Le Journal

Vietnam’s top leader To Lam was reappointed on ‍Friday as head of the ruling Communist Party for the next five years after an uninimous vote by its central committee, as he pledged to turbocharge growth in the export-reliant nation. In the one-party state, Lam was re-elected to the country’s most powerful job by all 180 party officials from a newly formed committee at the end of the five-yearly party congress, according to an announcement at the party congress. In an address to the congress, Lam...

Two foreign nationals have become the first people in Malaysia to be charged under a new anti-littering law. Sultan Md, 28, a Bangladeshi, and Anita Lukman, 49, an Indonesian, were charged in the Sessions Court in Johor Bahru on Friday morning. Anita, an odd-job worker, pleaded guilty to throwing a cigarette butt and a drink bottle on the pavement on Jalan Ibrahim Sultan in Stulant Laut at 12.41am on January 1. The offence was framed under Section 77A(1) of the Solid Waste and Public Cleansing...

The Chinese navy and coastguard said on Friday that they rescued 17 Filipino crew members from a Singaporean-flagged cargo ship that had capsized near Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. According to the China Coast Guard (CCG), the Maritime Search and Rescue Centre in Sansha, Hainan province, received a distress report at around 1.30am on Friday. The vessel appeared to be in trouble about 55 nautical miles northwest of Scarborough Shoal, known as Huangyan Island in China. The centre sent...

Malaysia’s parliament has introduced new media-centre rules that ban doorstop interviews without permission and restrict access to key premises where lawmakers typically brief reporters, fuelling fears of a narrowing media space. Under the guidelines, journalists “are not allowed” to conduct such interviews – also known as doorstepping – “without permission”, and may face written warnings and restrictions on access to parliament for breaches, with serious cases referred to parliamentary security...