Malaysia's former first lady, who allegedly bankrolled a luxurious lifestyle with kickbacks and stolen public money, went on trial Wednesday for corruption for the first time since her husband lost power.Rosmah Mansor, notorious for making overseas shopping trips and owning vast collections of handbags and jewellery, became a lightning rod for public anger as the government of prime minister Najib Razak was engulfed by corruption allegations.Her husband's long-ruling coalition suffe

Asian nations have sealed borders and clamped down on Chinese visitors as they try to protect themselves from a deadly virus epidemic.The outbreak has killed some 130 people in China, sickened nearly 6,000 and sparked progressively more urgent precautions around the region. Here are some key measures taken outside mainland China:Papua New GuineaThe impoverished island nation shut air and seaports Wednesday to all foreign travellers coming from Asia. The ministry of immigrati

Agriculture can either be the main cause or our greatest asset in fighting the climate crisis. But, for this, it must be radically transformed. Humanity now depends on just three crops (wheat, rice and maize) for more than half of its food.

An analysis of 65 countries has found that only 20 percent of the world's internet users enjoy "free" access according to international watchdog organisation, Freedom House. The remaining 32 percent are "partly free" and 35 percent are "not free", while 13 percent of users have yet to be assessed. The declining freedom of the internet in ASEAN highlights some serious concerns for its citizens in terms of privacy and ownership of data.

While Malaysia may have not performed the worst in ASEAN in the Save the Children’s Global Childhood Report 2019, child abuse cases are still high in the country. In fact, this was also the assertion of the country’s Deputy Women, Family and Community Development Minister Hannah Yeoh who, in 2019, claimed that the number of child abuse and neglect cases in the country was still high. A year ago, Malaysian police detained three family members for allegedly abusing tw

Singapore's interior minister was sued Friday by a Malaysian human rights group in a bid to prevent the city-state from enforcing its law against false information in Malaysia.Home Affairs Minister, K.

Singapore on Wednesday denied claims by a Malaysian rights group that it used a brutal "coup de grace" to finish off botched executions and ordered Yahoo and other sites to correct reports of the matter.The Malaysia-based Lawyers for Liberty alleged last week that Singapore prison officers had been instructed to manually break the necks of prisoners if the rope used to hang them broke during executions.This was done by kicking the back of the prisoner's neck, said the group, wh

Last week, Malaysian media reported that the country’s finance minister, Lim Guan Eng had handed over an allocation of RM100 million (US$24,646,124) to the minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Mujahid Yusof Rawa for the purpose of upgrading and maintaining registered Islamic schools.The allocation is divided into RM50 million (US$12,323,062) for religious Muslim schools (tahfiz schools), RM25 million (US$6,161,801) for public and private Islamic schools and RM25 million (US$6,161,801)

The parents of a Franco-Irish teenager whose body was found in a Malaysian jungle are demanding an inquest after authorities ended investigations into the case, the family's lawyer said Wednesday.The unclothed body of 15-year-old Nora Quoirin was discovered in August after a massive hunt through dense rainforest not far from the resort where the London-based family had been on holiday.Her parents say they believe there was a "criminal element" to her death as the teen had learn

Malaysia's leader-in-waiting Anwar Ibrahim will not face charges over claims he sexually assaulted a male former aide, prosecutors said Tuesday, the latest such scandal to tarnish the veteran politician's career.Muhammed Yusoff Rawther last month accused Anwar of trying to force him to have sex and filed a police complaint, but officials said there was not enough evidence to make a criminal case.Anwar, seen as the likely successor to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, spent almost a d