KUCHING (THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK, AFP) - Four Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) personnel were killed in a shooting incident at their camp in Kota Samarahan on Friday (Aug 13) morning.
Sarawak police commissioner Comm Datuk Aidi Ismail said the shooting happened at the guardhouse of the RMAF camp.
"Initial investigations found that the incident involved four RMAF personnel on duty at the guardhouse," he said in a statement, adding that investigations were ongoing.
Two men died at the scene while the third managed to drive to a health clinic after being shot, but succumbed to his injuries. After shooting his colleagues, the serviceman turned the gun on himself.
All the personnel were on duty at the time of the incident.
RMAF also confirmed the incident in a statement, saying that it occurred at about 7.15am Friday.
It urged the public not to speculate on the shooting but to let the police complete their investigations.
"We have handed over the case to the police for investigation.
"We will also set up an investigation board to identify the cause of the incident," RMAF said.
Authorities in Kabul have now effectively lost most of northern and western Afghanistan and are left holding a scattered archipelago of contested cities also dangerously at risk.
Some US officials fear that the Taliban could take over Kabul within three months of the Aug 31 deadline.
The US signed the agreement with the Taliban in Doha on Feb 29, 2020, committing to a pull-out of US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops by May 1, 2021 in exchange for security guarantees.
They included a promise by the militants to hold peace talks with the government in Kabul, to not attack the US or its interests, and to not support groups like Al-Qaeda in attacking the United States.
In the wake of the agreement, the Trump administration sharply cut the number of US forces inside Afghanistan and remained committed to the May 1 deadline, even as the Taliban accelerated its offensive against government security forces following the Doha deal.
Trump's troop reductions continued after he lost last November's election to leave the number at 2,500, along with some 16,000 civilian contractors, still in Afghanistan when Biden took office on Jan 20.
Biden paused further withdrawal for a review of policy, and in April announced that the pull-out would go ahead, pushing the deadline back initially to Sep 11, 2021, before moving it up again to Aug 31.
HONG KONG (AFP) - Hong Kong's population declined by 1.2 per cent in the past year, including nearly 90,000 more residents departing than moving to the city, figures released on Thursday (Aug 12) showed.
This comes as Beijing cracked down on dissent, and the Covid-19 pandemic kept the finance hub sealed off.
The population decrease continues the largest decline since the city began keeping comparable records in 1961 and comes during a period of intense political turmoil.
Mid-year population estimates for 2021 showed Hong Kong's population stands at 7,394,700 - a decrease of 87,100 (1.2 per cent) from the same time last year.
End-of-year figures for Hong Kong in 2020 also showed a 1.2 per cent decline, and Thursday's numbers suggest there has been no respite in the drop-off.
Hong Kong had recorded a year of population decline only once before, by 0.2 per cent after the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) epidemic in 2003.
The city houses a rapidly ageing society, with deaths over the last year outstripping births by 11,800.
But the government data also revealed a new cause for population decline - more residents leaving than arriving.
The figures showed a net outflow of 89,200 Hong Kong residents for the period.
That is over four times higher than the 20,900 outflow recorded for the same mid-year period in 2020.
In 2018, Hong Kong recorded an inflow of 8,500, and in 2019, this figure was 23,000.
Hong Kong has kept coronavirus infections low by closing itself off to non-residents for most of the pandemic.
The move has kept people safe but crippled the travel industry and made it difficult for both residents and expats to see loved ones overseas.
Thousands of Hong Kongers have also packed their bags to escape a broad crackdown on dissent in response to huge and often violent democracy protests two years ago.
Over the spring and summer, the airport witnessed frequent tearful farewells as residents boarded flights, mostly to Britain, which has said it will offer a pathway to citizenship for many Hong Kongers, in response to Beijing's crackdown.
Hong Kong's airport witnessed frequent tearful farewells over the spring and summer. PHOTO: AFP
The Hong Kong government does not keep official statistics of how many have left the city for good, but figures point to some sort of exodus taking place.
Around 1,500 Hong Kongers on average were leaving via the airport each day in July, up from around 800 in the first half of the year and despite the pandemic throttling international travel.
Early withdrawals from the city's mandatory pension fund - which can be made only when someone departs permanently - have also soared in the last 12 months.
Hong Kong previously saw large numbers of residents depart in the run-up to the 1997 handover to China and after Beijing's deadly 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.
However, the overall population did not decline and many returned.
KUALA LUMPUR:Large gathering of foreigners at a vaccination centre at Rumah Prihatin @ Grand Seasons on Wednesday (Aug 11) was because of a misunderstanding that it provided walk-in COVID-19 vaccination for non-Malaysians, said its management.
The management of the centre said that it only provided walk-in vaccination for Malaysians, with priority given to senior citizens, persons with disabilities, as well as marginalised and vulnerable groups.
Bernama reported that walk-in vaccination for foreigners was being carried out at the vaccination centre in Bukit Jalil and not at Rumah Prihatin @ Grand Seasons.
In a statement, the vaccination centre management said it had taken action to disperse the crowd but they refused to budge despite being given warnings.
However, the situation was eventually brought under control with the help of police and officers from the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL), it added.
“The vaccination programme is managed by Rumah Prihatin under the MyMedik Vaccination Programme @ Wilayah and it did not involve other parties. We regret what happened and will further improve compliance with the standard operating procedures (SOPs) to ensure this incident does not recur,” said the statement.
A seven-minute and 15-second video had gone viral on social media since Wednesday, showing large crowds gathering in the compound of the centre with no physical distancing.
Many expressed fears that they might cause further outbreaks of infections in the country which is already struggling with rising daily COVID-19 cases. Malaysia reported yet another record high of 21,668 cases on Thursday.
KABUL: The Taliban seized the strategic Afghan city of Ghazni on Thursday (Aug 12), just 150km from Kabul, their most important gain in a lightning offensive that has seen them overrun 10 provincial capitals in a week.
The interior ministry confirmed the fall of the city, which lies along the major Kabul-Kandahar highway and serves as a gateway between the capital and militant strongholds in the south.
"The enemy took control," spokesman Mirwais Stanikzai said in a message to media, adding later the city's governor had been arrested by Afghan security forces.
Pro-Taliban Twitter feeds showed video of him being escorted out of Ghazni by Taliban fighters and sent on his way in a convoy, prompting speculation in the capital that the government was angered with how the provincial administration capitulated.
As security forces retreated across the country, Kabul handed a proposal to Taliban negotiators in Qatar offering a power-sharing deal in return for an end to fighting, according to a member of the government's team in Doha who asked not to be named.
A second negotiator, Ghulam Farooq Majroh, said the Taliban had been given an offer about a "government of peace" without providing more specifics.
The Straits Times understands that consecutive meetings were held with party chiefs of his Perikatan Nasional (PN) government on Wednesday evening (Aug 11) - first at the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and then at his residence - to discuss internal matters, as well as the best plan of action moving forward.
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BEIJING (BLOOMBERG) - A favourite pastime of elderly Asians has been implicated as a major driver of China's current outbreak of Delta virus cases, sparking the shutdown of tens of thousands of mahjong dens across the country.
The so-called chess and card rooms, where hundreds of elderly people gather in packed and poorly ventilated spaces primarily to play mahjong, were how a 64-year-old woman surnamed Mao spread the Delta variant in the eastern city of Yangzhou, seeding the biggest single outbreak in China's ongoing wave of infections.
Local officials in Jiangsu province, where Yangzhou is located, have now shut down more than 45,000 chess and card rooms, and the authorities in Beijing and at least four other hard-hit provinces - Henan, Zhejiang, Hunan and Heilongjiang - have followed suit.
The spread of the virus through these mahjong dens despite China's rigorous measures and fast vaccine roll-out reflects the challenges posed by underground social sites across the region.
From hostess bars in Japan, to social dancing clubs in Hong Kong and karaoke lounges in Singapore, these locales have stymied governments which are some of the most successful in the world at containment.
In China's case, Madam Mao had travelled from the nearby city of Nanjing, where China's Delta outbreak first started, to a relative's home in Yangzhou, where she played mahjong in several chess and card rooms before being diagnosed with Covid-19, said local media reports.
One of the rooms that Madam Mao visited had a nondescript facade and small entrance, but opened into a cavernous basement that could accommodate around 100 mahjong tables.
In the week after her diagnosis, nearly a hundred people in Yangzhou contracted the virus, with 64 per cent of them exposed in mahjong rooms, and nearly 70 per cent of them aged 60 years and older.
The Yangzhou cluster has escalated in severity because only 40 per cent of local elderly people were vaccinated; among the 448 people who have been sickened, 23 have developed severe disease and 12 are in critical condition, raising the prospect of China's first Covid-19 related fatality in nearly seven months.
The mahjong cluster is Yangzhou's first serious outbreak since the pandemic began, and inexperienced officials have already been punished for mishandling the response.
Mass testing efforts - the city's 4.5 million population has undergone six rounds of testing - resulted in more than 40 people infected while waiting in line to be swabbed.
The current Delta outbreak across China has seen more than 1,000 symptomatic infections in less than a month, with cases reaching as far south as Hainan and as far north as Heilongjiang.
Though more than 60 per cent of the population has been vaccinated, the government has defaulted to targeted lockdowns, transport controls and mass testing, insisting that China must stamp out all infection to protect lives, even as many other countries accept that the virus will be endemic.
