Politics

KUALA LUMPUR (Bernama): Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob (pic) has expressed concern that the '#Lawan rally at Dataran Merdeka could cause further spread of Covid-19. "I am worried about their safety (assembly participants) when they gather in such large numbers. If one of them catches the infection on the street, it will eventually be brought home. "Maybe cases will spread further as a result of the rally," he said during a press conference after visiting the Axiata Arena Bukit Jalil vaccination centre (PPV) here on Saturday (July 31). According to Ismail Sabri, gatherings are not allowed during the Covid-19 pandemic and are deemed an offence under the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 (Act 342). He also stressed that the government was willing to listen to the voices and views of all parties at any time, and not only when they were voiced out during street protests. Earlier, hundreds of people were believed to have participated in …

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WASHINGTON: Former president Donald Trump suffered twin setbacks on Friday (Jul 30) when the Justice Department cleared the way to release his tax records and disclosed a memo showing he urged top officials last year to falsely claim his election defeat was "corrupt". The department, reversing course from the stance it took when Trump was in office, paved the way for the Internal Revenue Service to hand over the Republican businessman turned politician's tax records to congressional investigators - a move he has long fought. Handwritten notes taken by Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue in December and released on Friday by the chair of the House of Representatives Oversight and Reform Committee paint a damning picture of Trump as he desperately sought to get the department to take the unprecedented step of intervening to try to upend his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. The fact that the Justice Department allowed the handwritten notes concerning the …

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WASHINGTON: Former President Donald Trump insisted on Thursday (Jul 15) that he wouldn’t have used the military to illegally seize control of the government after his election loss. But he suggested that if he had tried to carry out a coup, it would not have been with his top military adviser. In a lengthy statement, Trump responded to revelations in a new book detailing fears from General Mark Milley that the outgoing president would stage a coup during his final weeks in office. Trump said he's “not into coups” and “never threatened, or spoke about, to anyone, a coup of our Government". At the same time, Trump said that “if I was going to do a coup, one of the last people I would want to do it with is" Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The mere mention of a coup was a stunning remark from a former president, especially one who left office under the cloud of a violent insurrection he helped incite at the US Capitol in January in an effort to impede the …

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WASHINGTON: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday (Jul 25) named a second Republican critic of Donald Trump, Representative Adam Kinzinger, to a special committee investigating the Capitol riot and pledged that the Democratic-majority panel will “get to the truth.” Kinzinger said he “humbly accepted” the appointment even as his party's leadership is boycotting the inquiry. With the committee set to hold its first meeting, hearing from police officers who battled the rioters, Pelosi said it was imperative to learn what happened on Jan 6, when insurrectionists disrupted the congressional certification of Joe Biden's presidential victory, and why the violent siege took place. That mission, she said, must be pursued in a bipartisan manner to ensure “such an attack can never happen again". Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican, will bring "great patriotism to the committee’s mission: to find the facts and protect our Democracy”, she said in a statement. He joins Representative Liz Cheney …

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ISTANBUL: Panicked tourists in Turkey hurried to the seashore to wait for rescue boats on Saturday (Jul 30) after being told to evacuate some hotels in the Aegean resort of Bodrum due to the dangers posed by nearby wildfires, Turkish media reported. Coast guard units were leading the operation and authorities asked private boats and yachts to assist in evacuation efforts from the sea as new wildfires erupted. Video showed plumes of smoke and fire enveloping a hill close to the seashore. The death toll from wildfires raging in Turkey’s Mediterranean towns rose to six Saturday after two forest workers were killed, the country’s health minister said. Fires across Turkey since Wednesday have burned down forests and some settlements, encroaching on villages and tourist destinations and forcing people to evacuate. The minister of agriculture and forestry, Bekir Pakdemirli, said Saturday that 88 of the 98 fires that broke out amid strong winds and scorching heat have been brought …

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- A + A KUALA LUMPUR (July 31): Focus should be shifted back to efforts to fight the Covid-19 pandemic to ensure the health of the people, apart from rebuilding the country's economy through the implementation of the National Recovery Plan (PPN). Information chiefs of the parties under the Perikatan Nasional coalition, in a joint statement today, said that the efforts to fight the pandemic are the real priority of the country at this time, for the good of the people as a whole. “We call on all levels of society to examine the series of explanations given by the government on the current situation because too many parties are trying to fish in troubled waters for personal gain or to save themselves. “This includes deliberately creating fake news and exploiting the current situation through social media. Therefore, the people must be aware of this irresponsible act, and always refer to authentic sources to find out the real situation,” the statement read. As the …

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- A + A KUALA LUMPUR (July 31): Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob today expressed his concern that the 'Keluar dan #Lawan' rally at Dataran Merdeka could cause further spread of the Covid-19 infection. “I am worried about their safety (assembly participants) when they gather in such large numbers. Even if one of them catches the infection on the street, it will eventually be brought home. "Maybe the cases will spread further as a result of the rally," he said during a press conference after visiting the Axiata Arena Bukit Jalil vaccination centre (PPV) here today. According to Ismail Sabri, gatherings are not allowed during the Covid-19 pandemic and are deemed an offence under the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 (Act 342). Ismail Sabri also stressed that the government is willing to listen to the voices and views of all parties at any time, and not only when they are voiced out during street protests. Earlier, some 400 …

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Malaysians gesture as they take part in a rare anti-government rally in Kuala Lumpur on July 31, 2021, despite a tough Covid-19 coronavirus lockdown in place restricting gatherings and public assemblies. (Photo by Arif KARTONO / AFP) KUALA LUMPUR — Hundreds of black-clad Malaysians staged an anti-government protest Saturday in defiance of a ban on public gatherings under coronavirus curbs, piling pressure on the embattled prime minister to resign. The mostly young protesters, wearing masks and keeping a distance from one another, waved banners reading “failed government” as well as black flags. It was the first sizeable demonstration in Malaysia for some time, as many had been reluctant to take to the streets due to virus curbs and for fear of getting infected. But anger is growing at the government’s handling of a virus outbreak — which is escalating despite a lockdown — and Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s attempts to keep his crisis-riven administration in power. “We …

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PETALING JAYA: Concerns over the spread of Covid-19 in Parliament cannot be used as an excuse to postpone the final day of the special sitting on Monday (Aug 2), says the Pakatan Harapan presidential council. The coalition also warned the Perikatan Nasional government against misusing government agencies and ministries, including the Health Ministry, to keep Parliament doors shut on Monday. In a statement on Saturday (July 31), the council said there were no significant numbers of Covid-19 cases in Parliament last week with Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah reporting that the positivity rate in Parliament stood at 0.9%. It said the threshold set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for adequate testing is a 5% positivity rate. "Therefore, the issue of the spread of Covid-19 cannot and should not be used as an excuse to adjourn or close the Parliament sitting, which has been scheduled for Monday. "If Parliament is closed at a positivity rate of less …

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Sheik Heikel Khalid Bafana, a 48-year-old Singaporean was recently detained under the Internal Security Act for taking up arms and fighting alongside a faction in the Yemen civil war. In a statement on Wednesday, the Internal Security Department (ISD) said Mr Heikel had also acted as a broker between this faction and the foreign power, both of which were not named. The Straits Times explains what the Yemen civil war is about. The story The civil war started in 2014 between Houthi rebels and government forces. But seeds of the conflict were sown in the 2011 Arab Spring, when mass demonstrations and a near-assassination of long-time authoritarian President Ali Abdullah Saleh forced him to step down and hand over to his vice-president, Mr Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. The political transition a year later, overseen by the United Nations, failed to bring stability to the country. In 2014, the Houthis - an anti-government rebel movement which champions the Zaidi Shi'ite minority - …

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