24/08/2025

theSun on Sunday AUG 24, 2025

WORLD 8

‘Ex-leader jailed to stop comeback’

HK rejects renewal of reporter’s visa HONG KONG: A journalist who works for Bloomberg News said she has to leave the city after a foreign journalists’ club revealed that authorities had denied renewal of her working visa. Rebecca Choong Wilkins, Bloomberg’s Asia government and economy correspondent, said on social media that “after six years of reporting in Hong Kong, I’m very sad to be leaving my colleagues, friends and the place I’ve called home”. “I’ll be out of office for a while on maternity leave. Wherever I land, catch you on the other side,” she said. A Bloomberg News spokesperson said: “We cannot comment on the specifics of her situation but we fully support Rebecca and we will continue to work through appropriate avenues to try to resolve the matter.” The Immigration Department said it “acts in accordance with the laws and policies in handling each immigration case”. The Foreign Correspondents’ Club Hong Kong said it was “deeply concerned” and it understood that authorities did not give any reason for the denial. – AFP THE HAGUE: Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp resigned on Friday after a Cabinet meeting failed to agree to sanctions against Israel. The centre-right New Social Contract Party, of which Veldkamp is a member, withdrew from the governing coalition after the resignation, adding to growing political chaos in the country. Veldkamp had said on Thursday that he wanted new measures against Israel. Last month, the Netherlands declared far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich persona non grata . It was also among 21 countries that signed a joint declaration on Thursday condemning Israel’s approval of a major West Bank settlement project as “unacceptable and contrary to international law”. But after the Cabinet became deadlocked on Friday over possible new measures to increase pressure on Israel, Veldkamp told ANP he was “insufficiently able to take meaningful additional measures”. “I feel constrained in setting the course I consider necessary as foreign minister,” he said. Prime Minister Dick Schoof told the Dutch parliament that he regretted the resignation of Veldkamp and the withdrawal of his party, the fourth biggest in the chamber, as the fragile government heads into the election campaign. – AFP Dutch minister resigns over Israel sanctions

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UK side to fulfil its obligation Ʊ and approve the planning application without delay,” the embassy said in a statement. Earlier this month, the embassy said claims that the building could have “secret facilities” used to harm Britain’s national security were “despicable slandering”. The Chinese government bought Royal Mint Court in 2018 but its requests for planning permission to build the new embassy were rejected by the local council in 2022. President Xi Jinping asked Prime Minister Keir Starmer last year to intervene. Starmer’s central government took control of the planning decision last year. – Reuters government,” Bandara said. Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP), which has two seats in the 225 member parliament, said the government felt threatened. “They fear he might return to power, and that is why this action was taken,” UNP General Secretary Thalatha Athukorala told reporters in Colombo. Wickremesinghe stands accused of using state funds to finance a private visit to Britain in September 2023. The offences carry a maximum punishment of 20 years in jail and a fine not exceeding three times the value of the misappropriated funds. His two-day UK visit was to participate in the conferring of an honorary professorship on his wife, Maithree, by the University of Wolverhampton. Wickremesinghe has maintained that his wife’s travel expenses were met by her and that no state funds were used. However, the Criminal Investigation Department alleged that Wickremesinghe used 16.6 million rupees (RM232,614) of government money for his travel. Wickremesinghe became president in July 2022 after then leader Gotabaya Rajapaksa stepped down following months of street protests fuelled by the economic crisis. He later secured a US$2.9 billion (RM12.2 billion) bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in early 2023, doubled taxes and removed energy subsidies to stabilise the economy. Since the new government came to power, two former senior ministers have been jailed for up to 25 years for corruption. Several members of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s family have also been charged with misusing state funds and are being prosecuted. Many of them are on bail. Dissanayake’s government this month impeached the police chief after accusing him of abuse of power. The prisons chief was also jailed for corruption. – AFP

Wickremesinghe remanded in custody

Nalin Bandara, a member of parliament for the main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) party, who visited Wickremesinghe at Colombo’s New Magazine Prison, said the former leader had called for unity to challenge Dissanayake’s leftist administration. “What the former president says is that we should get onto a common stage to fight the

COLOMBO: Opposition parties in Sri Lanka accused the government of jailing the country’s former president over fears he could return to power. Ranil Wickremesinghe, 76, who lost the last presidential election in September to Anura

Kumara Dissanayake, was remanded in custody on Friday on charges of misusing state funds for foreign travel. Anti-graft units have ramped up investigations since Dissanayake came to power on a promise to fight endemic corruption in the island nation.

Wickremesinghe is escorted to his seat in a prison bus in Colombo on Friday. – AFPPIC

UK delays Chinese embassy ruling

DP9, the planning consultancy working for the Chinese government, said its client felt it would be inappropriate to provide full internal layout plans, saying additional drawings provided an acceptable level of detail, after the government asked why areas were blacked out in drawings. “The applicant considers the level of detail shown on the unredacted plans sufficient to identify the main uses,” DP9 said. “In these circumstances, we consider it is neither necessary nor appropriate to provide additional more detailed internal layout plans or details.” The department of housing said in reply it would now rule on whether the project can go ahead

by Oct 21 rather than by Sept 9 because it needed more time to consider the responses. Luke de Pulford, executive director of the Inter Parliamentary Alliance on China, which revealed the letter, said: “These explanations are far from satisfactory.” De Pulford said the “assurances amount to ‘trust me bro’”. The Chinese embassy expressed “serious concern” over the government’s response. The embassy said host countries have an “international obligation” to support the construction of diplomatic buildings. “The Chinese side Ʊ urges Ʊ the

LONDON: The British government on Friday extended the deadline until October to decide on whether to approve China’s plans to build an embassy here after Beijing refused to fully explain why the plans contained blacked out areas. China’s plans to build a new embassy on the site of a two century-old building near the Tower of London have stalled for the past three years because of opposition from residents, lawmakers and Hong Kong pro democracy campaigners in Britain. Politicians in Britain and the US have warned against allowing China to build the embassy on the site over concerns that it could be used as a base for spying.