15/10/2025

WEDNESDAY | OCT 15, 2025 7 Prabowo asks Trump for meeting with son SHARM EL-SHEIK: President Prabowo Subianto asked President Donald Trump on Monday if he could meet Trump’s son Eric, an executive vice president of the Trump Organisation, according to comments by the leaders picked up by a microphone after Trump had addressed a Gaza focused summit in Egypt. Trump and Prabowo, who were also seen on video footage, appeared to be unaware that a live microphone was recording their conversation. The two spoke in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh after Trump delivered remarks to a group of world leaders gathered for the summit, which followed the announcement of a ceasefire agreement in Gaza. The White House and the Indonesian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the exchange. It was not clear in the audio whether the two were referencing the Trump Organisation or any business deals involving the president or his family. Speaking to Trump as the two men stood behind a podium with a microphone, Prabowo refers to a region that is “not safe, security-wise” and then asks Trump: “Can I meet Eric?” Trump says: “I’ll have Eric call. Should I do that? He’s such a good boy. I’ll have Eric call.” Prabowo then says: “We’ll look for a better place,” and Trump says again: “I’ll have Eric call you.” Prabowo says: “Eric or Don Jr.” Eric Trump and his brother Donald Trump Jr both serve as executive vice-presidents of the Trump Organisation, which has business operations involving real estate, hospitality and blockchain-based ventures. The company operates a golf club outside Jakarta, according to its website. Another property in Indonesia, a golf club and resort in Bali, is listed on the website as “coming soon”. – Reuters Opposition move to oust ruling Japan party TOKYO: Japan’s top opposition parties held high-stakes discussions yesterday, aiming to find a unified candidate for prime minister and oust the ruling party from power. The talks come after the ruling coalition collapsed last week, putting in peril Sanae Takaichi’s bid to become the country’s first woman premier. Japan was in political limbo over whether the opposition bloc will unite after junior partner Komeito quit its 26-year alliance with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). A union would give the opposition group enough votes to name a prime minister and block Takaichi, who was elected as LDP president just over a week ago but needs lawmakers’ approval to become premier. Yuichiro Tamaki, president of the Democratic Party for the People (DPP), the third largest opposition group in the lower house, said the secretaries-general of three main opposition parties will meet to explore a possible union. However he cautioned that their policies diverge significantly in crucial areas, including national defence and use of nuclear energy. “If we were to join together in a coalition government, alignment on fundamental policies would be essential,” he told a press conference. “If there’s no alignment, the administration will be volatile,” said Tamaki. DPP’s secretary-general was also expected to meet his counterpart from the LDP and its former partner Komeito. The LDP named Takaichi as its new leader earlier this month, seemingly putting her on track to rise to the premiership. Although she could still win if opposition parties fail to agree on an alternative candidate, Komeito’s exit from the coalition due to a slush fund scandal within the LDP has sunk Japan into a new political crisis. – AFP

Myanmar scam cities booming

MAE SOT: Scam centres in Myanmar blamed for swindling billions from victims across the world are expanding fast just months after a crackdown that was supposed to eradicate them, an AFP investigation has found. New buildings have been springing up inside the heavily guarded compounds around Myawaddy on the Thailand-Myanmar border at a dizzying pace, with others festooned with dishes for Elon Musk’s Starlink service, satellite images and AFP drone footage show. Starlink has gone from nowhere at the time of the crackdown in February to becoming Myanmar’s biggest internet provider every day from July 3 until Oct 1, according to data from the APNIC Asian regional internet registry. The US Congress Joint Economic Committee told AFP they have begun an investigation into Starlink’s involvement with the centres. It has the power to make Musk testify before it. SpaceX, which owns Starlink, did not reply to requests for comment. China, Thailand and Myanmar forced pro government militias who protect the centres into promising to “eradicate” the compounds in February. They freed around 7,000 people, most Chinese citizens, from the brutal call centre-style system, which the United Nations says runs on forced labour and human trafficking. Many workers told AFP they were beaten and forced to work long hours by scam bosses who target victims across the globe with telephone, internet and social media cons. Starlink has topped the APNIC ranking of Myanmar internet providers for all but one week since July 3, after first appearing at number 56 in the list in late April. Only weeks after the headline-grabbing releases, building work on several of the centres had started along the Moei River,

o Starlink role under probe

Senator Maggie Hassan, the leading Democrat on the US Congressional committee, has called on Musk to block the Starlink service to the fraud factories. “While most people have probably noticed the increasing number of scam texts, calls, and emails, they may not know that transnational criminals halfway across the world may be perpetrating these scams by using Starlink internet access,” she said. The senator wrote to Musk in July demanding answers to 11 questions about Starlink’s role. Former California prosecutor Erin West, who now heads the Operation Shamrock group campaigning against the centres, said: “It is abhorrent that an American company is enabling this to happen.” While still a cybercrime prosecutor, she warned Starlink in July last year that the crime syndicates that run the centres were using its dishes, but received no reply. Americans are among the top targets of Southeast Asia scammers, the US Treasury Department said, losing an estimated US$10 billion (RM42.3 billion) last year, up 66% in 12 months. Up to 120,000 people may be being “forced to carry out online scams” in the Myanmar centres, according to a UN report in 2023. It said another 100,000 are likely being held in similar conditions in Cambodia. – AFP

which forms the frontier with Thailand. AFP analysis of satellite images from Planet Labs PBC found dozens of buildings going up or being altered in the largest of the compounds, KK Park, between March and September. New roads and a roundabout had also been added, with the security checkpoint at its entrance greatly extended. AFP drone footage also captured major construction going on, with cranes and labourers hard at work on what appeared to be large office blocks. At least five new ferry crossings across the Moei River have also appeared to supply the centres from the Thai side, satellite images show. Construction work has also been going on at several of the other 27 suspected scam centres in the Myawaddy cluster, AFP analysis found, including what the US Treasury called the “notorious” Shwe Kokko centres, north of Myawaddy. Last month, the US sanctioned nine people connected to Shwe Kokko and the Chinese criminal kingpin She Zhijiang, founder of the multistorey Yatai New City centre there.

People are seen on a balcony of a building with what appears to be Starlink satellite dishes on the roof in the KK Park complex in Myawaddy. – AFPPIC

US backs Manila over Sandy Cay vessel clash WASHINGTON: The United States said on Monday it stood by its Philippine ally and emphasised their mutual defence treaty after vessels from China and the Philippines clashed amid heightened tensions in the disputed South China Sea. undermine regional stability”. In a statement, Pigott reaffirmed that Article IV of the 1951 US Philippines Mutual Defence Treaty “extends to armed attacks on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft – including those of its Coast Guard – anywhere in the South China Sea”.

“violations and provocations”. The State Department said: “China’s sweeping territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea and its increasingly coercive actions to advance them at the expense of its neighbours continue to undermine regional stability and fly in the face of its commitments to resolve disputes peacefully.” Last year, during the former Biden administration, two senior Republican US senators called for a list of options developed by the Pentagon and State Department to support the Philippines against Beijing in the South China Sea, saying that limiting responses to verbal assurances of the applicability of Article IV undermines the credibility and value of these commitments. – Reuters

Earlier, China’s Foreign Ministry urged Manila not to challenge Beijing’s efforts to “safeguard its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests” after Sunday’s incident in the Spratly Islands, in which the Philippines said China deployed water cannon and rammed a Filipino vessel. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott condemned China’s “ramming and water cannoning” of a Philippines vessel and said Washington stood with its ally “as they confront China’s dangerous actions which

China and the Philippines have traded accusations over the confrontation near Sandy Cay, a coral reef within the Spratly Islands. The two nations have confronted each other repeatedly in recent years in the South China Sea, a strategic trade route, and which China claims most of. Tensions have heightened recently and Lin Jian, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, told a regular press briefing the Philippines should immediately stop