorded by investigators.

“But once he gets here, he just goes, he doesn’t go to athletic orientation, He goes to the regular orientation like all my other kids just did… and everything’s fine.”

Coaches, including the women’s soccer coach at Yale University and the sailing coach at Stanford University, took between $200,000 and $400,000 to accept the students onto their teams.

Some attempted to ply the sport and then quit; some claimed injuries and never joined the teams, others, Lelling said, “simply never showed up” to play.

“I admit to all of my sins,” the 30-year-old K-pop star said in a statement. “I filmed women without their consent, shared the videos in a SNS group chat and did such behavior without feeling any sense of guilt.”

He then apologized to the victims of his wrongdoings.

“Most of all, I kneel down to apologize to the women who appear in the videos and all those who might be disappointed and upset at this shocking incident,” Jung said.

He said he will pull himself out from all TV shows where he has appeared, halt all activities in the entertainment scene and “put everything down” as a public figure.

“I’ll repent for my unethical and unlawful behaviors, which constitute criminal acts, for the rest of my life.”

The singer-songwriter and TV celebrity, best known for his part in KBS’ variety show “2 Days & 1 Night,” is under a police probe over suspicions that he uploaded his own sex videos in a KakaoTalk group chat. Fellow entertainers, including popular boy band BIGBANG’s member Seungri, were members of the chat.

On Tuesday night, Jung hurriedly returned home from Los Angeles where he was filming the third season of a tvN variety show as the issue sparked large public outrage.

The police said Jung is believed to have recorded the videos between 2015 and 2016 without the consent of the women he slept with, doing so with at least 10 women.

(Yonhap)

The allegations come amid a widening police probe into Seungri, who’s accused of providing escort services to his potential business partners for lobbying. Seungri said Monday he was retiring from the entertainment industry.

“I’ll sincerely cooperate with the police investigation that will begin on Thursday morning and receive due punishment for what I have done,” he said in a statement.

Jung and Seungri are scheduled to appear before the police on Thursday to be questioned over their charges.

This would be Seungri’s second appearance before the police in connection with his charges of brokering prostitution for investors but the first time as a criminal suspect.

Meanwhile, star agencies whose artists’ names have been mentioned in online rumors about Jung Joon-young’s videos warned of legal measures against those who spread “false rumors.”

SM Entertainment was quick to release a statement on Tuesday when a member of its top boy group, EXO, was mentioned as a possible member of the group chat where the sex videos were shared.

“It is a groundless rumor,” the agency said. “We’ll take all legal measures against those who are found to have committed unlawful acts (of writing, uploading and spreading the rumors) without any mercy,” it said.

JYP Entertainment also instantly denied rumors that a member of its girl group, TWICE, is possibly one of the women in the videos. “We’ll take all possible legal measures against those who first uploaded the rumors and spread them,” it said. They were followed by talent agencies of actresses Jung Yu-mi and Lee Chung-ah releasing similar statements to deny rumors on Wednesday.

The claim, detailed in two reports published in a Chinese science journal, is the latest in a series of biomedical advances in the country, some of which have fuelled medical ethics debates.

Most recently a Chinese scientist claimed last year he had altered the DNA of babies to make them HIV-proof.

A research team from the Institute of Neuroscience at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai said it had altered the genes of a macaque to give it a circadian rhythm disorder, in which the body’s “clock” is out of sync with normal sleep times.

They went on to clone five macaques from that individual, and found that the new monkeys – born over the past six months – show signs of mental problems associated with sleep disorders including depression, anxiety and behaviours linked to schizophrenia.

The findings, published in the English-language journal National Science Review, were hailed as a world first by Chinese media.

The report’s authors said the findings could aid research into human psychological illnesses because scientists would be able to create animals with specific disorders.

Poo Muming, the director of the neuroscience institute and the study’s co-author, told state media the research team would seek to clone more monkeys with different brain disorders in hopes that future experiments on them could yield new drugs or treatment.

He said this could also reduce the overall numbers of healthy macaques that are subjected to experiments around the world, in a boost for animal welfare.

The same Shanghai institute previously made news in January 2018 by announcing researchers had cloned the first two monkeys using a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer.

The method was the same used to produce the celebrated sheep “Dolly” more than 20 years ago.

Other species were subsequently cloned via the method over the years but primates had until last year proven difficult to clone and the team’s achievement was hailed as a breakthrough.

But such advancements often stir controversy.

Chinese researcher He Jiankui shocked the scientific community after revealing that he had successfully gene-edited twin girls born in November to prevent them from contracting HIV.

“We have received information that the wife blew herself and the children up at 1:30 a.m.,” National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Dedi Prasetyo told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

He said police had yet to enter the scene to gather forensic evidence as they needed to ensure there were no more explosives inside the residence.

“They suspect some explosive materials are still there. It’s dangerous for the personnel,” Dedi added.

Abu Hamzah is suspected of being affiliated with the outlawed homegrown pro-Islamic State (IS) movement terror group Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD). He was arrested after the police’s Densus 88 antiterror squad received information from another terror suspect, identified as Ro, in Lampung last weekend. Another suspect was also arrested after Ro.

The police had used Husein to persuade his wife to surrender by talking to her through a mosque loudspeaker.

“Peace be unto you. It’s me. I am all good here. Please give up. Love our children,” Husein said in a local language.

A police officer was injured on Tuesday after an explosive device went off during a terror raid at Husein’s house.

The incident took place only days before President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s scheduled visit to Sibolga to inaugurate a port on Sunday.

“Running to catch flight ER 302 Addis Ababa – Nairobi… I had my nerves because there was no one to help me go fast,” Mavropoulos wrote on now-viral Facebook post translated from Greek.

“I lost it for two minutes, when I arrived, the boarding was closed and I watched the last passengers in tunnel go in – I screamed to put me in but they didn’t allow it,” he continued.

But it took also just minutes for Mavropoulos to realize how “lucky” he was.

Mavropoulos is president of the non-profit organization International Solid Waste Association and was reportedly bound to Nairobi, Kenya to attend an annual UN environmental assembly.

He could have also been on the Ethiopian Airlines plane bound for Nairobi that crashed six minutes after takeoff Sunday, killing more than 150 people on board.

Grief has engulfed the world as victims, mostly humanitarian workers, ambassador, and international experts, came from more than 35 countries.

In the same emotional post entitled “My Lucky Day,” Mavropoulos shared a photo of his boarding pass and said, “I lost the flight – the moment I made that thought I collapsed because then exactly I realized how lucky I stood.”

As of this writing, the post has amassed more than twenty thousand reactions and above six thousand shares.

The Greek man narrated that he was transferred to the next flight but was informed by airport authorities that he couldn’t board again because of “security reasons.”

He said he was taken to the airport police department to verify his identity and was questioned for being the lone passenger who did not board the doomed flight.

“He told me gently not to protest and say thank you to God because I am the only passenger who did not enter the flight ET 302 which is missing,” Mavropoulos said.

He said a friend from Nairobi confirmed that the flight crashed and that the news had been out in the media.

He immediately contacted his people and informed them that “for two small random circumstances,” he lost the flight.

Mavropoulos added he was sharing his story to tell the world that “ invisible and nēmatídia of fortune, the out-of-plan circumstances knit the web in which our life is taken.”

“It’s millions of small threads we almost never feel – but one to break is enough to feed the whole web instantly,” he further said.

He also thanked his friends for their “love” and warm support and apologized to his family for the shock, saying that he is “grateful to live.”

“Maybe not too old to rock n roll – but certainly too young to die,” he concluded.

The EU, Unicef and the Thai government also announced on Monday their partnership for the protection of the rights of children affected by migration in the Kingdom, according to a statement from the UN agency.

Nearly 100 representatives from ministries, civil-society organisations, the private sector, the EU and international organisations had gathered at the partnership launch event in Bangkok on Monday.

Although Thailand currently has policies and legislation in place to provide education, healthcare and child-protection services to all children, including those from migrant communities, a large number of migrant children still face multiple challenges in accessing affordable and quality service, the Unicef statement said.

Migrant children are still being left out for many reasons, including social stigma, poverty, frequent movement, and inadequate service coverage, as well as a lack of awareness and knowledge about how to access available services, it added.

“All children, regardless of their migration status, must be protected. We have to ensure their access to education, healthcare and sanitation, social and legal services, and psychological support,” said Pirkka Tapiola, ambassador of the European Union to Thailand.

According to estimates from the International Organisation for Migration, there were some 300,000 to 400,000 child migrants in Thailand as of 2018, many of them undocumented.

In addition, about 145,000 stateless children are registered with the Thai government, according to the Interior Ministry.

“Thailand already has progressive and generous policies, especially in opening its essential services to all children in the country, whether they are Thai nationals, undocumented migrants or stateless children,” said Thomas Davin, representative for Unicef Thailand.

The partnership between the EU and Unicef will help strengthen the national child-protection systems by training professionals and government authorities to identify, refer and assist vulnerable migrant children to ensure their access to social assistance, legal aid, counselling and birth registration.

The programme also aims to end the detention of children for migration-related reasons, while strengthening alternative care options, such as foster care and kinship care for those who are deprived of parental care or are unaccompanied.

“We have advised Eastar Jet, the only South Korean airline that owns the B737-8 (two aircraft) — the same model involved in the Ethiopian Airlines crash — to ground them,” the land, infrastructure and transport ministry said.

“Eastar Jet has agreed to do so, and told us it will suspend the aircraft’s operations starting Wednesday,” it said in a statement.

According to SBS, Jung, 29, took spy cam footage and shared them with his acquaintances via group chats on mobile messenger apps. The 10-months worth of dialogue obtained by SBS start at the end of 2015, and shows that some 10 women had been secretly filmed, the broadcaster said.

One of the group chats included Seungri of BigBang, who is currently under investigation for brokering prostitution for investors.

Jung is also reportedly included in a group chat in which Seungri made orders to procure sexual favors for his clients. Seungri, who has been booked without physical detention on suspicion of doing so, announced he was quitting his entertainment career on Monday.

Read also: Seungri of Big Bang retires amid sex, drug, corruption scandal

Around the end of 2015, Jung reportedly told his friend surnamed Kim that he had had sex with a woman. When his friend asked him for a video clip as proof, he sent a 3-second clip that he secretly took, according to SBS.

Jung also reportedly shared photographs and videos of women who were unconscious, and also footage of body parts of waitresses in hostess bars.

Following the report, Jung’s agency released a short message saying that it was checking facts with him.

Article 14 of the Act on the Punishment of Special Cases of Sexual Crimes, which covers secretly filming victims, stipulates a punishment of up to five years in prison or a penalty of up to 10 million won.

The police have been supplied with the evidence but have yet to start an investigation into Jung, SBS said.

“Boeing has delivered more than 370 737 MAX airplanes to 47 customers. Since its certification and entry into service, the MAX family has completed hundreds of thousands of flights safely. We are confident in the safety of the 737 MAX […],” he said in a message to Boeing employees, a copy of which was available to The Jakarta Post.

He said Boeing was working with regulators and Ethiopian Airlines to investigate the cause of the accident. He also called on the public to focus on the facts and avoid speculation.

“There are still many facts to learn and work to be done. Speculating about the cause of the accident or discussing it without all the necessary facts is not appropriate and could compromise the integrity of the investigation,” Muilenburg said.

He said Boeing expressed sympathies to the families and loved ones of the passengers and crew on board. He also said the Boeing teams were fully supporting its customer and the investigation and providing technical assistance at the request and under the direction of the US National Transportation Safety Board and Ethiopian authorities.

“Though many questions remain at this time, we’re committed to understanding all aspects of this accident,” he said, adding that the tragedy was especially challenging coming only months after the loss of Lion Air flight JT610.

“While we concentrate on this serious matter, we’re adjusting plans as appropriate to ensure the right people and resources are available when and where they need to be around the enterprise. Our objective is to ensure our teams are centered on our priorities, including safety, quality and stability.”

Because of the accident, Boeing had also simplified the 777X rollout activities this week and postponed the plane’s external debut scheduled for Tuesday.

“We’re also further strengthening the support to our 737 team and our ongoing production operations and customer service,” he added.