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by Haeril HALIM Agence France Presse JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — The crew of an Indonesian passenger jet that crashed off Jakarta at the weekend with 62 people aboard did not declare an emergency or report technical problems before it suddenly plunged into the sea, an investigator said Monday. Authorities have so far been unable to explain why the 26-year-old plane crashed just four minutes after takeoff, but say they’ve pinpointed the location of the […]
by Haeril HALIM Agence France Presse JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Indonesian divers searched waters off Jakarta Monday in a hunt for black boxes from the passenger jet with 62 people aboard that crashed at the weekend, as investigators took up the grim task of identifying victims’ mangled remains. Finding the boxes — cockpit voice and flight data recorders — could offer crucial clues as to why the Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-500 plunged some 10,000 […]
KAMPUNG SEMENTEH, Malaysia (AFP) — Malaysian villagers were evacuated in an excavator while others swam through deep waters Wednesday as the number forced from their homes by floods rose to more than 28,000 with at least four dead. Flooding hits the country’s east coast during the rainy season annually and regularly results in mass evacuations, but people in some areas say this year’s are the worst in decades. The worst-hit state is Pahang, where over […]
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Two Indonesian militants linked to a 2019 church blast in the Philippines have been shot dead by police, authorities said Wednesday, as officers arrested scores of pro-Islamic State radicals. The shootings came as Indonesia’s counter-terrorism squad, Densus 88, raided a hideout of extremist group Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) in Sulawesi island’s Makassar city, they said. Two suspects were gunned down when they “resisted arrest” and attacked officers, police said, adding that […]
SINGAPORE (AFP) — Singapore’s economy suffered its worst ever annual contraction in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic hammered the city-state’s vital trade and tourism sectors, official data showed Monday. But the 5.8 percent decline was not as bad as feared — official forecasts had predicted a fall of up to 6.5 percent — as economic activity picked up with the easing of curbs. The financial hub plunged into its first recession since the 2008 […]
BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — Bangkok’s nightlife will go quiet as a ban on bars, nightclubs and restaurant alcohol sales goes into effect Saturday, among a raft of restrictions aimed at curbing the kingdom’s rising coronavirus toll. Thailand initially appeared to have escaped the worst of the virus, registering just under 4,000 total cases in November, despite being the second country to detect an infection in January. But an outbreak last month at a massive seafood […]
SINGAPORE (AFP) — Singapore began a coronavirus vaccination campaign Wednesday with a nurse receiving the first jab, making it among the first Asian nations to roll out inoculations. The city-state, which has suffered a mild outbreak, became the first country in Asia to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine earlier this month, and its programme kicked off with healthcare workers. Nurse Sarah Lim, 46, whose work includes screening suspected Covid-19 patients, was the first to be […]
BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — A coronavirus outbreak linked to a seafood market in Thailand passed 1,000 cases on Tuesday, as authorities weighed whether to introduce a wider lockdown. Thailand has been on tenterhooks since Thursday following the positive virus test of a 67-year-old prawn seller from Mahachai market, Samut Sakhon province, about 40 minutes southwest of Bangkok. As of early Tuesday morning, there were 1,063 confirmed positive cases out of 6,156 tested — a major […]
HANOI, Vietnam (AFP) — The father of one of the 39 Vietnamese migrants who suffocated in a truck in Britain said Tuesday he felt sorry for the two men convicted of manslaughter over the deaths. The bodies of the men and women were found inside a sealed container near London in October 2019, after they suffocated in sweltering temperatures. Lorry driver Eamonn Harrison, 24, from Northern Ireland, and Romanian national Gheorghe Nica, 43, were found […]
HANOI, Vietnam (AFP) — A Vietnamese pharmaceutical company began testing a coronavirus vaccine on volunteers in Hanoi on Thursday, as developing countries jostle with richer nations to access affordable inoculations. Nanogen’s Nanocovax is one of four under development in Vietnam, and a company representative said it is expected to cost around $5 a dose. Three volunteers received the jab on Thursday and will be monitored for 72 hours at the Vietnam Military Medical University. […]
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Indonesian President Joko Widodo said Wednesday he would be the first person in the country to be vaccinated for Covid-19 as he unveiled a campaign promising free inoculations for everyone in world’s fourth most-populous nation. Widodo’s announcement comes as Indonesia battles misinformation over the virus in order to stave off a fresh wave of infections, with some 630,000 recorded by Wednesday and more than 19,000 deaths. “The Covid-19 vaccine for all […]
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Indonesia has arrested a senior leader of the Al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) network for an alleged role in the deadly 2002 Bali bombings, a police spokesman said. National Police spokesman Argo Yuwono said Zulkarnaen, 57, was arrested in Lampung on Sumatra island on Thursday after spending nearly 18 years at large. Zulkarnaen “is now being interrogated” and anti-terror investigators were searching his residence, Argo said. Zulkarnaen has been on Indonesia’s […]
