With its regular live broadcasts, routine tirades and daily -- often curiously intimate -- photo posts, the Facebook page of Cambodian strongman Hun Sen has won a remarkable five million fans from countries including India and Indonesia.
	But a surge of "likes" from countries including the Philippines has reignited allegations that his digital adoration is purchased from so-called "click farms".
	The 64-year-old prime minister, a once self-confessed tech dinosaur who tolerates little dissent, has embraced Facebook with gusto in the last year after opponents used the platform to reach out to younger voters.
	He has vowed to remain prime minister until he is 74 with the next elections due in 2018.
	To do so he will need the support of Cambodia's youth -- a huge, tech-savvy demographic who voted in droves for the opposition at the last polls, wearied by the endemic corruption, rights abuses and political repression seen as the hallmarks of Hun Sen's rule.
	With loyalists controlling ...

Foreign Facebook love revives Cambodian PM 'click farm' row

PTI Automatic

Led by Angela Merkel, Hillary Clinton and Theresa May, there have never been so many experienced and ambitious women in positions of influence, even if they remain heavily outnumbered.
	Clinton has already made history by becoming the first female presidential nominee of a major US political party in her bid for the White House in November.
	"This is historic, just as Barack Obama was historic. There is no question about that," said Ester R Fuchs, professor of public affairs and political science at Columbia University, referring to the first black US president.
	Across the Atlantic, "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher broke the glass ceiling decades ago when she became British prime minister in 1979, and last month May did it again.
	Chancellor Angela Merkel has led Germany since 2005, while South Korea, Chile, Brazil, Bangladesh and Liberia are also led by women -- as is the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
	But these leaders remain in a minority and their numbers are only gradually ...

More women win power but still few and far between

Taiwan's new envoy to Singapore resigned today after he was caught drink-driving last week in the island's capital Taipei, just hours after he had been sworn into office.
	Antonio Chiang -- a veteran journalist and political commentator -- said he had drunk whisky and wine over dinner with friends before he was caught late on August 2, local media reported.
	His arrest triggered calls for his resignation from campaigners in Taiwan against drink-driving.
	The office of Taiwan's new president Tsai Ing-wen said today she had accepted his resignation and "respected" his decision.
	Taipei prosecutors handed Chiang a suspended indictment and a Tw USD 60,000 fine yesterday, according to Taiwan's Central News Agency.
	His blood alcohol content was 0.27 milligrams per litre, the agency reported.
	Taiwan's legal limit is 0.25 mg per litre.
	Campaign group Taiwan Against Drunk Driving -- headed by a mother whose daughter was killed by a drunk driver -- last week protested outside the foreign ...

New Taiwan envoy to Singapore resigns over drink-driving

The director of the Miss World Mexico pageant has been found shot dead after being kidnapped from a bar, officials in the violence-racked northwestern state of Sinaloa said.
	Hugo Ruben Castellanos was abducted late Saturday from a bar in the town of Culiacan by armed men wearing hoods. He had gone there after attending a local beauty contest, officials said yesterday.
	Sinaloa prosecutor Marco Antonio Higuera said Castellanos's body was discovered in a van early Sunday.
	Two other people who had been kidnapped with him were allowed to go free.
	Sinaloa is infamous as the birthplace of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, Mexico's most notorious drug lord, who is currently in custody and facing possible extradition to the United States.
	Mexico saw a rise in the homicide rate last year after three years of declines.
	According to official figures, more than 9,400 people were killed between January and June compared to 8,156 during the same period last year.

Beauty pageant director shot dead in Mexico

Philippine officials said today the government would build new jails to address severe congestion made worse by President Rodrigo Duterte's drug war, describing conditions as "inhumane" and "unacceptable".
	AFP photographs of Quezon City Jail, where thousands of inmates take turns to sleep on an open-air basketball court and a staircase, were an "eye-opener" for authorities to hasten the construction of a new facility, according to vice mayor Joy Belmonte.
	Quezon City officials yesterday signed an agreement to donate land to the national government for a new prison. The facility in the northern district of Manila would replace the jail built six decades ago for 800 inmates but now houses almost 4,000.
	"The photos are really unacceptable. Seeing inmates sleep on top of each other because of the lack of space, I feel it's a violation of human rights, an urgent matter that must be addressed," Belmonte told AFP.
	"It's good that this is exposed before the international reading public as 

Philippines to overhaul 'inhumane', overcrowded jails

A four-year-old Bangladeshi boy suffering from a mysterious illness that makes him look like an old man has been admitted to hospital for tests, doctors and his family said.
	Doctors at a top hospital in Dhaka have agreed to try to diagnose and treat Bayezid Shikdar, who comes from a poor farming family, for free after learning of his plight on the weekend.
	Born with excess skin that hangs from his limbs and face causing it to sag, Bayezid also suffers from related heart, vision and hearing problems.
	His father, Lablu Shikdar, said numerous doctors have been at a loss to explain his condition.
	"We sold our land to treat him at local hospitals. We took him to religious healers and herbal doctors, but his condition did not change. This hospital is our last hope," Shikdar told AFP at Dhaka Medical College Hospital this week.
	"We hope they'll make him look like any other normal child."
	Doctors initially suspected he suffered from progeria which causes rapid and premature ageing ...

Bangladeshi boy with 'old man' illness baffles doctors

MH370 plunged into the ocean at high speed -- up to 20,000 feet a minute -- reinforcing analysis that the missing Malaysia Airlines jet crashed in the current search zone, a report said today.
	The Boeing 777 disappeared on March 8, 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people onboard.
	An extensive underwater hunt in the southern Indian Ocean has not yet found the crash site, fuelling speculation it may be outside the current search zone, particularly if someone was at the controls at the end of the flight.
	A manned plane could have been glided down, allowing it to enter the water outside the 120,000 square kilometre area being searched, some experts have suggested.
	But extensive testing by aircraft manufacturer Boeing and new Australian defence department data analysis both suggest that -- regardless of the possible actions of one or both of the pilots -- the jet dived into the ocean at high speed, The Australian reported.
	Once MH370 ran out of fuel and the engines .

MH370 plunged into ocean at high speed: report

Pokemon Go's debut in Thailand has alarmed the country's generals, prompting the kingdom's junta chief to warn youngsters against playing too much and the army to ban the game from barracks.
	The mobile app was made available in Thailand on Saturday, delighting many in a country where Japanese subcultures have a significant following.
	But the game -- which encourages users to hit the pavements in search of digital monsters -- has sparked safety concerns partly because Bangkok's streets are notoriously pedestrian-unfriendly.
	"Thai walking culture is not like Japan and there are limited pavements," government spokesman Sansern Kaewkumnerd told reporters on Tuesday.
	He said Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha, who seized power in 2014, "does not want to ban the game".
	But the premier has urged players to know "their limits... and use their time wisely," Sansern added.
	"The game could harm players with things like loss of money, their job, their education as well as the relationships ...

Thai junta uneasy about Pokemon Go craze

Oil prices retreated in Asia trade after rebounding overnight on news that OPEC is planning informal talks next month -- a sign it could intervene to strengthen prices.
	The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said in a statement that a meeting would take place on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum in Algeria from September 26 to 28, ahead of a planned meeting due at the end of November.
	Analysts said markets were reacting to rumours that global producers were mulling a deal to freeze oil output levels.
	"News that OPEC would be having a September meeting with certain members keen to push for supply cuts again served as the impetus for oil prices to rally," said Angus Nicholson, a strategist at IG Markets Ltd. In Melbourne.
	"While a deal is highly unlikely to eventuate, the fact that it is even being mentioned shows how much difficulty the past month's renewed selloff was causing many struggling OPEC members."
	But in Asian trade, prices fell back as ...

Oil prices retreat in Asia trade

Japan summoned China's ambassador today after the country's ships were spotted near disputed East China Sea islands for a fifth straight day.
	Foreign minister Fumio Kishida called in Cheng Yonghua, Beijing's envoy to Tokyo, the foreign ministry said -- the second such summons since Friday.
	"The situation surrounding the Japan-China relationship is markedly deteriorating," he told Cheng, according to the ministry's statement on its website.
	"We cannot accept that (China) is taking actions that unilaterally raise tensions."
	The two countries are locked in a long-running dispute over the uninhabited islets known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China.
	The move comes after repeated protests by Japanese foreign ministry officials since Friday over what Tokyo calls "intrusions" by Chinese ships in the territorial and contiguous waters of the rocky islands.
	Cheng was also summoned on Friday by vice minister Shinsuke Sugiyama after two Chinese coast guard and fishing vessels ...

Japan summons Chinese envoy amid ship 'incursions'

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan jets into Russia today for his first meeting with counterpart Vladimir Putin since the two strongmen leaders began healing a bitter feud over Ankara's downing of a Russian warplane.
	Erdogan's visit to Putin's hometown of Saint Petersburg is also his first foreign trip since the failed coup against him last month that sparked a purge of opponents and cast a shadow over Turkey's relations with the West.
	"This visit seems to me a new milestone in bilateral relations, beginning with a clean slate, and I personally, with all my heart and on behalf of the Turkish nation salute Mr Putin and all Russians," Erdogan said in an interview with Russian state media.
	The shooting down of a Russian fighter jet by a Turkish F-16 over the Syrian border last November saw a furious Putin slap economic sanctions on Turkey and launch a blistering war of words with Erdogan that seemed to irrevocably damage burgeoning ties.
	But in a shock reversal in late June, ...

Putin and Erdogan meet to mend ties after jet downing rift

Cold War rhetoric that dominated the Olympics in the 1970s and 80s resurfaced in Rio after a simmering dispute between Russian and American swimmers boiled over.
     Relations between the sporting superpowers have been tense since US calls for the entire Russian team to be banned from Rio following allegations of government-backed doping. They only worsened after Monday's women's 100 metres breaststroke final.
     The race pitted American teenagers Lilly King and Katie Meili against Russia's Yulia Efimova, the reigning world champion, and a symbol of her country's doping scandal.
     Initially banned from Rio, the 24-year-old won a last-minute appeal allowing her to compete, prompting protests from the Americans, including King, who said the Russian should have been banned.
     In scenes rarely witnessed at an Olympics, Efimova was jeered by the crowd in Rio and after narrowly losing the gold to King on Monday, chants of USA USA echoed around the Olympic Aquatic Stadium.
     "I'm 

Doping row rhetoric recalls Cold War

Olympics chief Thomas Bach said his organisation should not be compared to the Paralympics governing body which banned Russia over revelations of state-sponsored doping.
     Bach said the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which decided against barring Russia from the Rio Games, had a different relationship with its members.
     The Paralympics body made headlines on Sunday when it banned Russia from Rio. Its leader Philip Craven voiced disgust at the state-orchestrated doping uncovered by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
     "The situation of the IPC (International Paralympics Committee) is different to that of the OIC," Bach told AFP.
     "You could compare the relationship between the IPC and the Russia with that between the IOC and weightlifting, for example, where we upheld the decision to exclude the whole Russian delegation from the Olympic Games."
     The Paralympics' announcement came after the IOC refused to ban Russia from the Olympics and later rounded on WADA for ...

IOC boss shrugs off Russia's Paralympics ban

French superstar Paul Pogba today completed a sensational return to Manchester United from Juventus for a reported world record fee.
     United said Pogba had signed a five-year contract but did not give the cost which British media have put at 89 million pounds ($116.4 million, 105 million euros), not including agent's fee.
     That would see the 23-year-old eclipse the 85 million pounds Real Madrid paid Tottenham Hotspur for Gareth Bale in 2013.
     "This is the right club for me to achieve everything I hope to in the game," said Pogba.
     Pogba moved to Italy when United let him go for a nominal fee after his contract expired in 2012.
     "I am delighted to rejoin United. It has always been a club with a special place in my heart and I am really looking forward to working with Jose Mourinho," added Pogba.
     United manager Mourinho has been tasked with bringing back the glory days to the 20-time English champions after three lean years since Alex Ferguson's retirement.
     

Pogba completes world record Man Utd return

Mario Zagallo, who was part of four World Cup winning teams as a player or coach for Brazil, has been hospitalized in Rio de Janeiro, officials there said.
     "The management of the Hospital Barra D'Or informs that Mario Jorge Lobo Zagallo is a patient, receiving medical assistance," the hospital's press service said in a statement yesterday.
     There were no more details about how long Zagallo had been in hospital or what he was being treated for.
     Zagallo, 84, is a football legend in Brazil and just last Thursday took part in the Olympic torch relay on the eve of the opening of the Rio Games.
     Although wheelchair-bound, he took the torch from fellow former national team trainer Carlos Alberto Parreira.
     Zagallo played on Brazil's World Cup championship teams of 1958 and 1968, and he was team trainer in the 1970 win, as well as an assistant manager in 1994.

Legendary Brazilian footballer, coach Zagallo hospitalized

Fifty senior Republican national security officials have issued a stinging rejection of their party's White House nominee Donald Trump, warning he would be "the most reckless president in American history" if elected.
	The group, some of whom had already announced they would not vote for Trump, included former homeland security chiefs, intelligence directors, senior presidential advisors and a former US trade representative. They served under Republican presidents from Richard Nixon to George W Bush.
	"We are convinced that he would be a dangerous president and would put at risk our country's national security and well-being," they wrote in a statement published in The New York Times yesterday.
	While they did not say they would vote for Democrat Hillary Clinton -- indeed they expressed "doubts" about her -- they were clear in stating that "none of us will vote for Donald Trump."
	The experts essentially declared the brash billionaire unfit for office, echoing Clinton's criticism by ..

50 Republican national security officials reject Trump

China and Australia wrangled over doping accusations Monday as Russia's Yuliya Efimova targeted an Olympic swimming medal to celebrate her latest victory over a drug ban.
     Swimming action dominated the Games after Michael Phelps extended his overall record of gold medals to 19 with a US relay victory on Sunday.
     But comments by Australia's new 400 metre freestyle champion Mack Horton against his rival Sun Yang unleashed a wave of Chinese fury.
     Thousands of social media users demanded that Horton apologise for calling Sun a "drug cheat". Sun, a huge hero in China, served a three month suspension in 2014 for taking a banned stimulant.
     The state-run Global Times newspaper called Australia "a country on the fringes of civilization" and a former "offshore prison" for Britain.
     The International Olympic Committee sought to calm the tensions, calling for "respect fellow competitors".
     "Clearly we want to encourage freedom of speech," said IOC spokesman Mark Adams.
  

China, Australia spar over doping cheat attack

A panel of international judges today sentenced a former member of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian guerrilla group to eight years in prison for war crimes committed during the 1998-1999 conflict, a court statement said.
	The court panel "found the accused Xhemshit Krasniqi guilty of committing the criminal offence of war crimes against the civilian population," the EU rule of law mission (EULEX) said in the statement.
	Krasniqi was a member of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) that fought security forces loyal to the then Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic.
	Krasniqi "was found guilty of arrest, illegal detention, violation of bodily integrity, health and torture of several witnesses and unknown civilians in the KLA camps" in Albania and Kosovo, EULEX said.
	The war ended after a three-month long air campaign against Serbia by NATO and paved the way for Kosovo's independence a decade later.
	Just months after Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008, the EU launched a ..

EU court jails Kosovo ex-guerrilla for war crimes

Craig Ervine's maiden Test century allowed Zimbabwe to enjoy their best period of a difficult series, as they held New Zealand's bowlers at bay for much of the third day of the second Test on Monday.
     Ervine made the most of the early life granted to him to score an unbeaten 115, taking Zimbabwe to stumps on 305 for six - just 78 runs shy of avoiding the follow-on.
     Zimbabwe's batsmen showed that they had learned some lessons from the first Test, which they lost by an innings inside four days, although they were also assisted by the flat pitch at Queens Sports Club.
     Having drawn a blank on the second evening when Zimbabwe reached 55 without loss, New Zealand put in a determined bowling effort on Monday but were thwarted by an increasingly dogged home side.
     While the tourists managed three wickets in the opening session of the day, Ervine found an able partner in debutant Peter Moor, who scored 71 in a 148-run partnership for the sixth wicket that took more than a ...

Ervine hits century as Zimbabwe fight back

Scoreboard at the close of play on
the third day of the second Test between Zimbabwe and New Zealand on Monday:
     New Zealand first innings 582-4 dec
     Zimbabwe first innings:
     T. Mawoyo b Southee                      26
     C. Chibhabha c Williamson b Santner      60
     Sikandar Raza c Williamson b Wagner       3
     C. Ervine not out                       115
     P. Masvaure b Santner                     2
     S. Williams lbw b Sodhi                  16
     P. Moor c Guptill b Sodhi                71
     G.

Bulawayo, Aug 8 (AFP) Scoreboard at the close of play on

The International Olympic Committee today urged athletes to show "respect" to each other in the wake of a war-of-words involving drug-tainted swimmers and their rivals.
     Australia swimmer Mack Horton triggered uproar in China after branding rival Sun Yang as a "drugs cheat" before dethroning the Chinese star at the weekend.
     That was followed by more vitriol on Sunday when athletes rounded on two-time Russian doping offender Yulia Efimova.
     Efimova, cleared at the l1th hour to compete in Rio, was subjected to boos from the crowd while rival swimmers took verbal digs.
     IOC spokesman Mark Adams said the organisation encouraged free speech and had no plans to take action.
     However he said competitors had a right to compete "in tranquillity" and appealed to athletes to show respect to one another.
     "Clearly we want to encourage freedom of speech," he said. "But on the other hand of course the Olympics is about respecting others and respecting the right of others to 

AFP

AFP

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