These are the top stories making the front pages of major newspapers from across Southeast Asia today.
Get up to speed with what’s happening in the fastest growing region in the world.
Three men charged over alleged involvement in Chinatown brawl
Three men appeared in a district court on Thursday (May 14) over their alleged involvement in a riot at a Chinatown apartment block on Sunday. Muhammad Farid Surian and Noor Najat Alwi, who are both 20, and Muhammad Roslan Bin Mohamed Rumli, 29, were each charged with one count of rioting while armed with deadly weapons. Farid is said to have taken part in the brawl while he was out on bail. Prior to last weekend's incident, he allegedly trespassed into the Institute of Technical Education College West in Choa Chu Kang Grove at around 4pm on May 16 last year with the intention to commit assault. The trio will be remanded at Central Police Division and will be back in court on May 21. A police spokesman told The Straits Times on Tuesday that according to preliminary investigations, the brawl took place following a relationship dispute over a woman. – The Straits Times
No more home quarantine as Covid-19 cases spike in Sabah
All passengers including students returning to Sabah from other states have to undergo a 14-day quarantine at gazetted centres. Sabah Health Department director Datuk Dr Christina Rundi said that the order began yesterday. According to her, the new regulation was due to the increase in the number of cases in Sabah over the past few days involving those from other states and the compliance issue on home quarantine. "The changes on standard operating procedures (SOP) have to be made to contain the infection," she said in a statement. Sabah government has previously allowed some 12,000 students from peninsular Malaysia and Sarawak to be home quarantined provided that they have no symptoms and subject to evaluation from health personnel. However, over the past three days, Sabah recorded a surge of 10 imported cases including two students, with some of them found flouting the home quarantine order. – New Straits Times
CP chief pushes tourism reboot
Billionaire Dhanin Chearavanont is urging the government to relax lockdown measures and welcome foreign travellers as soon as possible, and turn the country into a "safe haven" for wealthy visitors. Mr Dhanin, who is the senior chairman of the kingdom's largest food and agriculture conglomerate Charoen Pokphand (CP) Group, said the move would help revive the tourism sector. "Thailand's economic losses from the lockdown are estimated to be at 16 billion baht per day or almost 500 billion per month," he told the Bangkok Post. "A longer lockdown will cost us more and more." Thailand has been under lockdown since March 9 after the government acted to stem an increase in confirmed Covid-19 cases. The government said the coronavirus infection rate is now about 1%. The economic impact of the lockdown is apparent as millions of workers applied for unemployment benefits. The tourism sector is also hit hard after the kingdom stopped taking in foreign visitors. – Bangkok Post
COVID-19: Java on 'red alert' as deaths spike
Indonesia’s most populous island of Java has become the country’s epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak, prompting calls for heightened containment efforts, including by imposing large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) in the entire region. All six provinces on the island, home to some 151 million people and covers just 7 percent of the archipelago’s area, have become red zones for COVID-19 infections. Leading the central government’s tally is Jakarta, with 5,554 cases and 449 deaths as of Wednesday. East Java follows with 1,772 cases and 163 deaths, West Java 1,556 cases and 98 deaths, Central Java 1,023 cases and 66 deaths, Banten 580 cases and 57 deaths and Yogyakarta 181 cases and seven deaths. In total, the key island to Indonesia’s industrial and political scenes has seen 10,666 cases or some 69 percent of the country’s total number of cases and 81 percent of total fatalities at 1,028. Java’s 1,991 recovered patients, meanwhile, make up 60 percent of the 3,287 recoveries in the country. – The Jakarta Post
After teacher, 2 more nabbed over ‘bounty offer’ to kill Duterte
Authorities arrested two people in Cebu and Aklan provinces who allegedly offered a bounty through their Facebook posts for anyone who could kill President Rodrigo Duterte. Ronald Quiboyen, 40, and Maria Catherine Ceron, 26, are facing charges of inciting to sedition in relation to the Cybercrime Prevention Act. Quiboyen, a construction worker, was arrested on Tuesday night by a team of policemen in Malay town in Aklan and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), and the Regional Anti-Cybercrime Unit at his boarding house in Barangay Yapak on Boracay Island. He allegedly wrote on his Facebook account that he was offering P100 million to anyone who could kill the President. Ceron, an unemployed college graduate, was caught at Barangay Ibabao in Cordova town, Cebu, on Wednesday, hours after she allegedly posted on her Facebook account a P75-million reward for a similar mission. – Philippine Daily Inquirer
Việt Nam goes four weeks with no COVID-19 community transmissions
With no new cases of COVID-19 reported on Thursday morning, Việt Nam has now gone four weeks in a row without any community transmissions. Earlier this month on May 3, 17 people onboard a flight bringing Vietnamese home from the UAE did test positive for coronavirus, but they were all immediately quarantined on arrival. The last person to contract the virus on a community level was a 36-year-old woman from Thường Tín District’s Đông Cứu Village on the outskirts of Hà Nội. The entire village was locked-down by the authorities for one month and at the stroke of midnight on Thursday the barriers were lifted allowing the 1,200 residents to leave. As of Thursday morning, of the 36 COVID-19 patients undergoing treatment at medical facilities nationwide, 11 have tested negative to the virus at least twice and six others once. More than 13,700 people are being isolated at centralised quarantine camps, hospitals or at their homes. – Viet Nam News
‘Failed’ Anti-Drug Campaign Breeds Rights Violations, Amnesty Says
The government’s anti-drug crusade since 2017 has resulted in “serious and systematic” human rights violations against drug users rather than achieving its goal of reducing drug use in the country, rights watchdog Amnesty International said in a new report. Cambodia’s “war on drugs” has resulted in arbitrary arrests and detentions of drug users, denial of fair trial rights, severely overcrowded prisons and drug detention centres where detainees face violent abuse, and various other rights violations, according to the report released on Wednesday. But officials this week said that the government’s efforts against drug use and trafficking have been “successful,” and dismissed the report’s allegations of abuse. – The Cambodia Daily