https://www.scmp.com/rss/324120/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Rizman used to regard female genital mutilation as something that simply “had to be done”. His sister was cut when she was a child, and even though he didn’t see it he remembers his parents talking about it and taking her to a clinic for the procedure. When his daughter was born, his parents and in-laws asked him and his wife when they would send her for sunat – a general Malay term for female genital mutilation, sometimes called female circumcision. “We figured that it’s something that’s... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-relationships/article/3112034/female-genital-cutting-singapore-religious-necessity?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-relationships/article/3112034/female-genital-cutting-singapore-religious-necessity?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 03 Dec 2020 23:45:08 +0000 Australian and Indonesian scientists have been conducting trials on a technique they believe has the potential to eradicate the deadly dengue virus in its strongholds in Southeast Asia and other parts of the world. Cases of disease caused by the virus have been steadily on the rise in recent decades, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), and 2019 recorded the highest number of cases to date. The scientists have been injecting the Aedes aegypti mosquito – the main species responsible... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/3104731/end-dengue-fever-mosquito-experiment-indonesia-sees-huge?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/3104731/end-dengue-fever-mosquito-experiment-indonesia-sees-huge?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 Oct 2020 01:15:08 +0000 Broccoli, 3D-printed into unusual shapes to tempt a picky toddler. Beef stew, produced in the same way to make it easy to swallow for an elderly relative. Pork and potatoes, also rendered by a machine for a patient with oral cancer who can’t chew. Advances in 3D-printing mean printed food is becoming increasingly mainstream. It is deconstructed and modified for nutritional content and visual appeal, before being reconstructed as a meal. The old and the unwell stand to benefit the most from this... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3098689/3d-printed-food-how-pork-beef-potatoes-even-vegetables?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3098689/3d-printed-food-how-pork-beef-potatoes-even-vegetables?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 25 Aug 2020 21:15:10 +0000 When Imma Moraleda learned that she had Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, she was not surprised at all. She had not been feeling well for several days, and presented all the symptoms that are quite common, such as loss of taste and smell. A consultant for the city council in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, a municipality in the suburbs of Barcelona, she does not know how she got infected. At first, she did not pay attention to her fever because she thought she was tired after an... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3079027/story-coronavirus-survivor-during-worst-days-spain?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3079027/story-coronavirus-survivor-during-worst-days-spain?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 12 Apr 2020 10:00:16 +0000 Overburdened hospitals and a shortage of protective measures and tests are taking a toll on Spanish medical professionals who are contracting Covid-19 – the illness caused by the new coronavirus – at an alarming rate. To date, more than 15,000 health professionals in Spain – about 14 per cent of the national total – have been infected. In contrast, Italy reported that health workers accounted for about 10 per cent of its infections. “I have tried to be careful, but when you work in a hospital,... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3078309/spains-health-workers-overburdened-and-undersupplied?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3078309/spains-health-workers-overburdened-and-undersupplied?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 05 Apr 2020 10:00:18 +0000 Weeks before Spain announced a nationwide lockdown to combat the new coronavirus pandemic, the Chinese community there had already taken their own measures – shutting their stores, wearing masks, and banding together to fend off xenophobia. “Because of the fear experienced in China, we see the epidemic differently than Spanish people,” said Xiao Kangyung, 36, who was born in Shanghai but has been living in Spain since 1996. “In China, the situation is experienced at the other extreme of... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3076253/spains-chinese-communitys-fight-against-coronavirus-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3076253/spains-chinese-communitys-fight-against-coronavirus-and?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 21 Mar 2020 10:00:24 +0000 After breaking up with her husband, Saifon was looking for a fresh start. She ended up paying with her life. The 21-year-old farmer in Nakhon Si Thammarat, southern Thailand, had started seeing another man after her marriage broke down about six months before. When her jealous ex-husband found out, he stabbed her to death in a brutal attack that also left her new partner seriously injured. It will never be known for sure why Saifon left her husband, but as local media pointed out at the time,... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/lifestyle-culture/article/3075789/severed-penis-murdered-ex-wife-whats-behind-thailands?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/lifestyle-culture/article/3075789/severed-penis-murdered-ex-wife-whats-behind-thailands?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 19 Mar 2020 03:00:14 +0000 In the popular Thai soap opera Game Rai Game Ruk, there is a scene of a man grabbing a woman and forcing himself on her while she screams and tries to hit him. The scene then cuts to a romantic setting in front of a lake, with the couple appearing to be hugging each other. But then it returns to the original setting and she stops fighting back, giving in to his advances. The underlying message: a man overpowers a woman and she surrenders and falls in love with him. This has been a recurring... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/lifestyle-culture/article/3047227/metoo-bangkok-thai-tv-soap-operas-rape-and-sex-attacks?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/lifestyle-culture/article/3047227/metoo-bangkok-thai-tv-soap-operas-rape-and-sex-attacks?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 28 Jan 2020 01:00:13 +0000 In August 1978, when Cambodia’s borders were closed off to the world, a young Swedish man – inspired by the Khmer Rouge’s vision of building a society based on freedom and equality – managed to gain entry into the country. Gunnar Bergstrom, then 27 years old, was one of the many Swedes who protested the Vietnam war in the 1970s – an era in which he became increasingly disillusioned with Soviet communism. Turning his attention to Cambodia, which he viewed as having been liberated from the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3008706/swedish-man-who-dined-khmer-rouges-pol-pot-40-years-ago-i-regret?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3008706/swedish-man-who-dined-khmer-rouges-pol-pot-40-years-ago-i-regret?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 03 May 2019 18:00:16 +0000 Ari has always felt lonely, but he never really thought about it too much. He just figured that he must be a little different from everybody else. That was until a few months ago, when he stumbled across an article that had been shared by one of his contacts on Facebook. It made him wonder if something else might be going on. Was there another reason he felt different from his peers? Was he trapped in the wrong body? The 17-year-old, who was born a girl, now identifies as a transgender man – but... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/2176820/lost-transition-how-it-really-feels-be-transgender-thailand?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/2176820/lost-transition-how-it-really-feels-be-transgender-thailand?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 07 Dec 2018 03:00:00 +0000 The Indonesian government has announced that it will prepare to move the capital of Jakarta starting in 2018, experts say that at the very least, the idea needs more time to work out the kinks. National Development Planning Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro met with President Joko Widodo at the presidential palace and agreed to complete the feasibility study “by the end of the year”. The plan is for a new administrative capital to then be built in three to four years, though its new location is not... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2104041/would-moving-indonesias-capital-work?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2104041/would-moving-indonesias-capital-work?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 27 Jul 2017 05:20:50 +0000 Street vendor Champ arrived in Bangkok in 2002 from the impoverished northeast region of Isaan to open a small food stall on the lively street of Sukhumvit Soi 38. He and his wife worked there, alongside dozens of other Thai vendors, for 14 years. But when the owner of the building they worked next to died in 2014, his family sold the property for the construction of a luxury condominium and Champ and his fellow vendors were required to move. The vendors asked to remain temporarily so they could... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/business/article/2095479/why-bangkok-banning-its-famous-street-food-stalls?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/business/article/2095479/why-bangkok-banning-its-famous-street-food-stalls?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 26 May 2017 05:00:15 +0000 On New Year’s Day, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen launched a six-month crackdown on the drug scourge that he said had become an increasing grievance for the country’s people. His announcement came shortly after a state visit by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who in 2016 launched a violent anti-drugs campaign in his own country that went on to kill 7,000 people in seven months. Given that Duterte’s crackdown was suspended after rogue police officers kidnapped and killed a South Korean... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2094693/why-are-abuse-claims-cambodias-war-drugs-being-ignored?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2094693/why-are-abuse-claims-cambodias-war-drugs-being-ignored?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 17 May 2017 10:35:53 +0000 The murder of Sameera Krishman in the city of Kuantan, Malaysia, was brutal enough to shock the nation. The florist was hacked repeatedly with a knife and shot multiple times on February 23, the day before her 28th birthday; her dead body then mutilated in an attack that came even as two men stood trial for a separate incident in 2015 in which Sameera was kidnapped, sexually assaulted, tortured and raped. Officially, the motives for the two attacks are unknown, yet campaigners and rights... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2076774/how-murder-malaysian-transgender-woman-exposed-fears-over-islamic?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2076774/how-murder-malaysian-transgender-woman-exposed-fears-over-islamic?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 07 Mar 2017 11:15:15 +0000