Last week Mohamad said Israeli swimmers would not be allowed into Malaysia — a Muslim majority country — for a tournament later this year that serves as a qualifying event for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.

Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah on Wednesday insisted the country would “not host events” that have Israeli participation.

“It is about fighting on behalf of the oppressed,” he added.

Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon hit back at the “shameful” decision to bar athletes from the country and said the move “totally opposes the Olympic spirit”.

“Israel condemns the decision inspired no doubt by Malaysia’s PM Mahathir’s rabid anti-Semitism,” he said.

“We call upon the International Paralympic Committee to change this wrong decision or change the venue of the event.”

Kuala Lumpur has rejected pleas from the world sporting body to find a solution to the row.

Malaysia is one of several predominantly Muslim states that have no formal diplomatic ties with Israel. Entry to the country on an Israeli passport is forbidden.

The Palestinian cause has widespread support in Malaysia, as thousands took to the streets in protest when US President Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2017.

Israel occupied Arab east Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it, declaring the entire city its “eternal and indivisible capital”, but Palestinians claim the eastern part as the capital of their own future state.

Malaysia has stopped Israeli athletes from competing in a sports event before. Two Israeli windsurfers had to pull out of a competition on the island of Langkawi after they were refused visas in 2015.

Kuala Lumpur also refused to host a conference for world football’s governing body FIFA in 2017 as an Israeli delegation was due to attend.

Mahathir, now 93 and in his second stint as premier, has in the past attracted criticism for his verbal attacks on Jews, including calling them “hook-nosed”.

The previous government allowed a high-level Israeli delegation to attend a UN conference in Kuala Lumpur in 2018, sparking public anger.

A palace spokeswoman told AFP that the duke was driving near the monarch’s Sandringham Estate when the crash occurred but declined to confirm that it overturned in the incident.

“The Duke of Edinburgh was involved in a road traffic accident with another vehicle this afternoon,” the palace said in a statement.

“The Duke was not injured. The accident took place close to the Sandringham Estate. Local police attended the scene.”

The spokeswoman said he saw a doctor “as a precaution” who confirmed he was not hurt.

Norfolk Police said in an update Thursday night that, in accordance with policy in collisions, it breathalysed both drivers.

“We can confirm both drivers were breath tested and provided negative readings,” the force added.

It said officers were called to the estate shortly before 3:00 p.m. (1500 GMT) “after a Landrover and Kia were involved in a collision”.

“The male driver of the Landrover was uninjured,” it added.

“The female driver of the Kia suffered cuts while the female passenger sustained an arm injury, both requiring hospital treatment”.

They were later discharged from a local hospital, police said.

The BBC reported that Prince Philip’s vehicle flipped on its side after pulling out of a Sandringham driveway onto a main road and colliding with the other car.

Eyewitnesses told the British broadcaster they helped the duke out of the vehicle and he was conscious “but very, very shocked and shaken”.

An image from the accident scene published by a local radio station showed two cars by the side of the road, one on its side with a smashed windscreen and another a few yards away in bushes.

The Press Association reported a passenger in the duke’s vehicle was likely his close protection officer.

– carriage driving –

The royal couple spend most of the winter at the residence in Norfolk, an English county northeast of London, which continues to operate as a sporting estate.

Philip, known for his forthright manner and off-colour jokes, formally retired from public life in 2017.

He has been seen behind the wheel on numerous occasions over the decade, including with world leaders and dignitaries as his passengers.

In 2016, alongside the Queen he drove former US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle around Windsor Castle in a Range Rover after they landed nearby in the presidential helicopter.

Meanwhile the duke continued to compete in demanding carriage driving competitions into his 80s, and has previously pulled muscles in his back while driving his horse-drawn carriage.

After announcing his retirement, Philip described in an interview how he took up carriage driving when he gave up polo aged 50, helping to establish it as a sport in subsequent years.

Born a prince of Greece and Denmark, he married then princess Elizabeth on November 20, 1947 at Westminster Abbey in London.

On their golden wedding anniversary in 1997, she said of him: “He has, quite simply, been my strength and stay all these years.”

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi and his Thai counterpart Don Pramudwinai, who had met before the New Year, held talks again yesterday to discuss a revised concept paper to be proposed by Indonesia, a source said.

Asean is exploring devising its own strategy to respond to the US Indo-Pacific Strategy initiated by the Donald Trump administration to balance the influence of a rising China in the region.

The Asean strategy will not bind it to any particular country and will focus on a “win-win” solution, the source said.

The Asean foreign ministers will also discuss how to play a role in easing the Rakhine crisis. Asean Secretary-General Lim Jock Hoi will be briefing the meeting about his mission to Myanmar in November.

The ministers will support the Asean Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management to play a role in providing assistance to Myanmar and displaced persons.

The ministers would consider the implementation of the terms of reference proposed by the need assessment working group for the secretary-general to continue his work, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Busadee Santipitaks said.

More than 700,000 Rohingya people have fled the strife-torn Rakhine state since August 2017 when a militant attack on a security outpost drew a heavy-handed response from the Myanmar military. The refugees faced atrocities of arson, torture, murder, gang rape and massacre.

While Asean is ready to play a humanitarian role to help Myanmar and solve other problems in Rakhine state, ministers of the group need to listen to Myanmar on the role it wants Asean to play, Busadee said.

The foreign ministers have gathered in Chiang Mai for their first meeting after Thailand took over the leadership of the group this year. Under the theme “Advancing Partnership for Sustainability”, the ministers will endorse the chair’s plan to move Asean forward by making use of advanced technology, strengthened partnerships and enhanced connectivity as well as people-to-people ties, Busadee said.

Meanwhile, civil society people expressed their hope to see an Asean that cared for its people.

ChalidaTajaroensak, director of People’s Empowerment Foundation, one of the organising bodies of the Asean Civil Society Conference and Asean People’s Forum, expected the ministers to discuss democratic development and the human rights situation in the region.

“The Cambodian election has concluded but the situation has not improved. The internal situation is still unclear. Human rights defenders are living in fear and insecurity. The Thai election is being postponed repeatedly, and we don’t know the exact date,” she said.

The Asean People’s Forum would be held in the middle of June, prior to the first Asean Summit. “But if the [Thai] election is further delayed |or it not held, civil societies should |discuss our role in this issue. |We may not allow the forum to be held under a military government,” Chalida said.

Sunsanee Suthisunsanee, acting Thai representative of the Regional Steering Committee, one of the organising bodies of the people’s forum, questioned whether suggestions from civil society and regional civic participation would be taken seriously

Judge Rasyihah Ghazali meted out the sentence after A. Mohanraj changed his plea to guilty at court on Thursday (Jan 17).

Rasyhihah ordered the jail sentence to be carried out from the date of Mohanraj’s arrest on Sept 14, 2018.

In September last year, Mohanraj and two others, technician SS Satthiya, 26 and contract worker, K Ganesh, 41, claimed trial to committing the offence at Queen Self Service Laundry, Taman Gombak Ria, Batu Caves here between 12.54 and 1am on Sept 11.

They were charged under Section 29(1)(e) of the Animal Welfare Act 2015.

The charge, which is punishable under Section 29(1) of the same Act and read together with Section 34 of the Penal Code, carries a maximum fine of RM100,000 or a jail term of up to three years, or both, upon conviction.

It was reported that Satthiya had received a discharge not amounting to an acquittal, while Ganesh maintained his not guilty plea.

In Court, Selangor Veterinary Service Department Prosecuting Officer Roslan Mohd Isa asked the court to mete out a harsh sentence, as what the accused had done was cruel.

“This case is of public interest as it involves torturing a defenceless animal. This attitude is not accepted by society,” he said.

Mohanraj, who was unrepresented, asked for a lighter sentence as he was repentant and had a family to feed.

“I feel regret. I apologise to all Malaysians and I promise not to do this again.

“When I was detained, I was jeered and insulted by other inmates for the crime,” he told the court.

According to the facts of the case, a launderette manager received a call from a female customer on Sept 11 last year, informing that there was a carcass of a cat in a dryer.

The manager then instructed his employee to examine the dryer, and the carcass was discovered.

Close-circuit television footage showed two men, one who took the cat out from under a table in the launderette and threw it into the dryer.

Both accused inserted tokens into the dryer before exiting the launderette.

The manager then lodged a police report on Sept 14 and the arrests were made on the same day.

Malaysians expressed their outrage after CCTV footage went viral on social media.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Nurul Ain Shafie prosecuted.

Anastasia Vashukevich, known by her pen-name Nastya Rybka, was held with several others in a police raid last February in the sleazy seaside resort of Pattaya.

In a case that veered between salacious and bizarre, Vashukevich said she had travelled to Thailand after becoming embroiled in a political scandal with Russian aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska — a one-time associate of Trump’s disgraced former campaign director Paul Manafort.

She then set tongues wagging by promising to reveal “missing puzzle pieces” regarding claims the Kremlin aided Trump’s 2016 presidential election victory.

    But the material never surfaced and critics dismissed the claims as a publicity stunt.

In the risque Pattaya seminar led by Alex Kirillov, a self-styled Russian seduction guru, some participants wore shirts that said “sex animator” — though one person at the time described it as more of a romance and relationship course.

Vashukevich pleaded guilty alongside seven others to multiple charges, including solicitation and illegal assembly at a Pattaya court on Tuesday, which ordered the group be deported.

On Thursday afternoon, Vashukevich and the majority of the convicted were put on an Aeroflot flight for Moscow, bringing to an end the Thai side of a baffling case.

Thailand’s immigration chief Surachate Hakparn said the last of the group would leave the country this evening.

It was unclear what would happen to them — including Vashukevich — on arrival in Moscow.

Vashukevich, who has more than 120,000 followers on Instagram and penned a book about seducing oligarchs, also faces legal problems in Russia.

Deripaska won an invasion of privacy lawsuit against her and Kirillov in July after a video apparently filmed by the model showed the tycoon vacationing with an influential Russian deputy prime minister at the time.

Both Washington and Moscow publicly shrugged off Vashukevich’s story, which the US State Department described as “bizarre”.

Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah, met in his ministry by local groups lobbying for the Israeli athletes’ ban, said the government would refrain from hosting events featuring Israeli participants in the future.

The minister said the decision – made by cabinet last week – was premised upon “humanitarian reasons” and was about “fighting on behalf of the oppressed”.

Media reports this week had quoted the International Paralympic Committee criticising the Southeast Asian country’s strict stance on not admitting Israeli athletes, though the organisation said it was holding out hope for a solution.

Malaysia rethinks school book that shames girls for having sex

The event, the World Para Swimming Championships, is to be held in July and is a qualifying event for the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.

The episode showed Mahathir’s eight-month-old government is standing pat on past administrations’ policy towards Israel.

As a staunch supporter of a two-state solution to the Palestine-Israel question, Malaysia does not have formal diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv and its citizens are barred from entering the Middle Eastern country without special permission.

Malaysia’s latest move to bar the athletes has the support of some 29 non-governmental organisations including the Palestine Cultural Organisation Malaysia – which hailed the Malaysian government’s stance as reminiscent of its criticism of apartheid-era South Africa during Mahathir’s first stint in power from 1981 to 2003.

The sports ban is not altogether new to Malaysia – in 2010, Israeli boxer Ilya Grad received a special visa to record a television programme, but in 2015 two Israeli windsurfers were denied visas for a world championship event after Malaysia insisted that no Israeli flags be waved and that the national anthem could not be played.

Earlier still, in 1997, the Israeli cricket team was allowed to compete in a tournament in Malaysia in light of peace talks in the Middle East. However, this decision resulted in violent street protests and riot police had to be dispatched to guard the stadium.

In December last year, Mahathir criticised Israel’s decision to move its capital to Jerusalem, saying Israel had no right to do so as Jerusalem did not belong to them.

Mahathir’s unabashed hardline views and policies towards Israel are viewed in the west as anti-Semitic, even though he is dismissive of such a characterisation.

In his 1970 book The Malay Dilemma, he described Jews as “hook-nosed”, later defending this by saying that Malays were often called “fat-nosed” but had not responded negatively.

At the United Nations General Assembly in September, he also said the world “rewards Israel” for breaking international laws of armed conflict in Palestine, calling recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital “provoking”.

Oh Ei Sun from Singapore’s Institute of International Affairs said it was not just Mahathir who had a strong stance on Israel and that “successive Malaysian governments have never relented when it comes to admitting Israelis, much less establishing formal ties”.

“Although Malaysia and Israel do not have diplomatic relations, it should be noted that Israel is a full-fledged member of the international community, being a member of both the United Nations and the International Olympic Committee, as well as many other established international organisations and sports bodies,” Oh said.

“So countries hosting the related sports events are obliged under international rules and customs to allow Israeli athletes to compete if they are qualified.”

Deasy Tuwo, the head of a laboratory at a pearl farm in Minahasa in North Sulawesi, was killed by the 4.4m reptile last Thursday, the authorities said.

The 44-year-old’s badly mauled body was found by colleagues the following morning, Hendrik Rundengan, from the local conservation agency, said.

“The indication is that she fell into the crocodile’s enclosure,” he said, adding the incident was still being investigated by police.

“These parts may still be inside the crocodile now,” he added.

The giant reptile was sedated and removed from its enclosure on Monday in a three-hour operation that involved dozens of people, including conservation officials, the army and police.

The reptile, which was owned illegally, will be transferred to a conservation area, Rundengan said.

The Indonesian archipelago is home to a vast array of exotic wildlife, including several species of crocodile that regularly attack and kill humans.

In April 2016, a Russian tourist was killed by a crocodile in the Raja Ampat islands, a popular diving site in the east of the archipelago.

    The country is not a signatory to a UN convention on refugees and has long come under fire for holding them in detention centres or deporting them back to repressive regimes where they face prison or worse.

Many cases do not make headlines but that changed earlier this month when 18-year-old Saudi runaway Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun arrived in Bangkok and staved off deportation by barricading herself in a hotel at the airport, live-tweeting the standoff to an international audience.

She was handed over to the UN refugee agency within days and resettled to Canada within a week, where she was welcomed by Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland after landing in Toronto on Saturday.

    Qunun said she suffered abuse in the ultra-conservative kingdom and refused to see family members who came to Thailand after her flight.

The lightning-fast processing of her case was unprecedented for Thailand and was overseen almost from start to finish by immigration chief Surachate Hakparn, a blunt-talking media-savvy official nicknamed “Big Joke” who was recently appointed to the role and vowed reforms.

   – ‘International norms’ –

Responding to questions about Thailand’s treatment of refugees, Surachate told an audience at the foreign correspondents’ club he would take a new approach and that under his supervision “there will be no one involuntarily sent back to the country if they don’t want to go back”.

He added that as chief of the department, “we will now follow international norms”.

But the claims were met with scepticism given the November arrest in Thailand of refugee footballer Hakeem Alaraibi, who had been granted permanent residency in Australia but was stopped at the airport in Bangkok while trying to go on vacation.

Alaraibi, a former player for Bahrain’s national team, is wanted on charges relating to the damage of a police station during the Arab Spring in the Gulf State, but rights groups say he was playing a match at the time and the allegations are false.

Surachate said the case was different as there was an outstanding arrest warrant for Alaraibi in Bahrain, but said that he could argue his case in court.

Australia has called for Alaraibi to be returned to the country, where he lives in Melbourne and plays for a semi-professional football team.

He also said that the processing of Qunun’s experience would not serve as a model for future cases in Thailand and denied that authorities caved to pressure as the story went viral and the young woman picked up tens of thousands of Twitter followers.

“Each case will be considered case by case.”

The apology came after the University of Liverpool’s Student Welfare Advice and Guidance office sent an email to all international students on Monday, warning them of serious consequences for breaking exam rules. The email was written in English but contained the Chinese characters for “cheating”.

When Chinese students protested, the office added fuel to the fire by saying: “We find that our Chinese students are usually unfamiliar with the word ‘cheating’ in English, and we therefore provided this translation.”

In a letter posted online on Tuesday, university vice-chancellor Janet Beer said the warning was a mistake and “wholly inappropriate”.

“I apologise wholeheartedly for the offence it has caused,” she said, adding it “is not representative of the high regard in which the university holds its Chinese students”.

The warning prompted debate among Chinese internet users, with one Chinese graduate from the university commenting on Weibo: “I wouldn’t deny that there are Chinese students who cheat … But to make it about the entire country… are you serious? And [sending the email] to all international students?”

But others said Chinese students overseas had been frequently criticised for cheating.

“Respect doesn’t come from nothing. You earn it,” one Weibo commenter said.

Chu Zhaohui, senior researcher at China’s National Institute of Education Sciences, said it was undeniable that Chinese students had developed a reputation for cheating and plagiarism overseas.

“I heard complaints from professors at Columbia University a few years ago, saying that they found Chinese students tended to copy from others when doing their assignments. The professors didn’t dare report them, because they themselves would be affected if their students were punished,” Chu said.

He said cheating and plagiarism were rampant among Chinese students was mainly because Chinese primary and high schools did not encourage diversity and individuality.

“Our students are usually asked to repeat standard answers for test questions. In contrast, under Western education system, students are often asked to write what they think based on their own experience,” Chu said.

“Another problem is Chinese teachers rarely tell students how bad cheating and plagiarism are, so people think it’s nothing serious.”

According to Britain-based QS World University Rankings, the University of Liverpool has 33,000 students, 8,000 of whom are from overseas. It has a joint venture with Xian Jiaotong University in Suzhou.

In August, Universities UK International said that more than 95,000 Chinese students studied at British universities in the 2016-2017 academic year, accounting for more than one-fifth of all international students and making China the top source of overseas students.