Anime Festival Asia - In The Know Singapore
The C3 Anime Festival Asia in Singapore is one of the biggest Japanese pop culture events outside of Japan, featuring all things anime, including games, toys and cosplayers.
The C3 Anime Festival Asia in Singapore is one of the biggest Japanese pop culture events outside of Japan, featuring all things anime, including games, toys and cosplayers.
A woman was on trial for spraying insecticide on a caged bird with a fan blowing the mist upwards from her flat window, triggering coughing and breathing issues in the bird.
Thousands protested Australia's increasingly divisive national day Thursday as the public debates whether the country's Indigenous population should be recognised in the constitution.Australia Day on January 26 has traditionally celebrated the arrival of European settlers at Sydney Harbour in 1788, and has typically been observed with beach parties and backyard barbecues.But in recent years, it has also become a day of national protest, with some Australians calling it "Invasion Day" and saying it was the start of a cultural genocide by European colonisers.Indigenous activist Paul Silva, speaking to a crowd of thousands at an Invasion Day rally in central Sydney, said the national holiday should be abolished. "They invaded our lands, killing our extended families, turning our warriors into slaves," he said, as the crowd shouted "shame" in response. "How can this day be celebrated?" Indigenous poet Lizzie Jarrett said Sydney was "ground zero for a genocide of First Nations people". "You think we're angry? Wouldn't you be angry?" she asked the crowd.Ethan Lyons, 17, said he wanted to acknowledge the "beautiful land" of Indigenous Australians. "We also have to acknowledge the almost 250 years of ongoing theft and destruction," he told the crowd. Similar rallies took place in major cities across Australia.At a lively protest in Hobart, the capital of the island state of Tasmania, demonstrators carried flags declaring "Stolen Land" and "We are still here".The demonstrations have an added significance this year as Australia's centre-left government pushes to change the country's constitution to better recognise Indigenous Australians.- 'Most important question' -There is currently no mention of Indigenous Australians in the constitution, adopted in 1901.They were banned from voting in some states and territories until the 1960s. The public will vote on the change -- called the Indigenous Voice to Parliament -- in a binding referendum later this year. It aims to give Indigenous Australians a greater say in national policy-making as they battle poorer health, lower incomes and higher barriers to education. The Voice proposal has been politically divisive, with several conservative figures deriding it as unneeded and a waste of time. But Indigenous lawyer Noel Pearson said the Voice was "the most important question" currently facing Australia. "The question that will be put is: do we recognise Indigenous people in the constitution?" he told national broadcaster ABC. "And if we say no to that, then I can't see how the future will be anything other than protest."Indigenous Australians settled in the country an estimated 65,000 years ago but have suffered widespread discrimination and oppression since the arrival of the British more than two centuries ago. Australian historian Lyndall Ryan has estimated that more than 10,000 Indigenous people were killed in 400 separate massacres since the British arrived. Of Australia's 25 million residents, about 900,000 today identify as Indigenous. The inequalities facing the Indigenous population remain stark -- they have life expectancies years shorter than other Australians and are far more likely to die in police custody. sft/ryj/dva
Hindenburg Research says world’s third-richest person, Gautam Adani, is pulling ‘largest con in corporate history’ Adani Corporate House in Ahmedabad, India. Photograph: Ashish Vaishnav/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock
Ukraine's sports minister warned on Thursday his country could boycott the 2024 Paris Olympics if Russian and Belarusian athletes are allowed to take part.Ukraine's sports minister Vadym Goutzeit said such a move was "unacceptable".
As rising waters fuel fears that Venice may one day be entirely submerged, local children are being educated on how to protect the lagoon, a fragile ecosystem threatened by climate change."We want the children to learn to observe nature and the lagoon, to learn to understand it, to love it and learn how better protect it," said programme coordinator Francesca Santoro.
The Indian rupee rose marginally against the dollar on Friday, but ended the week lower due to suspected intervention by the central bank. For the week, the local currency was down 0.5%. The currency came under pressure after it managed to climb above the 81 level on Monday thanks to dollar purchases from public sector banks, likely on the directions of the Reserve Bank of India.
Two senior UN leaders said Wednesday they were pressing the Taliban to reverse its restrictions on Afghan women, particularly a ban on working in aid delivery, with one official warning that "famine is looming" during the harsh winter.Griffiths led a delegation of senior NGO officials to meet several Taliban leaders this week in a bid to push them to further relax the ban on women aid workers.
Indian trailblazer Sania Mirza bowed out of Grand Slam tennis Friday with defeat in the Australian Open mixed-doubles final playing alongside Rohan Bopanna -- her first playing partner 22 years ago."Rohan was my first-ever mixed-doubles partner at (aged) 14 and we won the nationals," said Mirza, a six-time Grand Slam champion, three in doubles and three in mixed.
Moves to reintegrate Russian athletes for next year's Paris Olympics were strongly criticised by the British government on Thursday.The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, said on Thursday that she was in favour of Russian athletes competing at the 2024 Olympics as neutrals.
At the Stalingrad Battle Museum in Russia's southern city of Volgograd, dozens of teenagers stand in a circle, waiting to take oath as they join the patriotic Youth Army movement.The oath-taking ceremony in Volgograd came ahead of the 80th anniversary of the battle of Stalingrad, the name of the city at the time.
Seven listed companies of the Adani conglomerate - controlled by one of the world's richest men Gautam Adani - have lost a combined $48 billion in market capitalisation since Wednesday, with U.S. bonds of Adani firms also falling after Hindenburg Research flagged concerns in a Jan. 24 report about debt levels and the use of tax havens. "We think the underlying assets at the bond level are quite adequately leveraged while the promoter-level is an unknown and is something that can be mitigated only through an equity raise, such as the ongoing Adani Enterprises FPO."
Turkey's pro-Kurdish party should back the main opposition candidate instead of fielding its own against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in May elections, its elder statesman told AFP from jail."I am in favour of backing a joint candidate," Selahattin Demirtas, who ran against Erdogan twice, told AFP through a lawyer from his jail in the western city of Edirne.
She is 80 years old, the Memorial rights group she co-founded has been shut down, and some of her colleagues have fled Russia fearing arrest under President Vladimir Putin."I am grateful and I bow down before them because we didn't become toxic for them and at least from their perspective we do not represent Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, we are different people, we are his opponents," Gannushkina said of the Russian president.
BENGALURU (Reuters) -Indian carmaker Tata Motors Ltd said on Friday it would hike prices of its passenger vehicles by 1.2% on a weighted average basis from Feb. 1, citing a rise in overall input costs. The price increase comes a month after the maker of the Tiago and Harrier cars raised commercial vehicle prices by up to 2% in January.. Earlier this month, rival and India's top car maker Maruti Suzuki raised prices by an average of 1.1% across its models, blaming similar cost pressures.
Tunisians are to vote again on Sunday in elections for a parliament stripped of its powers, the final pillar of President Kais Saied's remake of politics in the birthplace of the Arab Spring.The second-round vote comes as the North African country grapples with a grave economic crisis and deep political divisions over Saied's July 2021 power grab.
Hindu fundamentalist Ashok Sharma has devoted his life to championing the deeds of an Indian "patriot": not revered independence hero Mahatma Gandhi, but the man who shot him dead."It is because of Gandhi and his ideology that India was divided and Hindus had to bow before Muslims and outsiders," said Abhishek Agarwal, like Sharma a member of the century-old radical Hindu Mahasabha group.
Two of the biggest hitters in women's tennis go toe-to-toe when Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina clash in Saturday's Australian Open final in Melbourne.Rybakina, 23, has coolly moved through the draw, unfazed by the snub of her opening match being shunted out to the wilderness of Melbourne Park's Court 13.
EU interior ministers reached "consensus" Thursday to warn outside countries refusing to take back irregular migrants they risked tighter visa restrictions to Europe, Sweden's migration minister said.Johansson said after a November visit to Bangladesh that the threat of the visa sanctions had prompted Dhaka to become more "politically open" to accepting irregular migrants back from Europe.
Some direct invites were given to pro players, which included those that are part of a VALORANT franchise team or are contracted with a tier-one organisation.
A gunman stormed Azerbaijan's embassy in Tehran on Friday, killing the mission's head of security in an attack Iran said was motivated by personal reasons but Baku labelled an act of "terrorism".Following the attack, Azerbaijan's foreign ministry said the diplomatic mission's head of security was killed and that two guards were wounded but in a "satisfactory" condition, adding that an investigation had been launched.