Australia state to allow sex abuse victims to sue churches

Yahoo – AFP, 10 June 2018

Commissioners at the final sitting of the Royal Commission into Institutional
Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney last December

Victims of child sex abuse will be able to sue institutions such as churches under proposed new laws in Australia's most populous state, authorities said Sunday.

The proposed legislation came after a five-year royal commission -- which released its final report late last year -- detailed thousands of harrowing abuse cases involving churches, orphanages, sporting clubs, youth groups and schools and going back decades.

The overhaul of civil litigation laws in New South Wales state will allow claims of child abuse to be brought against organisations including churches which could not previously be sued, said NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman.

"The NSW Government will remove legal barriers that have stopped survivors of child abuse from seeking the justice they deserve," Speakman said in a statement.

"The Royal Commission found many survivors felt let down by the current civil litigation system which made it difficult for them to seek damages and hold institutions to account."

Under current laws, organisations such as churches whose assets are held in a trust can avoid liability for offences such as child sex abuse.

The proposed legislation will allow courts to appoint trustees to be sued if such organisations fail to appoint an entity with assets as a defendant, Speakman said.

It comes after the Catholic Church became the first non-government institution to join a national redress scheme for victims of institutional child sex abuse.

All but one of Australia's state governments have signed up to the programme, which will offer victims up to Aus$150,000 ($114,000) in compensation.

The royal commission found that Australian institutions "seriously failed" children in their care, with thousands sexually assaulted.

It heard horrific testimony during often emotionally exhausting hearings, with more than 15,000 survivors detailing their claims.

More than 4,000 institutions were accused of abuse.

Anti-nuclear group offers to foot summit bill for N. Korea's Kim

Yahoo – AFP, June 4, 2018

Who will cough up for lodgings is one of many reported logistical and protocol
headaches surrounding this month's Singapore summit between North Korea's
Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump (AFP Photo/handout)

Tokyo (AFP) - A Nobel Prize-winning anti-nuclear group offered Monday to pay for next week's historic summit between the US and North Korea -- including the delicate issue of Kim Jong Un's hotel bill.

Who will cough up for lodgings at the five-star Fullerton Hotel, believed to be the North Korean leader's preferred option, is one of many reported logistical and protocol headaches surrounding this month's meeting between Kim and US President Donald Trump.

The United States is prepared to pay but fears offending cash-poor but pride-rich North Korea, the Washington Post wrote last week.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) said it was willing to help resolve the impasse by bankrolling Kim's delegation, using part of the $1.1 million cash prize it received for winning last year's Nobel Peace Prize.

"We are ready to shoulder the cost of the summit, naturally including expenses for accommodation and conference venues," Akira Kawasaki, an ICAN representative in Japan, told AFP.

"If holding the summit is in danger because of financial problems, we are ready to shoulder the cost as it is an important, historic meeting," he added.

Kawasaki declined to say how much ICAN could stump up but said part of the Nobel Prize award would be put to the summit "in order to support peace in the Korean peninsula and a nuclear weapon-free world".

The sum would be negotiated if North Korea accepted the offer, he said.

The presidential suite at the Fullerton boasts, according to its website, a baby grand piano and claims to be "the most exclusive hotel suite in Singapore."

With a private elevator offering exclusive access, the suite is 201 square metres (2,164 square feet) and reportedly costs more than $6,000 for one night.

Reporters camped outside the hotel last week to catch a glimpse of Kim Chang Son, Kim's de facto chief of staff, who travelled to Singapore to lay the groundwork for the June 12 summit.

The Singapore dialogue will be the first time a sitting US president has met a North Korean leader.

Talks are expected to focus on denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and improving relations between Washington and Pyongyang.

North Korea's 'military reshuffle' could be aimed at eliminating resistance to recent peace overtures with the US, analysts say https://t.co/xpR6KfCTa4

— AFP news agency (@AFP) June 4, 2018

US-NKorea summit back on, Trump says after meeting Kim envoy

Yahoo – AFP, Andrew Beatty and Dave Clark, June 1, 2018

US President Donald Trump (R) poses for photographs with North Korea's Kim
Yong Chol (L) at the White House after their Oval Office talks (AFP Photo/SAUL LOEB)

Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump said Friday he will meet North Korea's Kim Jong Un as originally scheduled on June 12 for a historic summit after extraordinary Oval Office talks with a top envoy from Pyongyang.

Speaking after more than an hour of talks with Kim Yong Chol in the Oval Office, Trump told reporters that denuclearization -- and a formal end to the decades-old Korean war -- would be on the table in Singapore.

But the US leader warned that he did not expect to immediately sign a deal to bring a halt to the North's nuclear program.

"I never said it goes in one meeting. I think it's going to be a process, but the relationships are building and that's very positive," he said, after waving farewell to the North Korean envoy, Kim's right-hand man.

Ending the war

Trump said they had discussed formally ending the Korean War, which has been largely frozen since an armistice ended hostilities, but not the underlying conflict, in 1953. Since then, there have been occasional clashes on the divided peninsula.

"We talked about it. We talked about ending the war," Trump said.

"Historically it's very important, but we'll see. We did discuss that, the ending of the Korean War. Can you believe we're talking about the ending of the Korean War?"

Washington is determined that Kim should agree to what US officials call the "complete, verifiable and irreversible" end of North Korea's nuclear weapons and intercontinental missile programs.

Chronology of diplomatic tensions between the US and North Korea

(AFP Photo/Sophie RAMIS)

Kim says he is committed to "denuclearization" in some form, but he is expected to demand security guarantees -- one of which could be an formal end to the conflict with the US and South Korea.

Most expert observers are skeptical that even an unprecedented summit between the two leaders can lead to a rapid breakthrough, and Trump admitted it would be a long and difficult process.

"We're not going to go in and sign something on June 12. We never were. I told him today, 'Take your time'," he said, adding nevertheless that he expects "a really positive result in the end."

Kim Yong Chol, vice chairman of the ruling party executive and the most senior North Korean to visit the United States in 18 years, spent almost 90 minutes in the Oval Office.

Afterwards, Trump and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo walked the North's small delegation to their waiting cars, smiling and shaking hands in front of the media before the motorcade pulled away.

Security guarantees

North Korean officials said Kim Yong Chol was expected to return to Pyongyang shortly. Meanwhile, discussions between US and North Korean officials continue in Singapore and in the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea.

On Thursday, Kim Jong Un told Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that his commitment to denuclearization remains "unchanged and consistent and fixed," but experts warn he will seek concessions from Washington.

US President Donald Trump (R), flanked by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, 

shakes hands with North Korean Kim Yong Chol (L) outside the White House 

(AFP Photo/Saul LOEB)

In addition to an end to the war, he is likely to seek international recognition as well as guarantees against any strike by the US forces stationed in South Korea.

As expected, Kim Yong Chol handed Trump a letter from Kim that may clear up some of the questions. The US leader said the missive was "very nice" -- but then admitted he had not yet read it. An aide later confirmed he did after the talks.

The Oval Office talks and letter delivery came only a week after Trump threatened to consign the entire process to history, abruptly cancelling the summit in a sharply worded letter, only to revive preparations shortly afterwards.

Trump said that, after Friday's talks, the parties are "totally over that and now we're going to deal and we're going to really start a process."

Since the short-lived boycott threat, diplomats from both countries have conducted an intense flurry of talks, culminating this week when Pompeo sat down in New York with Kim's envoy.

'Their decision'

Pompeo said on Thursday that, after what have now been two meetings with Kim Jong Un and three with Kim Yong Chol, he believes the North is at least ready to consider addressing US demands for denuclearization.

"I believe they are contemplating a path forward. They can make a strategic shift. One that their country has not been prepared to make before. This will obviously be their decision," he said.

The flurry of diplomacy has also seen a rapprochement on the Korean peninsula, with the two Koreas holding high-level talks Friday at the border truce village of Panmunjom.

The meeting followed two landmark summits between the leaders of North and South Korea in the last five weeks.

North and South Korea agreed to hold more meetings throughout this month to carry out the agreements reached between their leaders at the April summit, according to a joint statement issued after Friday's talks.

Korean leaders meet to salvage Trump-Kim summit

Yahoo – AFP, Jerome Taylor and Park Chan-kyong, May 27, 2018

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Moon Jae-in met in the border
truce village where they held their first summit last month (AFP Photo/Handout)

North and South Korea's leaders held surprise talks on Saturday to get a historic summit between Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump back on track after a head-spinning series of twists and turns.

The meeting is the latest remarkable diplomatic chapter in a roller coaster of developments on the Korean peninsula.

Trump rattled the region on Thursday by cancelling his meeting with Kim which had been due to take place in Singapore on June 12, citing "open hostility" from Pyongyang.

But within 24 hours he reversed course saying it could still go ahead after productive talks were held with North Korean officials.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in met with Kim Saturday for two hours in the truce village of Panmunjom in an effort to ensure the landmark meeting between Trump and the North Korean leader goes ahead.

"They exchanged views and discussed ways to implement the Panmunjom Declaration and to ensure a successful US North Korea summit," Seoul's presidential Blue House said in a statement, referencing a declaration the two leaders signed last month vowing to improve ties following their historic first meeting in the same village.

Pictures showed them shaking hands and embracing on the North Korean side of the Demilitarised Zone separating the two nations.

The North's state-run KCNA news agency said the two leaders agreed to "meet frequently in the future to make dialogue brisk and pool wisdom and efforts, expressing their stand to make joint efforts for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula".

Specifically, Moon and Kim will hold "high-level talks" on Friday, the agency added.

Kim also "expressed his fixed will on the historic DPRK-US summit talks," KCNA added, using the official abbreviation for North Korea.

Key meetings between North Korea, South Korea, China and the United 

States (AFP Photo/john saeki)

Remarkable detente

Trump's original decision to abandon the historic summit blindsided South Korea which had been brokering a remarkable detente between Washington and Pyongyang.

However, there was a further signal from the US Saturday the June 12 summit may yet go ahead as the White House said it would send a team to Singapore to prepare for the meeting.

"The White House pre-advance team for Singapore will leave as scheduled in order to prepare should the summit take place," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said.

Last year Trump and Kim were trading war threats and insults after Pyongyang tested its most powerful nuclear bomb to date and launched test missiles it said were capable of reaching the United States.

Tensions were calmed after Kim extended an olive branch by offering to send a delegation to the Winter Olympics in South Korea, sparking a sudden detente that led to Trump agreeing to hold direct talks with Pyongyang.

Moon won election last year partly by vowing to be open to dialogue with Pyongyang and finding a solution to a Cold War-era sore that continues to blight the region.

But the flurry of diplomatic backslapping and bonhomie disappeared in recent weeks as the summit was thrown into doubt by increasingly bellicose rhetoric from both top US administration officials and Pyongyang.

Trump eventually pulled the plug on talks in a personal letter to Kim on Thursday.

But he left the door open to future meetings and Pyongyang responded by saying it was willing to sit down "at any time", prompting Trump to reply that the Singapore summit could still take place.

Saturday's meeting between Moon and Kim took place in a grand building on the North Korean side of Panmunjom, a heavily fortified village that lies between the two countries and marks the spot where the armistice ending the Korean War in 1953 was signed.

The surprise meeting comes a day after US President Donald Trump said his 

summit with Kim Jong Un might go ahead after all (AFP Photo/Handout)

Only last month the two leaders met in the same village, with Kim famously inviting Moon to step briefly into the North before they both held talks in a building on the South's side.

Koh Yu-hwan, an expert on Korean relations at Dongguk University, said Saturday's meeting between Moon and Kim increased the likelihood of the Singapore summit taking place as originally intended.

"Today's summit is aimed at resolving the misunderstanding caused by communication glitches between Washington and Pyongyang and lay the groundwork for the US-North Korea summit," he told AFP.

Adam Mount, a nuclear policy expert at the Federation of American Scientists, said it was a "bold but risky" move by Moon, describing the sudden summit as "a clear demonstration of how dangerous Trump's temper tantrum was".

"Trump says 'everybody plays games'. Moon Jae-in is not playing a game: he must keep his people safe from war," he wrote on Twitter.

Utmost secrecy

Unlike last month's summit, which was held in front of live TV cameras, Saturday's meeting took place in utmost secrecy, with reporters only being told later that the face-to-face had taken place.

Footage released by the Blue House on Twitter, accompanied by a dramatic orchestral score, showed Moon arriving in a convoy of cars and first shaking hands with Kim's sister Kim Yo Jong, who has played a major public role in recent talks with the South, including leading a delegation across the border during February's Winter Olympics.

Saturday's talks were only the fourth time serving leaders of the two Koreas, who remain technically at war, have ever met.

Graft-busting journalist returns to new Malaysia

Yahoo – AFP, Dan Martin, May 21, 2018

British journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown has been a thorn in the side of
Malaysia's ruling elite for years (AFP Photo/Mohd RASFAN)

Clare Rewcastle Brown was harassed and vilified for years for waging a quixotic campaign to expose Malaysian corruption that helped topple the country's long-ruling regime.

The British investigative journalist is now back in the country of her birth after being blacklisted for years, and being treated as a celebrity in a sign of the whirlwind changes since historic May 9 elections.

No one is more stunned than Rewcastle, who said she expects to see further startling revelations of corruption and misrule emerge as a reformist administration cleans house.

"There is so much that’s going to come tumbling out now," she said during an interview in Kuala Lumpur.

"Everyone is gob-smacked as they see these things happening. There are going to be more amazing scenes to come."

Rewcastle, now 58, has been a thorn in the side of Malaysia's ruling elite for years, working from abroad to expose larceny and misrule centring mostly on the rainforested state of Sarawak where she was born and spent her early years.

But her biggest bombshell may have been the 2015 revelation by her website Sarawak Report that nearly $700 million was funnelled into the bank account of ex-premier Najib Razak.

That helped super-charge allegations that Najib and his entourage plundered billions from sovereign wealth fund 1MDB, in a scandal that led to his electoral defeat, ending six decades under an increasingly corrupt government.

He is now under investigation and expected to be charged.

Smear campaign

Rewcastle's work over the years triggered Malaysian arrest warrants, lawsuits, threats, and a sustained campaign of online vilification that she suspects was orchestrated by Najib's government using western PR firms.

The sister-in-law of former British prime minister Gordon Brown, Rewcastle was still recently being approached by shadowy characters offering pay-offs if she'd publish juicy "revelations" for them -- ham-fisted attempts to entrap and discredit her, she says.

"Millions have gone into trying to destroy my reputation, which could have been spent on something useful," she said. "But all they did was help make me famous, the stupid idiots."

Never welcome, and officially barred from Malaysia in 2015, Rewcastle has gone almost overnight from persona non grata to welcome guest.

British journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown has been a thorn in the side of 

Malaysia's ruling elite for years (AFP Photo/Laurence CHU, John SAEKI)

She met AFP following an interview with a state-aligned newspaper that formerly maligned her but gave her glowing front-page treatment on Monday.

She was halted repeatedly by ordinary Malaysians who recognised her distinctive ginger locks, stopping to thank her and snap selfies.

Many more have praised Rewcastle on social media after learning of her arrival. "It's extremely gratifying," she said.

Few foreigners were as feared by Malaysia's government.

Born in Sarawak when it was a British crown colony, she spent several years there, often following her mother -- a midwife for indigenous people -- on jungle jaunts to remote clinics.

She later worked for the BBC and others in London in investigative journalism before devoting herself to publicising Sarawak corruption, deforestation, and eviction of native peoples from traditional lands.

"I did this partly because I was mad, and partly because I thought there was a slim chance something could be done," she said of the state which environmentalists believe has lost nearly all of its original rainforest.

In 2010, she started Sarawak Report and short-wave broadcaster Radio Free Sarawak -- operated in secret from London, and later Bali, Brunei and Sarawak itself.

Rewcastle drew on a network of contacts in Malaysia to repeatedly expose the plundering of Sarawak. Najib's regime eventually blocked the website -- a move the new government has reversed -- and radio signals were jammed.

Winding down

With Malaysia on a reform path, Rewcastle expects to wind down her anti-graft work, which she said was a money-losing project reliant on financial backers she won't name.

But she pledged to "do my darnedest" to continuing advocating for Sarawak.

That includes pushing for investigations into its former chief minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud.

The retired 82-year-old, who was loosely aligned with Najib's regime, is accused by indigenous activists of ruling Sarawak like a family fiefdom for 33 years, plundering its timber and building ecologically harmful dams.

Sarawak Report, along with the Bruno Manser Fund, a Swiss NGO, has documented huge investments around the world by Taib's circle.

"Taib needs to be taken by the ankles and shook, so the money falls out," Rewcastle said.

"There's still a lot to be done. But we're in a terrific position now to really campaign for what this was originally about."

Wrongful imprisonment sheds light on slow justice in Pakistan

Yahoo – AFP, Ashraf KHAN, May 20, 2018

Asma Nawab spent two decades in jail after she was wrongfully accused of
 the murder of her family (AFP Photo/RIZWAN TABASSUM)

Asma Nawab spent two decades in jail, wrongfully accused of murdering her family. Finally acquitted, she is seeking a new life, free from whispers and memories, as her plight draws fresh questions over Pakistan's woeful justice system.

Nawab was just 16 years old when someone slit the throats of her parents and only brother during an attempted robbery at their home in Pakistan's chaotic port city of Karachi in 1998.

With the killings dominating headlines, prosecutors pushed for swift justice in a 12-day trial that ended with a death sentence handed to Nawab and her then-fiance.

The next 20 years were "very painful", Nawab, now 36, says tearfully.

At first the other inmates were sceptical at her protests of innocence, but eventually she formed a new "family" of women -- some convicted of kidnappings, others of murders.

They supported one another when progress on their cases was poor, or family neglected them.

"We would cry on Eid and other festivals... It was very painful. I would feel it intensely" when relatives failed to visit, she said through sobs. "Only once my uncle came to see me."

Though her trial was speedy, her appeal moved at a glacial speed through Pakistan's creaky justice system.

It was not until 2015 that her lawyers petitioned the Supreme Court, which -- after a three-year hearing -- ordered Nawab released due to lack of evidence last month.

"The verdict of this case was given in 12 days but it took 19 and a half years to dispose of the appeals," her lawyer Javed Chatari told AFP.

Nawab said the acquittal left her stunned. "I really couldn't believe it," she told AFP.

The verdict left her "perplexed", she said, and she struggled to understand what would come next. "How would I face the world after living so long in jail?"

Nawab meets her former neighbours as she returns to her childhood home in 

Karachi after her release from prison (AFP Photo/RIZWAN TABASSUM)

Judicial woes

Stories like Nawab's are common in Pakistan, where the judiciary lacks the capacity to cope with the country's surging population and an expanding case load, resulting in a mammoth backlog.

In 2017 alone, there were more than than 38,000 cases pending in Pakistan's Supreme Court in addition to hundreds of thousands awaiting trial across the judiciary, according to a Human Rights Commission Pakistan report released in April.

Rampant corruption in Pakistan's police force also means the wealthy are able to bypass the law, while deep-seated patriarchy means women in particular face an uneven playing field in the justice system.

"Unequal power structures allow for people with advantage -- money or power -- to rise above the law. For the poor, the system is sluggish and sometimes is so weak that it is safe to label it as almost non-existent," said lawyer Benazir Jaoti, who specialises in women's legal and political empowerment in Pakistan.

"Within the system, women are one of the groups of people that are significantly disadvantaged, it being a patriarchal society and a patriarchal system."

Even when the system finally comes through, as it did with Nawab's acquittal, that is usually as far as it goes, leaving those whose lives have been dismantled to repair the damage with little or no support.

Nawab's lawyer Javed Chatari breaks the lock at her home in Karachi, nearly

20 years after her wrongful arrest (AFP Photo/RIZWAN TABASSUM)

Going home again

Nawab has had little to return to since leaving Karachi's central prison in early April.

With her loved ones dead, her family house was looted then fell into disrepair.

Any potential compensation from the state will take time to process, her lawyer admits, acknowledging there's a high chance she will receive nothing. In the meantime, she is unemployed.

During her first visit back to her humble family home she quietly wept as her lawyer broke the gate's lock with a hammer.

"(The police) left nothing behind," she said after walking through the dilapidated house covered in dust and cobwebs.

"I lost my parents and now I see none of their belongings."

Nearly two decades after being convicted, Nawab still holds the media as much as the courts responsible for her treatment, saying she was unfairly portrayed as the culprit in the murders, including in a TV drama based on the case.

Although she has been exonerated, her release has done little to change the public narrative.

Nawab says people still whisper cold remarks when she walks past and 

refuse to accept she was wrongfully imprisoned (AFP Photo/RIZWAN TABASSUM)

Persecution persists, Nawab says, with people in the streets frequently whispering cold remarks when she walks past.

"Society will not accept the verdict," agreed Supreme Court lawyer Mohammad Farooq, commenting on the case. "She cannot get rid of this stigma as far as society is concerned."

But Nawab says she must move on and has plans to finish her studies and find a job.

She has also vowed to raise awareness for other wrongly imprisoned women. Her lawyer says he will help her set up an NGO to give women like her the support she never had.

"I don't want any other woman to have to endure the ordeal that I lived through," says Nawab.

"So I will raise their voices for them."

Anwar declares 'new dawn' in Malaysia after walking free from jail

Yahoo – AFP, Samuel REEVES, 16 May 2018

Anwar was jailed on a sodomy conviction that his supporters say was cooked
up to destroy his political career

Reformist Anwar Ibrahim declared a "new dawn for Malaysia" Wednesday after his release from prison transformed him into a potential prime minister following his alliance's stunning election victory.

In scenes that captivated Malaysians, the charismatic 70-year-old returned to the national spotlight after the country's king quashed a widely criticised sodomy conviction that had put Anwar behind bars for three years.

To ecstatic cries of "Reformasi!" (Reform) -- Anwar's rallying cry -- he took selfies with his former prison guards and vowed before hundreds of journalists and supporters to support efforts to take the country in a new direction.

Anwar said he had forgiven Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who had him imprisoned two decades ago but who took over the opposition alliance and swept to victory last week. The 92-year-old says he will step down in a year or two to make way for Anwar.

"Now there is a new dawn for Malaysia," said Anwar, flanked by his wife Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and other members of his political party.

"The entire spectrum of Malaysians, regardless of race or religion, have stood by the principles of democracy and freedom. They demand change."

Anwar has cast a long shadow over Malaysian politics for decades.

He enjoyed a meteoric rise in the now-ousted Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition before a spectacular falling out with his then-boss Mahathir in 1998 that saw Anwar thrown in jail for sodomy and abuse of power.

Upon his release in 2004, he joined and revitalised the opposition coalition that finally ousted BN last week under Mahathir's leadership.

Anwar's release Wednesday from his second jail term for an unrelated sodomy conviction sets up a tantalising reunion with his nemesis-turned-ally Mahathir.

Anwar shakes hands with a prison officer as he speaks to the media 

following his release from hospital

No grudges

Anwar said his history with Mahathir was water under the bridge, as they shared the same goals of reforming the government and cleaning up a massive corruption scandal involving former prime minister Najib Razak.

"Bury the hatchet? It's been a long time already," Anwar said when asked about Mahathir.

"I have forgiven him."

Anwar indicated that he had no immediate plans to get deeply involved in politics, but would support Mahathir's governing efforts as a "private citizen".

Anwar's release caps a remarkable reversal of fortune made possible by the BN's unexpected electoral drubbing a week ago.

The former autocrat Mahathir, who headed BN for 22 years until 2003, came out of retirement to lead the disparate opposition to a surprise victory.

Many had expected a BN win thanks to its tight hold over the media, government, police and electoral apparatus of the multicultural Muslim-majority nation.

But the result laid bare the depth of disgust with former leader Najib, who is implicated in a massive scandal in which billions of dollars were plundered from the state investment fund 1MDB he established.

Mahathir has barred Najib from leaving the country pending investigations.

Anwar removes his tie before speaking to the media as his wife Wan 

Azizah (bottom R) looks on

Dizzying change

The BN had ruled since independence in 1957. Anwar's release adds to a dizzying sense of change and is likely to fuel expectations for an entirely new national direction.

Xavier Jayakumar, a member of parliament with Anwar's Parti Keadilan Rakyat, called it "a momentous day for all of Malaysia".

"The joy is similar to when South Africans celebrated with jubilation after Nelson Mandela was freed," he said.

Amnesty International, which had denounced Anwar's imprisonment as politically motivated, called his release a "landmark moment for human rights in the country".

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein warmly welcomed the release and said Malaysia now "has a historic opportunity to ensure the centrality of human rights, rule of law and an independent judiciary".

Safuan Awang, 35, who works for a medical supply company and is a member of Anwar's party, rejoiced at the release of "our hero Anwar Ibrahim".

"We have been waiting for this for such a long time," he said, expressing confidence that Anwar and Mahathir would work together.

"It will help to improve the economy, and improve the situation between different races. It will make the country more peaceful."

Anwar's path to leadership remains unclear, however.

Only a parliament member can become premier, but Anwar was stripped of his seat in 2015 after his conviction on charges of sodomising a young male aide.

Japan's Olympic golf venue admits first female members

Yahoo – AFP, May 11, 2018

The upscale Kasumigaseki Country Club near Tokyo has upgraded three women
 to full membership after agreeing last year to admit female members, following
criticism from the International Olympic Committee (AFP Photo/TORU YAMANAKA)

Tokyo (AFP) - Japan's golf venue for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics has granted full membership to women for the first time, after lifting a ban under pressure from Games authorities.

The upscale Kasumigaseki Country Club told AFP it had upgraded three women to full membership after agreeing last year to admit female members, following criticism from the International Olympic Committee.

"After the change of the rules, we asked members including men if they want to have full membership, and three women wanted to change their status to full membership," club general manager Hiroshi Imaizumi said.

The board of the club -- where Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe played with US President Donald Trump in November -- this week approved the requests after receiving no complaints or opposition from other members, he said.

Until last year, the private club in Japan's Saitama region had women on its roster but they were not allowed to become full members and could not play on certain Sundays -- restrictions that did not apply to male members.

The club has around 200 female associate members who are either relatives of male full-fledged members, or "weekday members" who are barred from playing on Sundays.

After being selected as a host venue for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the club came under pressure to change its rules, with IOC chief Thomas Bach threatening to take the golf competition elsewhere and asking the club to choose "non-discrimination".

Tokyo's female governor Yuriko Koike also complained about the ban, saying she felt "extreme discomfort" at the fact women were prevented from full membership.

Imaizumi said the club had two female full members about four decades ago, but that the ban on women was introduced several years later for reasons unknown.

The decision to lift the ban "is the trend of the time", he said.

It came after Scotland's prestigious Muirfield golf club last year voted to allow women members, ditching a ban that had been in place for 273 years.