Thailand has launched a scheme to offer visitors up to $14,000 in medical coverage in the event of an accident, the tourism minister said Thursday, as the kingdom seeks to lure travelers back after the pandemic.
The government will cover expenses up to 500,000 baht ($14,000) and pay compensation of up to one million baht in case of death under the new scheme.
Travel restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic hammered the kingdom’s vital tourism sector and arrivals have not bounced back as quickly as officials hoped.
Tourism minister Sudawan Wangsuphakijkosol told AFP the new Thailand Traveller Safety scheme began on January 1 and will run until August 31.
“The campaign aims to assure foreign tourists that Thailand is safe and everyone will be under good care,” she said.
The kingdom has long been popular with young backpackers from around the world seeking sun, sand and adrenalin.
But accidents are not uncommon and there have been numerous reports in recent months of young Europeans finding themselves facing big medical bills with inadequate insurance.
The Thai government stresses that the scheme will not cover accidents caused by “negligence, intent, illegal acts” or risky behaviour.
Tourists can register for the scheme through the Thailand Traveller Safety website at tts.go.th.
Some 28 million people visited Thailand in 2023, up from 11 million the year before, but still well down from the 40 million who came in 2019, the last year before the pandemic.
Officials are hoping to hit 35 million visitors in 2024, with a target of $55 billion in revenue.
Peshawar High Court has issued an order asking authorities not to harass registered Afghan transgenders.
Justice Shakeel Ahmed and Justice Waqar Ahmed heard the petition against the repatriation of 16 Afghan transgender women in the Peshawar High Court.
During the hearing, the petitioner’s lawyer took the position that the government has decided that all foreigners will be sent back to their homeland, transgenders will be endangered in Afghanistan.
On the stand of the petitioner’s counsel, the court inquired whether “these foreigners are registered with NADRA?”
On the inquiry of the court, the petitioner’s lawyer said that despite POR cards and documents, Afghan transgenders are being harassed.
On which the court issued an order that if Afghan transgenders have documents then they should not be harassed and if they have certified documents then they can stay in Pakistan.
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Thursday denounced the years-long US and British legal pursuit of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, saying “enough is enough”.
The country’s parliament passed a motion Wednesday with the prime minister’s support, calling for an end to 52-year-old Assange’s prosecution so that he can return to his family in Australia.
Assange, an Australian citizen, will go to London’s High Court next week, seeking leave to appeal against his extradition to the United States for trial on espionage charges.
“People will have a range of views about Mr Assange’s conduct,” Albanese told parliament. “But regardless of where people stand, this thing cannot just go on and on and on indefinitely.”
Australians from many sides of politics have a common view, he said, that “enough is enough”.
Albanese said he had raised Assange’s case “at the highest levels” in Britain and the United States.
The Australian government had a duty to lobby for its citizens, the prime minister said.
Independent member of parliament Andrew Wilkie, left, and Julian Assange’s brother Gabriel Shipton, right, speak to the media at Parliament House in Canberra, Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024. Australia’s House of Representatives has passed a motion calling on the United States and the UK to end the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and for him to be allowed to return to his home country. (Mick Tsikas/AAP Image via AP) (Mick Tsikas / Associated Press)
He cited the case of Chinese-born Australian journalist Cheng Lei, released in October last year after more than three years’ detention in China on espionage charges.
Albanese also referred to diplomatic “successes” for Australians held in Vietnam and Myanmar.
Australian economist Sean Turnell was released from a Myanmar jail in November 2022 after being held for 650 days on allegations of spying and gun-running.
A Vietnamese dissident with Australian citizenship, Chau Van Kham, was freed from jail in Vietnam in July 2023 following his conviction on terrorism charges.
Australia should not interfere in the legal processes of other countries, Albanese said.
“But it is appropriate for us to put our very strong view that those countries need to take into account the need for this to be concluded.”
Assange has been held in the high-security Belmarsh Prison in southeast London since April 2019.
He was arrested after holing up for seven years in Ecuador’s London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faced accusations of sexual assault, later dropped.
US authorities want to put the Australian on trial for divulging US military secrets about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Assange’s legal team will be seeking permission to appeal his extradition to the United States at a hearing listed in London’s High Court for February 20 and 21.
He is accused of publishing some 700,000 confidential documents related to US military and diplomatic activities, starting in 2010.
It has been revealed that there is a clear difference in grading of the first year (Inter) 2023 and 2022 examinations under Higher Secondary Education Board Karachi.
More A1, A, and B grades were awarded to candidates in 2022 than in 2023.
According to details reported by Geo, the percentage of success of A1 and A1 grade candidates in science pre-medical, pre-engineering, and general science last year was high, with 1539 in pre-medical results in the 2020 exams. Candidates succeeded in A-1, 3712 with an A grade, and 4573 with a B grade.
However, in the 2023 examinations, 654 candidates passed with an A1 grade, 2418 with an A grade, and 3753 secured a B grade.
In the 2020 pre-engineering results, 1125 candidates passed with A 1, 2468 with an A grade and 3304 with a B grade while in the 2023 exams, 461 candidates passed with A 1, 1566 with an A grade and 2479 with a B grade.
In the science general result of the 2020 examinations, 216 candidates succeeded with an A grade, while 918 candidates secured an A grade and 1573 candidates with a B grade.
In the 2023 examinations, 178 candidates passed with an A1 grade and 853 candidates passed with an A grade.
Background
The results for the first-year (Part-I) examination announced by the Board of Intermediate Education Karachi (BIEK) on January 24 raised concerns as more than 50 per cent of the students failed.
According to the Inter board spokesperson, 72 per cent of the candidates failed in arts first year (private) and 80 per cent in arts (regular).
In this context, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) also announced a sit-in outside the Board of Intermediate Education office in Karachi (BIEK) following the announcement of inter results which revealed that about 80 per cent Arts students had failed.
Authorities in Cambodia have issued a stern rebuke to students to avoid “inappropriate activities” this Valentine’s Day, warning them of the perils of “losing dignity”.
Valentine’s Day has become popular among young people in many Southeast Asian countries in recent years, with bunches of red roses and heart-shaped chocolates popping up in stores and on street stalls in the days leading up to February 14.
While some might see the annual celebration of love as a bit of harmless fun, the Cambodian government — which has form for issuing dire warnings about the pitfalls of young love and premarital sex — is rattled.
The education ministry issued a directive to public and private schools late on Tuesday ordering them to “take measures to prevent inappropriate activities on Valentine’s Day”.
“It is not tradition of our Khmer nationality,” the statement said.
The ministry also noted that the event had made “a small number of youths… forget about studying and lose the dignity of themselves and their families”.
The Ministry of Culture called on authorities and parents “to remind children to use the day in line with the beautiful Khmer tradition for the sake of their honour and dignity”.
And the ministry of Women’s affairs weighed in, saying some people “misunderstand the meaning of February 14”.
Cambodia’s National AIDS Authority warned that AIDS was still spreading and that some people, particularly youth, used Valentine’s Day to “show love that leads to possible sexual intercourse”.
Last year, there were 7,600 people living with AIDS in Cambodia, including 1,400 new cases, it said.
About 42 percent of the new cases are youths aged between 15 and 24, the authority said.
Social conservatives see Valentine’s Day as a foreign import that represents a moral threat to traditional Buddhist beliefs.
Cambodian women in particular are under intense social pressure to retain their virginity until marriage.
Indonesians began voting for a new president Wednesday with Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto the frontrunner to lead Southeast Asia’s biggest economy despite concerns over his human rights record.
Polls project Subianto, a military chief during the Suharto dictatorship a generation ago, to secure a majority and replace popular outgoing president Joko Widodo, who observers claim indirectly supported his campaign.
The 72-year-old is the clear favourite after a campaign mixing populist rhetoric with pledges to continue the policies of Widodo, who has presided over steady economic growth but reached the constitutional two-term limit.
“The hope is to win,” Subianto told reporters before voting in Bogor on Wednesday.
“Come to the voting station… cast your votes according to your conscience.”
Nearly 205 million people are eligible to vote for Subianto or his rivals, former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan and former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo, in just the fifth presidential election since the end of Suharto’s dictatorship in 1998.
Polling stations opened at 7:00 am (2200 GMT) in the easternmost region of Papua and were due to close at 01:00 pm (0600 GMT) at the other end of the country in jungle-clad Sumatra.
A logistical feat involving more than 800,000 polling stations and 20,000 seats up for grabs saw planes, helicopters, speedboats and even cows used to cart ballots around the sprawling archipelago of nearly 280 million people.
In Papua’s Timika city, officials inspected makeshift polling stations built from logs, metal sheets and palm leaves as voters arrived to eye candidate lists.
In the capital Jakarta, a thunderstorm deluged 34 polling stations, according to the city’s disaster mitigation agency.
Workers wearing shirts that read “not voting is not an option” relocated some stations where ballot boxes had been wrapped in plastic, while others used pumps to drain floodwater.
Official results are not expected until March, but so-called quick counts from government-approved pollsters — shown to be reliable in the past — are expected to indicate the winner later Wednesday.
‘Decisive leader’
Consultant Debbie Sianturi was one of those determined to vote.
“I want to have a leader that will continue the democracy,” the 57-year-old said.
Another said Subianto’s experience made him a popular candidate.
“He has a military background, so I think he will be a decisive leader,” said Afhary Firnanda, a 28-year-old office worker in Jakarta.
Election commissioner Idham Kholik told AFP all voters should be allowed to cast their ballots if large queues remained when polls closed.
Subianto needs to claim more than 50 percent of the overall vote and at least a fifth of ballots cast in over half the country’s 38 provinces to secure the presidency.
If he falls short, a second-round vote will be held in June.
Baswedan, seen as the favourite to challenge Subianto in that event, told supporters to help ensure a fair vote in the graft-riddled country where voters dip their fingers in halal ink to prevent double voting.
“Come back to the voting station, monitor the vote count,” he told reporters.
Pranowo, who entered election day last in polls after once being the front-runner, said he hoped for a clean election.
“Today is the best time for all to return to the good path of democracy,” he told reporters.
Commitment to democracy
Another key factor in Subianto’s popularity is having Widodo’s eldest son, 36-year-old Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as his vice presidential running mate, a move that has raised eyebrows.
In October, Indonesia’s then-chief justice, who is Widodo’s brother-in-law, changed the rules that had barred candidates below the age of 40 from running for high office.
Widodo enjoys near-record approval ratings after two terms of solid economic growth and relatively stable politics in the nation’s young democracy.
However, some legal experts and rights groups have accused Widodo of improperly using government funds to support Subianto.
Subianto and his aides have rejected accusations of impropriety.
Subianto was dismissed from the military in 1998 over accusations he ordered the abduction of democracy activists at the end of Suharto’s rule, but he denied the accusations and was never charged.
He has since rehabilitated his image, thanks in part to a savvy social media campaign targeting Indonesia’s youth that portrayed him as a “cuddly grandpa”.
But rights groups have expressed alarm that he could roll back hard-won democratic freedoms, pointing to the alleged disappearances.
“We’ve been always worried about his commitment towards democracy,” said Yoes Kenawas, a researcher at Jakarta-based Atma Jaya Catholic University.
The head of a household in Chakwal, suffering from financial problems, committed suicide after killing his wife and children.
According to the police, Shafqat Saleem committed suicide after killing all four of his children and his wife in Muzdalifah Town area in Chakwal city. Police say that Shafqat Saleem shot himself after calling the police on the 15 helpline. His other victims were two daughters aged 14 and 16 years, and two sons aged 13 and 17 years.
According to the preliminary investigation as reported by Geo, the victim had financial problems that he could not cope with.
BEIJING: Twenty-five-year-old Chinese office worker Tufei says her boyfriend has everything she could ask for in a romantic partner: he’s kind, and empathetic, and sometimes they talk for hours.
Except he isn’t real.
Her “boyfriend” is a chatbot on an app called “Glow”, an artificial intelligence platform created by Shanghai start-up MiniMax that is part of a blossoming industry in China offering friendly – even romantic – human-robot relations.
“He knows how to talk to women better than a real man,” said Tufei, from Xi’an in northern China, who declined to give her full name. “He comforts me when I have period pain. I confide in him about my problems at work,” she told AFP. “I feel like I’m in a romantic relationship.”
The app is free – the company has other paid content – and Chinese trade publications have reported daily downloads of Glow’s app in the thousands in recent weeks.
Some Chinese tech companies have run into trouble in the past for the illegal use of users’ data but, despite the risks, users say they are driven by a desire for companionship because China’s fast pace of life and urban isolation make loneliness an issue for many.
“It’s difficult to meet the ideal boyfriend in real life,” Wang Xiuting, a 22-year-old student in Beijing, told the publication. “People have different personalities, which often generates friction,” she said. While humans may be set in their ways, artificial intelligence gradually adapts to the user’s personality — remembering what they say and adjusting its speech accordingly.
‘Emotional support’
Wang said she has several “lovers” inspired by ancient China: long-haired immortals, princes and even wandering knights. “I ask them questions,” she said when she is faced with stress from her classes or daily life, and “they will suggest ways to solve this problem”. “It’s a lot of emotional support.”
Her boyfriends all appear on Wantalk, another app made by Chinese internet giant Baidu. There are hundreds of characters available — from pop stars to CEOs and knights – but users can also customise their perfect lover according to age, values, identity, and hobbies.
“Everyone experiences complicated moments, loneliness, and is not necessarily lucky enough to have a friend or family nearby who can listen to them 24 hours a day,” Lu Yu, Wantalk’s head of product management and operations, told the outlet. “Artificial intelligence can meet this need.”
‘You’re cute’
At a cafe in the eastern city of Nantong, a girl chats with her virtual lover. “We can go on a picnic on the campus lawn,” she suggests to Xiaojiang, her AI companion on another app by Tencent called Weiban. “I’d like to meet your best friend and her boyfriend,” he replies. “You are very cute.”
Long work hours can make it hard to see friends regularly and there is a lot of uncertainty: high youth unemployment and a struggling economy mean that many young Chinese worry about the future. That potentially makes an AI partner the perfect virtual shoulder to cry on. “If I can create a virtual character that… meets my needs exactly, I’m not going to choose a real person,” Wang said.
Some apps allow users to have live conversations with their virtual companions — reminiscent of the Oscar-winning 2013 US film “Her”, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson, about a heartbroken man who falls in love with an AI voice. The technology still has some way to go. A two- to three-second gap between questions and answers makes you “clearly realise that it’s just a robot”, user Zeng Zhenzhen, a 22-year-old student, told AFP.
However, the answers are “very realistic”, she said. AI might be booming but it is so far a lightly regulated industry, particularly when it comes to user privacy. Beijing has said it is working on a law to strengthen consumer protections around the new technology.
Baidu did not respond to AFP’s questions about how it ensures personal data is not used illegally or by third parties. Still, Glow user Tufei has big dreams. “I want a robot boyfriend, who operates through artificial intelligence,” she said. “I would be able to feel his body heat, with which he would warm me.”
A mass grave containing around 100 bodies believed to date from Afghanistan’s Soviet-backed government era has been discovered in the country’s eastern Khost province, local officials said on Monday.
The grave was found Saturday during construction of a small dam in the Sarbani area of central Khost, mayor Bismillah Bilal said.
“According to the initial information, these people were buried here after being killed in 1358” in the Afghan calendar, corresponding to April 1979 to March 1980, he told AFP.
“At least 100 bodies were discovered” in the grave, Bilal added, noting that some remains bore women’s clothing and that all appeared to be civilians.
Local residents said the remains belonged to victims of the violence that followed the 1978 Soviet-backed communist coup in Afghanistan.
“In 1358, these people were brought here in a merciless, barbaric way by the cruel communist authorities without trial,” said Salam Sharifi, whose father disappeared under the communist government, his remains never found.
“They were martyred and we are their descendants. This is a cruelty that history will never forget,” Sharifi told AFP.
A committee has been appointed to relocate the remains, with residents helping municipality workers to remove the bodies from the site, piling the dry bones into bags that lined the excavated grave on Monday.
“No one knows who these martyrs are,” said resident Mandair Mangal. “They were all buried in the earth and we are taking out the bones and sorting them.”
After decades of conflict — including the Soviet invasion from 1979, the following civil war and the US-led occupation — many mass graves have been found across Afghanistan.
In 2009, another mass grave of victims of the Soviet-backed government era was discovered, containing at least 20 bodies.
More recently, in September 2022, a mass grave containing the remains of 12 people was found in Spin Boldak, a site of fierce fighting between former Afghan government forces and Taliban fighters during their two-decade insurgency before they seized power in 2021.
US President Joe Biden belatedly joined TikTok on Sunday, marking his debut on the social media platform with a 26-second video.
The move comes after fierce US government criticism of the video-sharing platform in recent years, most notably from Republicans but also from the Biden administration.
TikTok is owned by Chinese firm ByteDance and has been accused by a wide swath of US politicians of being a propaganda tool used by Beijing, something the company furiously denies.
In Sunday’s video posted on the @bidenhq campaign account, the 81-year-old Democratic president touches light-heartedly on topics ranging from politics to the National Football League championship game. He was also asked about his preference between the Super Bowl or its famed half-time show, this year headlined by singer Usher, he picks watching the actual game itself.
Queried if there’s a secret plot to rig the game so that pop star Taylor Swift — who is dating Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce — could use her fame to endorse Biden, the president jokingly leans into the unfounded right-wing conspiracy theory.
“I’d get in trouble if I told you,” he says.
Citing security concerns, a slew of individual states and the federal government have banned the app on official government devices.
In Montana, a state government move to completely ban the app was recently blocked by a judge.
While the platform remains scrutinized by Washington, further federal action to ban or curtail the use of the app appears to no longer be in motion.
“It seems now like the idea of a ban was being pushed more so to make political points and less as a serious effort to legislate,” David Greene, a civil liberties attorney, recently told British newspaper The Guardian.
As the election approaches, the platform provides a great medium to young voters.
Sunday’s video ends with the president being asked who he prefers: himself or Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.
