22/09/2025

MONDAY | SEPT 22, 2025

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Vietnamese singer wins Intervision song contest

China jails citizen-journalist a second time SHANGHAI: A journalist jailed for four years after documenting the early phases of the 2020 public health scare was sentenced on Friday to four more years in prison, Reporters Without Borders said. Zhang Zhan, 42, was sentenced on a charge of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” in China, the same charge that led to her December 2020 imprisonment after she posted first hand accounts from the central city of Wuhan, the international press freedom group, known by its French initials RSF, said on Saturday. China’s Foreign Ministry could not be immediately reached yesterday for comment. Reuters could not determine whether Zhang had legal representation. “She should be celebrated globally as an ‘information hero’, not trapped in brutal prison conditions,” said RSF Asia-Pacific advocacy manager Aleksandra Bielakowska. “Her ordeal and persecution must end. It is more urgent than ever for the international diplomatic community to pressure Beijing for her release.” Zhang was initially arrested after months of posting accounts, including videos, from crowded hospitals and empty streets that painted an early picture of the public health scare. Her lawyer at the time, Ren Quanniu, said Zhang believed she was “being persecuted for exercising her freedom of speech”. She went on hunger strike the month after that arrest, according to court documents seen by Reuters, prompting police to strap her hands and force-feed her with a tube, her lawyers said at the time. Zhang was released in May last year and detained again three months later, eventually being formally arrested and placed in Shanghai’s Pudong Detention Centre, RSF said. Friday’s sentencing followed Zhang’s reporting on human rights abuses, RSF said. Her former lawyer Ren posted on X that the new charges were based on Zhang’s comment on overseas websites and she should not be deemed guilty. China’s authorities have never publicly specified what activities Zhang was charged for. “This is the second time Zhang Zhan has faced trial on baseless charges that amount to nothing more than a blatant act of persecution for her journalism work,” said Beh Lih Yi, Asia-Pacific director for the New York based Committee to Protect Journalists. – Reuters

friendly, including Belarus, Cuba, South Africa, the UAE and Venezuela. President Vladimir Putin opened the final with a video statement saying the world was changing fast. There was controversy though about who would represent the United States, a geopolitical outlier. Vassy, an Australian-born singer who also has a US passport, dropped out at the last minute after coming under “political pressure from the government of Australia,” the organisers said in a statement. There was no comment from Australia. Vassy was already a stand-in for US-born R&B singer Brandon Howard, who dropped out days earlier citing family reasons. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke of the importance of “preserving traditions and national cultures, as well as religious, spiritual and moral constructs”. – Reuters

hailing from more than 20 countries accounting for 4 billion people, half the world’s population, including China, India and Brazil. Vietnam’s Duc Phuc, whose song was based on a folktale about a king famous for repelling an enemy army, was crowned the strongest act by a jury made up of participating countries. His reward for strong vocals and a slickly-produced performance featuring pyrotechnics: a cash prize of 30 million roubles (RM1.5 million) and a trophy. Kyrgyzstan was awarded second place with Qatar third. Russia’s entrant – ultranationalist singer Shaman, whose real name is Yaroslav Dronov – asked the jury to disregard his performance due to Moscow being the host. The organisers said that Saudi Arabia had agreed to host the contest next year. Saturday’s competition featured acts from countries Russia considers

o Competition stresses family values MOSCOW: Vietnam was crowned the winner of the Russian-hosted Intervision song contest early yesterday, a competition backed by President Vladimir Putin and conceived as a geopolitical and socially conservative rival to Eurovision. Putin in February ordered the revival of Intervision, a Soviet-era regional musical contest based on “traditional family values” after Moscow was excluded from the Eurovision Song Contest in 2022. Kyiv has called the event “an instrument of hostile propaganda”. Shown live on Russian TV and broadcast across parts of Asia, Africa, South America and Europe, Intervision was held at an arena outside Moscow with singers MANILA: Thousands of Filipinos gathered yesterday in Manila to express their anger over a ballooning scandal involving bogus flood control projects believed to have cost taxpayers billions of dollars. Rage over the so-called ghost infrastructure projects has been mounting since President Ferdinand Marcos put them centre stage in a July state of the nation address that followed weeks of deadly flooding. On Monday, Marcos said he did not blame people for protesting “one bit” while calling for demonstrations to remain peaceful. The army has been placed on “red alert” as a precaution. “There were times I personally waded through floods,” said Aly Villahermosa, a 23-year-old nursing student from Metro Manila. An estimated crowd of 13,000 gathered yesterday morning in the capital’s Luneta Park. “If there’s a budget for ghost projects, then why is there no budget for the health sector?” she said, calling the theft of public funds “truly shameful”. DEDURU OYA: Sri Lanka urged people on Saturday to catch and cook invasive fish species, including the giant snakehead and piranhas, that threaten fragile freshwater ecosystems and are now banned. The Fisheries Ministry launched a nationwide campaign by hosting a fishing competition at a reservoir in central Kurunegala district, where more than 1,000 anglers were instructed to reel in only the introduced predators. Fisheries Secretary Kolitha Kamal Jinadasa said the import, sale and transport of live redline giant snakehead, knife fish, alligator gar and piranha was banned from Saturday.

Duc Phuc with his trophy. – AFPPIC

Filipinos protest flood control projects fraud

Filipinos calling for action at Rizal Park in Manila. – REUTERSPIC

to gather later in the day to march down the thoroughfare known as EDSA, site of the People Power Movement protests that helped oust Marcos’s dictator father from power in 1986. – AFP

“Corruption requires people to go to the streets and express their outrage in the hope of pressuring government to actually do their jobs,” he said. Even bigger crowds are expected

Teddy Casino, 56, chairman of left-wing alliance Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, said the group was demanding not only the return of stolen funds but prison time for those involved.

Sri Lankan anglers take on invasive fish species

Recreational fisherman N.A.V. Sandaruwan, 37, won the top prize of 20,000 rupees (RM278) and a rod and reel. “I nearly had another big snakehead but it managed to get away,” he said. Officials also encouraged competitors to take their catch home and cook them, although it is not usually a species consumed by locals. Two anglers from India, Dinesh Kumar and Raj Thilak, joined the competition but neither was able to bag a snakehead. “Some days you get one, some days you don’t, but that’s fishing,” Kumar said. – AFP

People who already keep the breeds in their homes or in private aquariums will be given three months to register with authorities. “It is not easy to catch them with a net, because they are very aggressive and their teeth are very sharp,” Jinadasa told hundreds of anglers during the competition targeting snakeheads at Deduru Oya reservoir. “In one day, we can remove a large number of fish from the natural environment, and then we can control their population,” he said. Jinadasa labelled the day a success, although only 22 snakeheads of 2-4kg were weighed in the best angler competition.

An angler holds a giant snakehead at the Deduru Oya reservoir. – AFPPIC