BEIJING: China has gone to great lengths to support its currency and would not devalue the renminbi to spur exports or combat trade frictions, the governor of the central bank said Sunday.

Speaking on the sidelines of China's annual parliamentary session, Yi Gang said Washington and Beijing had discussed exchange rates in recent trade talks and reached a consensus on many "crucial" issues.

US President Donald Trump has long accused Beijing of manipulating its currency to gain a trade advantage and Washington has been seeking assurances on the exchange rate in the ongoing trade talks between the two nations.

"Let me stress here that we will never use the exchange rate for the purpose of competition, nor will we use the exchange rate to increase China's exports or as a tool in handling trade frictions," said Yi.

"We have committed not to do this," Yi told reporters.

He noted the US Treasury Department had declined many times to label China a currency manipulator in its semi-annual report on international exchange rates.

Beijing and Washington have been locked in a bruising trade war since last year, imposing tit-for-tat tariffs on more than $360 billion in two-way trade, which has left global markets reeling.

"The two sides reached consensus on many crucial and important issues," Yi said, without specifying which issues.

China's banking regulator told reporters earlier this week that the two sides would reach a consensus on the exchange rate and indicated it would not be a sticking point in the way of a larger trade agreement.

"China's efforts and achievements in maintaining the basic stability of the renminbi exchange rate at a reasonable and balanced level are recognised by the whole world," Yi said.

In the past three or four years the exchange rate had been under market pressure to depreciate, Yi said, adding that Beijing had used up $1 trillion of China's foreign currency reserves to stabilise the currency.

There have been conflicting comments from Washington and Beijing on the progress of negotiations.

Beijing is hopeful about its next round of trade talks with the US, China's vice minister for commerce Wang Shouwen said Saturday, after revealing that top negotiators had tried to hammer out a deal over a lunch of burgers and eggplant chicken in a recent round of talks.

Donald Trump on Friday said he remains optimistic but will not sign a pact unless it is a "very good deal", and a top economic advisor said the US president could walk away from a bad deal.

The two sides were thought to be readying for a Trump-Xi meeting at the end of March, but the US ambassador to China said Friday that the two countries were not yet ready to bring together the two leaders for a summit and deal signing.

SINGAPORE: Taxi operator ComfortDelGro has issued an apology after one of its drivers fainted while driving along the East Coast Parkway (ECP) on Friday (Mar 8).

A video, taken from a dashboard camera and uploaded on Facebook, showed the cab swerving across two lanes and hitting the divider twice.

Other vehicles stopped or slowed down to avoid colliding with the cab.

The video also showed the passenger alighting the taxi as it was moving along the expressway and getting into a red car that had stopped a distance behind. 

The taxi continued moving and slowly disappeared from sight. 

In a statement responding to Channel NewsAsia's queries on Sunday, ComfortDelGro's group chief communications officer Tammy Tan confirmed the incident, which occurred at about 1.30pm on Friday. 

"Our taxi driver was travelling with a passenger on the ECP expressway when he blacked out momentarily," said Ms Tan. 

"When he came to, he realised that his passenger had disembarked. He wanted to get off the expressway to seek medical help and continued driving slowly until he was out of the expressway and at the Rochor Road exit gantry," she said, adding that the driver then called for assistance. 

He was warded in hospital for observation. 

Ms Tan also said that the company was in touch with the passenger and would be sending a hamper and vouchers to him as a gesture of goodwill. 

“We would also like to apologise to all affected motorists for this incident and thank the private car lady driver for her kind assistance," said Ms Tan. 

Police confirmed a report had been made and that they were investigating the incident. 

Indian Wells (United States) - World number one Naomi Osaka launched her Indian Wells WTA title defense with a 6-3, 6-4 victory in a grudge match against Kristina Mladenovic on Saturday.

Osaka, whose second straight Grand Slam title at the Australian Open in January propelled her to the top of the rankings, was beaten by 65th-ranked Mladenovic in Dubai last month in her first match since she lifted the trophy in Melbourne.

Keen to avoid a repeat, Osaka marched through the opening set in 38 minutes, but she hit a speed bump as she was broken when serving for the match at 5-2 in the second.

After Mladenovic held serve to narrow the deficit to 5-4, the Japanese player faced another break point before wrapping up the match after one hour and 21 minutes.

"The last time I played her I lost, so anything's a bonus," Osaka said, adding that she felt a few butterflies before opening the first title defense of her career.

Her surprise triumph at Indian Wells last year launched a 2018 campaign that would eventually include her first Grand Slam crown at the US Open.

"I've never been a defending champion before, that's new and I was really nervous," said Osaka, who booked a third-round meeting with American Danielle Collins, a 6-4, 6-1 winner over Kirsten Flipkens.

Seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams pulled off the upset of the day, rallying from a set and two breaks down to topple third-seeded Petra Kvitova 4-6, 7-5, 6-4.

"I just fought and tried my hardest," said Williams, currently ranked 36th in the world.

"A double break is not ideal against a great server, especially a left-handed server," Williams said, adding that the secret to coming back was "just being in the moment".

"I think I created some opportunities. I had some good points. I think she had a few tight points, and here we are."

She booked a third-round clash with fellow American Christina McHale, a 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 winner over 30th-seeded Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

Two-time Wimbledon champion Kvitova, who was runner-up to Osaka in Melbourne, appeared to have taken control of the stadium court slugfest when she broke Williams for a 4-3 lead in the third.

But Williams immediately broke back and Kvitova soon found herself serving to save the match. She took a 40-15 lead in the final game, but two double faults, followed by a lucky netcord bounce for Williams gave the American a match point and Kvitova sailed a ball long to end matters after two hours and 27 minutes.

Williams pulled off the unlikely comeback despite failing to produce a single ace although she said her varying serve speeds were "what I needed to do".

She was broken four times, but proved more consistent in the bruising baseline rallies.

Kvitova fired 10 aces, but also had 10 double faults and while the Czech fired 38 winners to Williams's 15, her 56 unforced errors were more than double the American's 25.

"It was such a weird match," Kvitova said, calling it her worst of the year. "I took the first set. Suddenly I was leading in the second, but somehow I just gave her a chance again to be back in the match, and she took it.

"I was so frustrated with myself from the half of the second set to the end, which shouldn't happen to me," she said.

There was disappointment, too, for 2011 winner Caroline Wozaniacki, who fell 7-5, 2-6, 7-5 to 59th-ranked Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova.

Elsewhere on Saturday, fifth-seeded Karolina Pliskova shook off a slow start to defeat Japanese qualifier Misaki Doi 6-7 (4/7), 6-1, 6-1.

Pliskova next faces another qualifier, Belgian Ysaline Bonaventure, who defeated 28th-seeded Donna Vekic of Croatia 1-6, 7-6 (7/5), 6-4.

Eighth-seeded German Angelique Kerber eased into the third round with a 6-0, 6-2 victory over Kazakhstan's Yulia Putintseva.

NEW DELHI: India is set to announce Sunday the dates for a national election that will see hundreds of millions of voters cast their ballots in the biggest democratic exercise on Earth.

The Election Commission has called a press conference for later Sunday where the timeline for India's mammoth multi-week polls will be unveiled, a senior government official told AFP.

More than 800 million voters from the Himalayan peaks to the deserts and tropical shores are eligible to vote for a new government for the next five years in an enormous democratic undertaking that will span several weeks.

They will elect 543 lawmakers to India's lower house of parliament, the Lok Sabha, which governs the nation from the capital New Delhi.

The election will see Prime Minister Narendra Modi run for a second term against Rahul Gandhi, the latest scion of the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty to seek leadership of the world's second-most populous nation.

They are the two strongest challengers from a field of hundreds of political parties from across the culturally and geographically diverse country of 1.25 billion.

Modi, whose right-wing party won an outright majority in the 2014 elections, enters the race in a strong position and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) hopes to decimate Gandhi's left-leaning Congress party once again.

His Hindu-nationalist political machine is riding on Modi's personal popularity and an array of emotive issues, including renewed hostility with nuclear-armed rival Pakistan.

The prime minister has also sought to contrast his humble origins as a tea seller against Gandhi, the 48-year-old privileged half-Italian princeling of India's most famous family.

But opinion polls have suggested ebbing support for the BJP, and even that it may fall short of the 272 seats it needs to form a government on its own.

Gandhi, long criticised as a lacklustre leader, has also started looking more recently like a serious challenger.

Congress, which has ruled India for much of its time since independence from Britain in 1947, won three key state election victories in December, chipping into Modi's core support base in the Hindi "Cow Belt" regions home to nearly half a billion voters.

He has also gone on the offensive over Modi's economic record, with the Congress state wins attributed to the prime minister's perceived failure to help impoverished farmers and to create enough jobs.

In the 2014 elections, 830 million people were eligible to vote but only 550 million cast their ballots.

NEW DELHI: Test cricket is in robust health after a strong year, the custodians of the game's laws have said, following a survey in which fans hailed it as the "ultimate" of the game's three formats.

The future of the long format has been a subject of debate since the rise of Twenty20 leagues across the cricketing globe coincided with dwindling crowds for test matches outside Australia and England.

The lure of quick money has spawned several Twenty20 freelancers while many players have signed white ball-only contracts in English county cricket making their priority very clear.

The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) surveyed over 13,000 responders from more than 100 countries with an overwhelming 86 percent fans identifying test cricket as their preferred format.

"Responders ... still consider the test format to be the pinnacle of cricket and the favourite format of cricket to attend, follow and watch, with respondents describing the game as the 'ultimate' form of cricket," the MCC said in a statement.

The last couple of months have been a great advertisement for the long form with India registering their first ever test series victory in Australia, West Indies humbling mighty England, and Sri Lanka becoming the first Asian country to win a series in South Africa.

"Test cricket has had the most incredible year and that has contributed to the strong support for test cricket," Sri Lankan batting great Kumar Sangakkara, a member of the MCC World Cricket Committee, said.

"...there’s huge competition amongst the top countries at the moment and it makes for exciting competition. It is brilliant news fans are backing the great cricket being played the world over."

The survey also some of the key challenges in increasing attendances at and viewership of test matches, including cost and availability of ticket and increased access in free-to-air TV.

"It is important we listen to cricket fans to continue to improve their experience of test match cricket and address their concerns," MCC World Cricket committee chairman Mike Gatting said.

"We want to see test cricket continue to thrive, especially as more formats of the sport such as The Hundred and T20 leagues gain popularity," added the former England captain.

(Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi; editing by Nick Mulvenney)

LOS ANGELES: It was the fall of 1981 and Magic Johnson was not happy. The Los Angeles Lakers had just won five in a row, but Johnson was feeling constrained by the new offense head coach Paul Westhead had installed.

Westhead met with his star point guard over what he called a "lack of concentration," according to a Sports Illustrated report.

It didn't go well. 

Because in the locker room after that meeting, Johnson told the media he couldn't play under Westhead's system anymore and wanted to be traded.

John Rockwell, a close friend of Lakers owner Dr Jerry Buss, was dispatched to find a solution that didn't involve trading the conductor of Showtime.

"I go to Jerry and he says, 'Well, that's not a problem at all,'" Rockwell recalled in a recent interview with ESPN. 

"He said, 'Just fire the coach.' So, that's what he did. I was really surprised, but Magic was very important to the team."

There is perhaps no greater articulation of the Lakers' unwavering commitment to the star system than the clarity Buss showed in choosing Johnson over Westhead.

There was no hesitation. Westhead was fired the next morning when the team returned to Los Angeles with three years and more than US$1 million remaining on his contract. Pat Riley took over as head coach, and the rest is history.

The rest is history because Johnson performed and won championships. That's the other side of giving stars whatever they want, or think they want, in order to be happy. You better win enough to make all the special consideration worth it.

Kobe Bryant could dictate when and how much he was going to play, practice or pass to his teammates because he would go out and will the team to wins.

And as he aged, Buss' kids rewarded Bryant for the five championships he won the franchise with a two-year, US$48.5 million contract as he was coming off a torn Achilles tendon, just as Buss had rewarded Johnson.

Because of their experience with superstars and everything they bring along with them, there was perhaps no better franchise for LeBron James to play out his golden years than the Lakers.

They knew how to handle superstars. And at this stage in James' career, with three championships, eight consecutive NBA Finals appearances to his name and an equally burgeoning business and political profile off the court, James is a transcendent star. 

So the Lakers were prepared to do whatever he needed to be happy.

He didn't want to have a media conference in Los Angeles before he opened his Promise School back in Akron, Ohio. The Lakers said OK.

He talked with Johnson about finding playmakers and guys known for their toughness, which effectively resulted in a roster lacking in shooting and floor spacing. The Lakers went out and got players who fit that description - who were willing to play on one-year deals.

Johnson said the Lakers didn't want to make the team like the Cleveland Cavaliers all over again for James. 

But sure enough, James found himself back in a ball-dominant role; though he didn't have the shooters surrounding him to space the floor and open driving lanes to capitalize on his pinpoint passing, like he did in Miami and Cleveland.

Magic was right. It wasn't like Cleveland all over again: Los Angeles is ranked 22nd in offensive efficiency this season with the roster he put together.

But it all could have worked if James hadn't gotten hurt on Christmas Day and missed 18 of the next 19 games. James was just starting to find his footing with this new cast in Los Angeles. The team was starting to get healthy and find enough consistency to develop an identity.

Of course, James did get hurt. And pretty much everything since then has been a disaster.

After Monday's 113-105 loss to the LA Clippers, it seems increasingly likely the Lakers will miss the playoffs for a sixth straight season. 

It's a fate James hasn't felt since his second NBA season, and he has expressed nothing but disgust about it every time he has been asked.

A few weeks ago, James turned to the local beat reporters at his locker and tried to explain that they didn't know him well enough to understand that he did not tolerate losing like this. 

Then he turned to ESPN's Dave McMenamin, who had covered him during James' last four years in Cleveland, looking for some understanding and said, "Dave knows me."

James was exactly right. The Lakers treated him as they would any of the superstars who have donned the purple and gold; but the organization, its fans and the players didn't know him. 

They only knew of what he had done for Cleveland and Miami. He had equity where he'd won championships.

Here in Los Angeles, he just had expectations to deliver on or fall short of.

Had he won here before or wrapped his arms around the city once he arrived, there might be more understanding. But such is the downside of a superstar joining a new franchise at this stage in his career and then effectively failing to launch.

"I haven't been a part of a season with this [amount] of injuries to our key guys," James said. "It's just the way the season has been."

James and the Lakers really never got going before everything fell apart. And once it did, he couldn't do nearly enough to stop it.

It's hard to remember how good the Lakers and James looked before he tore his groin at the Golden State Warriors on Christmas and the wheels fell off. When the season is over and sober evaluations start taking place, perhaps that will factor into the decisions on how to move forward.

But right now, it all feels like a series of missteps and misfortune that everyone shares some blame in.

There was the failed pursuit of Anthony Davis that left half the players on the roster questioning whether James, the Lakers' front office or both still wanted them. That was a self-inflicted blow the team never seemed to recover from.

There were injuries to Rajon Rondo and Lonzo Ball that kept them out for huge chunks of time; nagging injuries to Tyson Chandler, Brandon Ingram, Kyle Kuzma and Josh Hart; and trades for Mike Muscala and Reggie Bullock (long-awaited shooters!) that have yet to pay any real dividends.

The Lakers went 6-12 in the 18 games James missed. Since he has come back, they haven't been much better, and now they have lost nine of their past 12 games. James is still getting back into top shape after the most serious injury of his career, and it has manifested itself especially on the defensive end of the floor.

Through Christmas, the Lakers had a defensive rating of 104.5 when James was on the floor. Since Christmas, the Lakers have a defensive rating of 111.9 when James is on the floor.

Since his return from injury, the Lakers have a defensive rating of 109.6 when James is on the floor in four wins; the Lakers have a defensive rating of 113.1 when James is on the floor in the eight losses.

It might not have been a strictly basketball decision for James to join the Lakers. But basketball is still his core business, and a failure like this doesn't sit well. That's the downside of committing as fully as the Lakers do to a star system.

"We're in a win-or-loss league," James said. "And that's what it's all about. We've had positive. We've had a lot of negative, obviously as far as our play. 

But at the end of the day, we're in a result league. Results is how many wins you can accumulate throughout the course of the season, so you take the good with the bad and you just keep pushing forward."

While the failures can't be placed on any one person, James, Johnson and general manager Rob Pelinka will have to answer for a lot of it. 

Head coach Luke Walton could lose his job over it. Most of the roster wasn't going to be back next year anyway, given the team's insistence on signing players to only one-year contracts to preserve salary-cap space for a second star this summer. 

But you have to assume even larger-scale roster changes will be implemented given the disappointment of this season.

This article first appeared on ESPN.com. 

VIRGINIA: Tensions between India and Pakistan have diminished in recent days after repeated military clashes in Kashmir led to fear that the two nuclear powers could be on the verge of war.

Kashmir is a disputed territory divided between India and Pakistan but claimed in its entirety by both sides.

The latest Kashmir standoff was triggered by a Feb 14 suicide bombing by Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), a militant group with links to al Qaeda and founded by the Pakistan-based cleric Masood Azhar. More than 40 Indian soldiers died.

India blamed Pakistan for providing moral and material support to the terrorist organisation, which is banned in Pakistan but operates openly there. On Feb 26, India launched air strikes against JeM’s training camps on the Pakistani side of Kashmir.

READ: In brewing Kashmir crisis, India and Pakistan brace themselves for new turbulence, a commentary

Pakistan retaliated, claiming to have shot down two Indian fighter jets on Feb 28 Indian sources said that just one Pakistani jet and one Indian jet had been downed, and an Indian pilot taken hostage by Pakistan.

Pakistan has since released the pilot, soothing tempers – for now, at least.

NOT JUST A BILATERAL DISPUTE

The Kashmir issue has caused tension and conflict in the Indian subcontinent since 1947, when independence from Britain created India and Pakistan as two sovereign states.

Jammu and Kashmir – the full name of the princely Himalayan state, then ruled by Maharaja Hari Singh – acceded to India in 1947, seeking military support after tribal raids from Pakistan into the state’s territory.

The two countries have fought three wars over the region since.

The first, which began in 1947, ended with the partition of Jammu and Kashmir between India and Pakistan under a 1949 United Nations-brokered ceasefire. Wars in 1965 and 1999 ended in stalemate.

But Kashmir is not simply a bilateral dispute between India and Pakistan. Kashmir is a multi-ethnic region with several internal sub-regions, whose inhabitants have distinct political goals.

READ: Explainer - Scenic Kashmir at the heart of India-Pakistani animosity

Pakistani Kashmir consists of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, jurisdictions that want to become formal provinces of Pakistan to gain more political autonomy over their internal affairs.

Indian Kashmir includes Jammu, Ladakh and the Kashmir Valley. While the first two regions desire to remain part of India, the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley wants independence from it.

MANY-SIDED CONFLICT

The desire for autonomy in different areas of Kashmir has led to repeated uprisings and independence movements.

The most prominent is a violent insurgency against Indian rule in the Kashmir Valley that began in 1989 and has continued, in ebbs and flows, over the past three decades. Thousands have been killed.

The Kashmir Valley has become a militarised zone, effectively occupied by Indian security forces. According to the United Nations, Indian soldiers have committed numerous human rights violations there, including firing on protesters and denying due process to people arrested.

The UN also cites Pakistan’s role in the violence in Kashmir. Its government supports the movement for Kashmir’s independence from India by providing moral and material support to Kashmiri militants – allegations the Pakistani government refutes. Pakistan also tacitly supports the operations in Kashmir of non-Kashmiri extremist groups like JeM.

As a result, consecutive Indian governments have managed to write off unrest in the Kashmir Valley as a byproduct of its territorial dispute with Pakistan. In doing so, India has avoided addressing the actual political grievances of Indian Kashmiris.

An entire generation of young Kashmiris have been raised during the 30-year insurgency. They are deeply alienated from India, research shows, and view it as an occupying power.

Militant groups in the region tap into this discontent, recruiting young people to use violence in their quest for Kashmir’s freedom. Indeed, the man who under the auspices of JeM blew himself up in the Feb 14 suicide bombing of the Indian military convoy was a young Kashmiri.

ENDING THE CONFLICT

Tensions in Kashmir may have subsided, but the root causes of the violence there have not.

In my assessment, the Kashmir dispute cannot be resolved bilaterally by India and Pakistan alone – even if the two countries were willing to work together to resolve their differences.

This is because the conflict has many sides: India, Pakistan, the five regions of Kashmir and numerous political organisations.

Establishing peace in the region would require both India and Pakistan to reconcile the multiple – and sometimes conflicting – aspirations of the diverse peoples of this region.

READ: India's China problem in Pakistan, a commentary

Only when local aspirations are recognised, addressed and debated alongside India and Pakistan’s nationalist and strategic goals will a durable solution emerge to one of the world’s longest-running conflicts.

Chitralekha Zutshi is a historian of Modern South Asia and the Indian Ocean World, with particular expertise in the region of Kashmir with a focus on Islam, nationalism, and historical thought and practice. She is a professor of History at the College of William and Mary. A version of this commentary first appeared on The Conversation. 

NEW YORK: Like many women, I devoured Lean In, Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg’s corporate feminism manifesto, during my toddler’s nap time.

But one statement stopped me cold: “I truly believe that the single most important career decision that a woman makes is whether she will have a life partner and who that partner is.”

When I became accidentally (albeit, at 39, happily) pregnant, I left my dream portfolio management job as a concession to my child’s father, who took a dim view of babysitting while I jetted off to meet (male) chief executives and drink with (male) colleagues.

My personal circumstances are unusual: most women with graduate degrees don’t have “oops babies”. But leaving a job for a man is not. My departure coincided with a wave of female attrition in my division. When I started there were lots of women, but in the space of a few short years most of us left.

Many of us did not leave because of our kids — we left because of their fathers.

READ: 'Super mums' have one simple request. Don’t hinder them from returning to work, a commentary

THE HUSBAND'S TURN

The “assortative maters” — similar people who marry each other — left because their husbands did well. One, because her husband was appointed to a high-level position in the Obama administration; another, because she had two young children and a senior executive husband with an insane travel schedule.

Others of us left because it was the husband’s “turn” to develop his career. One married into a family that owned a small business, and they relocated back to his roots on becoming parents.

They divorced within a couple of years, leaving her a single parent stranded in a town with reduced career prospects. Similarly, after quitting my job and moving to a small town to accommodate my baby-daddy’s desire to flip fixer-upper houses, I ultimately quit him too.

To sum up: We left because none of us had ended up with the “unicorn” husbands Ms Sandberg lauded in her book — saintly men enough like us to appreciate our ambition, but not threatened by our success.

If these mythical creatures have careers, they are not “trump” careers. In some sense they would be a version of 1960s-era housewives, whose misery was grimly detailed in Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique.

NEGOTIATIONS WITH BOSSES

Our bosses were not present for the tense negotiations over scheduling and travel calendars with the fathers of our children, or for the anxious moments staring at airport displays, or for arriving home to news that the nanny is quitting — and the subsequent fight with our life partner about who doesn’t travel until we find a replacement.

Women may have made tremendous progress in the workforce since The Feminine Mystique, but corporate support for their widely varying families has not kept pace.

READ: Employers baffled by dual-income couples with joint ambitions, a commentary

Ms Sandberg herself acknowledged this in an essay after her husband’s death: 

Some people felt that I did not spend enough time writing about the difficulties women face when they have an unsupportive partner or no partner at all. They were right.

Even my son recognises the zero-sum game too often played by working parents. He claims he is not planning to have kids, with reasoning wise beyond his seven years: “Because I’ll be too busy working in my bakery.” 

(He has decided on a career as a baker, perhaps as a defence mechanism against a mother who eschews cooking.)

JOINT CUSTODY

Thanks to 50-50 custody, which blurs lines between “mothers” and “fathers” and renders traditionally gendered behaviours androgynous, my son is no stranger to the career sacrifices parents — mothers and fathers — make.

And his parents are arguably among the luckier ones, professionally; the silver lining of living without one’s child half the time is greater flexibility to work long hours and travel. But joint custody should surely not be a criterion for career success.

Only when companies start to think about how to address the structural impediments to career and family harmony will we be able to lay Lean In’s partner directive to rest. 

For the sake of our grandchildren, corporates should address these twin challenges: Two-income households with kids where one income had to shrink, and single-parent homes that cannot accommodate its demands.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia police have heightened alert against foreign terrorist fighters infiltrating the country, following the arrest of nine terror suspects in February.

The inspector general of police Mohd Fuzi Harun, in a statement issued on Sunday (Mar 10), said the police viewed their presence seriously and will continue to cooperate with foreign intelligence agencies to weed out undesirable elements.

Nine terror suspects including six Egyptians and one Tunisian were arrested in Klang Valley and Sarawak between Feb 2 and Feb 9.

Two of them, a 21-year-old Egyptian and a 22-year-old Tunisian, are said to be members of Ansar Al Shariah Al Tunisia who entered Malaysia using false Syrian travel documents.

Based in North Africa, Ansar Am Shariah Al Tunisia is listed by the United Nations as an international terrorist group responsible for planning large scale attacks in several countries.

The other five Egyptians picked up by police special branch on counter terrorism are members of Muslim Brotherhood Al Ikhwanul Muslimin and functioned as facilitators to secure lodging, logistics and jobs including buying air tickets for members.

Two of them were students from institutions of higher learning in Malaysia, while another two were teachers, one at a religious school in Klang valley and another an Arabic teacher.

Also arrested were two Malaysians in Serian Sarawak who were charged with terror offences as facilitators to foreign fighters.

All seven foreigners were deported to their home countries on Mar 5 and blacklisted in Malaysia.

Since Islamic State was defeated in Syria and Iraq, Mohd Fuzi said foreign fighter elements are now trying to use Malaysia as a safe haven, transit and logistical hub to plan an attack in a third country.

When contacted, police counter terrorism assistant commissioner Ayob Khan declined to give details because it involved a third party. He added that Malaysia is working actively with foreign intelligence agencies.

The Malaysia police also outlined some of common methods used by foreign fighters to come in and operate in Malaysia including marrying locals in order to get a spouse visa. Others exploit their student visa or try to set up businesses in Malaysia. 

ISLAMABAD: Umer Farooq's grandfather and father made bagpipes. Now he is the third generation to take up the tradition in Pakistan, which is thousands of kilometres from Scotland yet sells thousands of bagpipes each year.

The fresh smell of wood floats through the Mid East factory in Sialkot, on the eastern side of Punjab province, where Farooq is one of the managers. Workers are busy standing or sitting on the ground.

Covered in sawdust, they carve the wood and polish it. Rosewood or ebony serve as the blowstick, into which players exhale. The drones – long pipes with a lower tone – follow a similar process.

They are then attached to a bag, and often covered with tartan, a coloured plaid fabric typical of Scotland.

"In my family, all the boys know how to make a bagpipe, step by step," said Farooq.

"When we were seven or eight, we would go to the factory. It was like a school, but the teachers were our dads and uncles."

Honing such a craft is not easy.

South Asia has had for centuries its pungi, a wind instrument used for snake charming, and shehnai, a traditional oboe.

But the bagpipe had to wait until the mid-19th century for British colonialists to bring it to subcontinental India, of which Pakistan was a part before independence and partition in 1947.

MILITARY TRADITION

"Anywhere the British army went, they took pipers with them," says Decker Forrest, a Gaelic music teacher at the University of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland.

Locals seized on the tradition, which remains popular till this day, with dozens of bagpipe bands available for weddings and religious festivals.

"People love the bagpipe," smiles Yaser Sain, the leader of a Sialkot trio who play at least two performances each day, he says.

Proudly he shows pictures on his mobile phone of the band in colourful costumes.

Forrest says Pakistani bands put the emphasis on how they look, rather than musical technique, "which is less important to them".

At the world bagpipe championship, which is held every year in Glasgow, they are "the most beautifully dressed," he says. The kilt, however, is not de rigueur among the Pakistanis.

The Pakistani military, born out of the colonial British Indian Army, also still has a soft spot for the instrument.

In 2014 it established a camel-mounted bagpipe band attached to a unit of Desert Rangers. The camels, draped in scarlet and gold as their musicians sway above them, are particularly appreciated during parades.

But Pakistan's main affiliation with bagpipes is its mass production of them, though the quality of the instruments it makes can vary.

Some 2,600 are exported from the Mid East factory each year, mainly to the United States.

BAGPIPE AMBASSADORS 

The M.H. Geoffrey & Co workshop, also in Sialkot, claims to manufacture a further 500 annually – but its owner, Zafar Iqbal Geoffrey, estimates that when contributions from dozens of small and medium-sized businesses in the city are counted, Sialkot can produce a total of 10,000 bagpipes a year.

That is more than any country other than the United Kingdom, according to people in Sialkot.

"Bagpipes are our roaming ambassadors. This is good not only for the economy, but for the image-building of Pakistan," says Waqas Akram Awan, vice president of the Sialkot Chamber of Commerce.

The city's exports for 2017 – a 15-year record of US$4 million for thousands of instruments – underscores his comment.

"Our instruments are the same as the European ones, but they are much cheaper. We make music more accessible," says Umar Farooq's uncle Muhammad Aftab.

Cheap labour means Pakistani bagpipes are priced less expensively than ones made in Scotland, with Mid East's going for around 300 pounds (US$390) in Britain, compared to 900 pounds ($1,170) for instruments made in Scotland.

But Pakistani bagpipes have a reputation.

"The quality of sound is not the same," says Paul Gardner, manager of a London music store.

"They are for beginners who are working on a really low budget," he explained. "It might get somebody started, but that person will quickly look to upgrade."

(Source: AFP)

HAVANA: In Havana, there's a shop selling a camera for more than US$25,000 (S$34,000) – roughly 850 times the average monthly wage in Cuba.

The eye-popping sum earned predictable scorn on social media, but it begins to make sense when seen through the lens of the island's fledgling bid to tap into the luxury tourism market.

The exclusive camera store and other boutiques featuring A-list brands like Versace and Armani are located in a shopping gallery on the ground floor of the swanky Gran Hotel Manzana.

The mere existence of the shops certainly seems incongruous in a country that has been governed as a one-party communist state since 1959, and where the average wage is US$30 a month.

But the hotel isn't exactly looking for locals to buy in – it attracts "a clientele of private airplanes ... princes and celebrities," according to general manager Xavier Destribats.

The Gran Hotel Manzana, the first ever five-star establishment in Havana, opened in 2017 in a sumptuous historic building that was, at the beginning of the 20th century, the island's first shopping mall.

The property run by Swiss group Kempinski is "the first genuine luxury hotel in Havana," said Destribats.

"It's the first hotel with a 1,000-square-meter spa," he said. All the rooms are at least 40 sq m, with prices ranging from US$370 for a basic room in low season to US$5,000 for the presidential suite.

"There was a certain type of clientele that didn't travel to Havana, or Cuba, because there wasn't the standard of luxury five-star hotel like in cities such as Paris or London," Destribats added.

'FEELS LIKE MIAMI'

The hotel terrace offers stunning views over Havana's colourful historic neighborhood, where many Cubans live in dilapidated buildings that have fallen into disrepair or have vegetation sprouting from them.

"It really doesn't feel like Cuba, clearly not – it feels like being in the United States, Miami or Puerto Rico," said Celia Liegeois, a 26-year-old tourist from Paris.

Having traveled around the island nation for three weeks, she and a friend had decided to spend their last few days relaxing by the hotel's rooftop pool.

Nearby, Suki Lu, a recently arrived 28-year-old Chinese television presenter, is impressed at what she sees.

"It's beautiful. Look at the sunset! It's truly addictive," she said.

"I live in Dubai so when you talk about luxury hotels, the level there is really high, but I think I'll like this hotel," she said, while her friend used a drone to get an aerial view of the building.

The largest single group of visitors to the Gran Hotel Manzana – one-fifth of the total – are tourists from the United States, although there are plenty of visitors from Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

The Kempinski group, which hopes to open two or three more hotels in Cuba, is of course not the only chain to show an interest in the ultra-luxury market.

In September 2018, Spain's Iberostar opened its second five-star hotel, the Grand Packard.

French hotel giant Accor is planning on opening its own luxury establishment on the Malecon, Havana's famous seaside boulevard, in September.

It will include a chocolate shop on its ground floor and a restaurant and concert space on its roof.

The employees' outfits will be designed by Spanish fashion designer Agatha Ruiz de la Prada.

US BLACKLIST

However, there is a slight catch: in every case, the hotels are owned by Gaviota, the Cuban army's branch dedicated to tourism.

The foreign hotel groups are only allowed to run the establishments, all built by French group Bouygues, which has a long-standing local presence.

Authorities don't publish the army's revenues, but this alliance between hoteliers and the military landed the luxury hotels on Washington's blacklist.

US tourists are technically banned from staying in the hotels – but the restriction can be easily circumvented by either paying in cash or booking through travel agents.

Beyond hotels, developers have more ideas to entice those with deep pockets.

"There's a plan to build golf courses in partnership with real estate groups," said industry expert Jose Luis Perello.

The opening of a luxury hotel means Cuba has turned a corner, he said.

"Since it opened up to international tourism more than 20 years ago, Cuba has focused all its plans and strategies" on "sun and beach tourism" for the masses, Perello said.

That category currently accounts for 73 per cent of the 70,000 hotel rooms on offer in Cuba. And those who rent them usually don't spend much money.

The same goes for cruise ship tourists – while the number of cruises docking in Cuba has exploded, passengers only spend an average of US$15 a day on land.

That isn't great news for Cuba, which welcomed 4.7 million tourists in 2018 – it needs the cash.

The government, which has been subjected to US sanctions since 1962, used to depend on aid from its oil-rich ally Venezuela.

But with Venezuela in turmoil, Cuba is scrambling for other sources of hard currency and its economic growth has stagnated at around one per cent – not enough to cover the population's basic needs.

Opening luxury hotels is "a new stage," but also "a necessity," Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz says.

(Source: AFP)