Singapore to hang mentally disabled man next week, says family

SINGAPORE—A mentally disabled Malaysian man will be hanged in Singapore next week after losing a last-ditch appeal, his sister said Wednesday, despite an international outcry about his case. 

Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam was arrested in 2009 for trafficking a small amount of heroin into the city-state, which has some of the world's toughest drugs laws, and handed a death sentence the following year.

But the plan to hang him sparked widespread criticism due to concerns about his intellectual disabilities, with the European Union and British billionaire Richard Branson among those condemning it.

After a years-long legal battle, the 34-year-old lost his final appeal last month, when judges rejected arguments that executing a man with mental disabilities contravenes international law.

His family has now been informed he will be executed on Wednesday next week, his sister Sarmila Dharmalingam told AFP. 

Family members, including his mother and three siblings, will travel to the city-state to see him beforehand, she said.

M. Ravi, a Singapore-based human rights lawyer assisting in the case, said the news of Nagaenthran's looming execution was "heartbreaking".

"The Singapore state will never be able to recover from the disgrace it's going to face internationally in hanging an intellectually disabled person," he said in a social media post.

Last month, the city-state conducted its first execution since 2019 when it hanged a drug trafficker, and fears are growing that several more people will be put to death in the coming months. 

As well as Nagaenthran, three other men convicted of drugs offenses have had their final appeals rejected. 

Nagaenthran was arrested at the age of 21 after a bundle of heroin weighing about 43 grams (one and a half ounces) -- equivalent to about three tablespoons -- was found strapped to his thigh as he sought to enter Singapore.

Supporters say he has an IQ of 69 -- a level recognized as a disability -- and was coerced into committing the crime.

Singapore maintains the death penalty for several offenses, including drug trafficking and murder, and insists it has helped to keep the city-state one of Asia's safest places.

Agence France-Presse

Virgin Galactic to run as a critical infrastructure business during pandemic

Billionaire Richard Branson's space tourism company Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc will keep running as a critical infrastructure business, even as many US states in which it operates have mandated business closures during the coronavirus outbreak.

"We are an aerospace manufacturer with defense and government contracts and therefore categorized as a Critical Infrastructure business," a company spokeswoman told Reuters in an emailed statement.

The company, which aims to offer the first commercial space flight later this year with Branson on board, added that a vast majority of its workforce is working from home.

Virgin Galactic's net losses widened to $73 million in the fourth quarter from $46 million in the year-ago period, it reported in its first financial results as a publicly traded company in February.

Blue Origin, founded by Amazon.com Inc Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, is also racing to be the first to offer suborbital flights to fare-paying thrill seekers.

Virgin Galactic went public after merging in October with Social Capital Hedosophia, the special-purpose acquisition vehicle run by early Facebook Inc executive and venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya.

Separately, Branson is seeking 500 million pounds (P31.51 billion) from the British government to bail out his Virgin Atlantic airline during the virus outbreak.

-reuters-

Virgin Galactic becomes first space tourism company to land on Wall Street

NEW YORK -- Virgin Galactic landed on Wall Street Monday, debuting its listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in a first for a space tourism company.

Founder Richard Branson appeared on the floor of the NYSE to ring a bell marking the beginning of trading, as fireworks jetted behind him.

"We have pioneered several space milestones, including sending our chief astronaut trainer as the first passenger to space on a commercial spaceship," Virgin Galactic said on Twitter.

"Today, we tick off another first -- now anyone can invest in the future of space."

The company, which will trade under the initials SPCE, ended down 0.34 percent at $11.75, with a valuation of $969 million.

Virgin Galactic joined the NYSE after merging with Social Capital Hedosophia, which was already listed. This allowed it to skip the formal IPO process and bring in $450 million.

Founded in 2004, Virgin Galactic has spent years developing its space program, and after a fatal accident in 2014, has twice crossed the barrier into the final frontier.

The company plans to offer weightless flights to six passengers at a time, at $250,000 (225,750 euros) a ticket for the first customers from the Summer of 2020, though it has yet to begin commercial launches. 

The client-astronauts will be able to float around the ship's cabin and look out of portholes to see the curvature of the Earth, all while surrounded by the blackness of space. 

More than 600 people have already signed up for the journey.

Branson is joined in the new space race by Blue Origin, founded by Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, which wants to offer clients a few minutes of weightlessness aboard a small rocket that takes off vertically.

Tesla's Elon Musk has founded SpaceX, with an eye on long-range space travel.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Billionaire Branson urges business to back LGBT+ rights

LONDON - British billionaire Richard Branson urged fellow business leaders on Thursday to use their clout and put pressure on countries such as Brunei that persecute citizens for their sexuality.

Brunei's decision to impose the death penalty for gay sex had spurred the call for action, Branson wrote in a blog posted on Virgin.com. He was joined by 20 other top executives, who put their names to a wider initiative in support of LGBT+ rights.

"Why take action now? The answer is simple. I feel that every opportunity to stand up for what we believe in is a good opportunity to shift the conversation on a global scale," said Branson, who made his fortune from a conglomerate of enterprises bearing the Virgin name.

John Fallon, chief executive of education group Pearson, and Paul Polman, former chief executive of consumer goods company Unilever, were among 21 signatories of an initiative supported by Open For Business, a coalition of global firms promoting LGBT+ inclusion.

"It is time for all of us, as business leaders and as human beings, to stand up to ensure that people are free from the fear of abuse for who they love," the 21 signatories wrote.

"This is our responsibility to our employees, to our customers and to communities all over the world."

The initiative calls for businesses to create inclusive workplaces, actively support criminalized LGBT+ communities, and engage with repressive regimes on their policies.

More than 70 countries worldwide, including Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, enforce anti-LGBT+ laws.

Brunei, a small Southeast Asian country of about 400,000 people, sparked outcry last month when it rolled out laws penalizing sodomy, adultery and rape with the death penalty.

Celebrities, from actor George Clooney to singer Elton John, have galvanized support, with protesters boycotting the Dorchester Collection of hotels, owned by the Brunei Investment Agency.

A growing list of banks, including Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Citi and Nomura, have banned staff from using the hotels.

STA Travel and London's transport network have also begun to cut ties with businesses owned by the sultanate.

In a letter to the United Nations, Brunei has defended the imposition of strict sharia laws, which it began introducing in 2014, as more for "prevention than to punish."

Matt Cameron, managing director of investment industry organization LGBT Great, called for a boycott of countries that enacted anti-gay and anti-transgender laws.

"The financial services sector is a massive part of the global economy and carries a lot of clout," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"I do think there's a responsibility and an accountability for the industry to step up and use its force."

However, Daniel Winterfeldt, a partner in law firm Reed Smith's global capital markets practice, stressed the value of talking with governments, whatever their views.

"Engagement is incredibly important. If you build up a barrier, things can actually get worse," Winterfeldt said.

"When (business leaders) attend high-level meetings with governments, it is important that on their lists of concerns are equality issues." 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Billionaire Branson says he'll fly to space by July

WASHINGTON -- British billionaire Richard Branson plans to travel to space within the next four or five months aboard his own Virgin Galactic spaceship, he told AFP Thursday. 

"My wish is to go up on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, that's what we're working on," the head of the Virgin group said on the sidelines of an event to honor Virgin Galactic at the Air and Space Museum in Washington. 

The American Apollo 11 mission landed on the moon July 20, 1969.

Virgin Galactic is one of two companies, along with Blue Origin, on its way to sending passengers into space -- though just barely, and just for a few minutes. 

The companies want to send hundreds or thousands of people on these short "suborbital" flights, meaning they wouldn't get high enough to orbit the earth. 

These missions would be shorter and more affordable than SpaceX's planned project to send a Japanese billionaire to the moon by 2023 at the earliest. 

Virgin Galactic flew 50 miles (80 km) above the earth, which the US considers the edge of space, for the first time in December (the international consensus is 100 km). 

Virgin Galactic's spaceship, called SpaceShipTwo, is commanded by two pilots. 

To take off, it's dropped by a carrier plane like a bomb, then starts its own engine to jet off straight into the sky, eventually climbing high enough to see the curvature of the earth. 

The craft hovers and descends naturally, gliding back towards its original departure point, Mojave Air and Space Port in California.

It will be able to carry six passengers along with its two pilots. 

Branson has previously announced dates for this first trip into space, though they've always come and gone without the voyage happening.

But this time the businessman claims preparations are in their final stages. 

"By July we should have done enough testing," he said. 

But he doesn't want to make any promises he can't keep: "I need to wait for our team to say they're 100% happy. I don't want to push them," he said, but thinks they'll be ready for clients by the end of the year. 

He told AFP Virgin Galactic costs him $35 million a month; previously, he said he had invested more than a billion dollars in the venture since the 2000s.

According to Branson, the SpaceShipTwo's next test flight is planned for February 20, depending on weather conditions. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Billionaire Branson halts talks on $1 billion Saudi investment in space ventures

British billionaire Richard Branson said on Thursday that his Virgin Group would suspend its discussions with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund over a planned $1 billion investment in the group's space ventures, in light of the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

"What has reportedly happened in Turkey around the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, if proved true, would clearly change the ability of any of us in the West to do business with the Saudi government," Branson said in a statement.

Branson also said he would suspend his directorship in 2 Saudi tourism projects around the Red Sea, citing Khashoggi's disappearance. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Pressure has mounted on Saudi Arabia since Oct. 2 when Khashoggi, a prominent critic of Saudi policies and a Washington Post journalist, went missing. He was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.

Last year, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund said it planned to invest about $1 billion in Branson's space company, Virgin Galactic, The Spaceship Company and Virgin Orbit.

Branson said on Thursday, "We have asked for more information from the authorities in Saudi and to clarify their position in relation to Mr. Khashoggi."

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the United States has investigators overseas to assist Turkey in its investigation of the journalist's disappearance and that they were also working with Saudi Arabia. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Post-presidency, Obama tries kiteboarding, watersports

Photo by Jack Brockway

Barack Obama has been enjoying life after the US presidency by trying out watersports on a luxury Caribbean island owned by Richard Branson, the Virgin chief said on Tuesday.

The former US leader and his wife Michelle Obama visited Moskito Island, in the British Virgin Islands, after handing over the presidency to his successor Donald Trump.

Photos published on Branson's blog show Obama smiling on board a speed boat and wearing a helmet and goggles as he tries out kitesurfing.

"Being the former president of America, there was lots of security around, but Barack was able to really relax and get into it," the British billionaire wrote.

Obama had been stopped by his security detail from doing watersports during his presidency, Branson said.

Two days were dedicated to teaching Obama how to kitesurf from the beach, "as if going back to being a child again" according to his host.

Branson bought Moskito Island in 2007 and has since built a luxury estate which can host 22 guests, according to the resort's website.

Immediately after leaving the White House on January 20, the Obamas flew to California for a short holiday in Palm Springs.

In his final press conference as president, Obama said he was looking forward to spending time with his family after leaving office.

"I want to do some writing, I want to be quiet a little bit and not hear myself talk so darn much. I want to spend precious time with my girls," he said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Flamboyant AirAsia boss confronts first major crisis

Malaysian mogul Tony Fernandes, who transformed a floundering carrier into Asia's biggest budget airline, faces his first major crisis after an AirAsia plane went missing Sunday with 162 people on board.

AirAsia is credited with starting a revolution in the skies of Southeast Asia and has seen spectacular growth under Fernandes' low-cost, low-overheads model despite intense competition.

The ebullient tycoon is one of Asia's most visible entrepreneurs, carving out an image that has seen him frequently compared to colorful Virgin Group chairman Richard Branson.

Fernandes maintained an image of calm Sunday even as his company plunged into its first major crisis after an AirAsia passenger jet went missing in bad weather en route from Indonesia to Singapore.

"Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers. We must stay strong," he tweeted as he left for Surabaya, where most of the passengers are from. "My only thought (sic) are with the passengers and my crew."

This incident caps a disastrous year for Malaysian aviation which saw beleaguered rival Malaysia Airlines suffer two air tragedies in rapid succession.

Defying naysayers

A former record industry executive who acquired the then-failing airline in 2001, Fernandes is ranked 28th on the Forbes list of Malaysia's richest with an estimated net worth of $650 million.

The tycoon, a flamboyant spirit in Asia's staid business world who favors blue jeans and caps over power suits, has made a habit of defying naysayers.

He took over loss-making AirAsia shortly after the September 11 attacks in the United States sent the global aviation industry into a tailspin, and was given little chance of succeeding.

He bought the airline, its two aircraft, and 40 million ringgit ($13.4 million) in debt for the token sum of one ringgit, mortgaging his house to pour money into the carrier.

But with his motto "Now everyone can fly," he turned it into a growing force in the aviation industry, with profits mounting and its route system expanding worldwide.

Fernandes, who is of Indian-Portuguese descent and married with two children, struck a deal with F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone in 2011 for a majority stake in Premiership football team Queens Park Rangers.

Entrepreneurial spirit
Endau Analytics aviation analyst Shukor Yusof said his entrepreneurial spirit would survive Sunday's apparent tragedy.

"This incident will not dampen Fernandes' business spirit. This is such an unfortunate incident. AirAsia remains a strong budget carrier. I think the people will rally behind AirAsia," he told AFP.

The airline, which now has more than 120 A320s and is one of the biggest customers for the European aircraft maker Airbus, is expecting nearly 360 new aircraft to be delivered by 2026.

AirAsia, which has some of the lowest unit costs in the world, has raked in business awards and accolades over the years, while expanding aggressively.

In 2013 it was ranked as Asia and the world’s best low-cost airline for the fifth time in a row.

After Sunday's apparent disaster, AirAsia swiftly replaced its distinctive bright red logo on its social media pages with a grey background.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared on a regular flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March with 239 passengers and crew, and in July, MH17 was shot down over troubled Ukraine killing all 298 on board.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Branson determined to find cause of Virgin spaceship crash

MOJAVE, Calif./CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson on Saturday vowed to find out what caused his space tourism company's passenger spaceship to crash during a test flight, killing one pilot and injuring the other, but expressed a desire to press on with the dream of commercial space flight.

Michael Alsbury, 39, has been identified as the pilot who died in the crash of Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo, and the surviving pilot is Peter Siebold, 43, the Kern County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

Branson arrived in California's Mojave Desert to meet his Virgin Galactic team and federal officials who were opening their investigation into Friday's accident, the second in less than a week involving a commercial space company.

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo went down during a powered test flight, scattering debris over the Mojave Desert, 95 miles (150 km) north of Los Angeles.

"We owe it to our pilots to find out exactly what went wrong," Branson said during a news conference in Mojave.

"If we can overcome it, we will make absolutely certain that the dream lives on," he said.

Alsbury, who a sheriff's spokesman said was from Tehachapi, California, was a project engineer and test pilot at Scaled Composites, a Northrop Grumman Corp subsidiary that built and designed the spacecraft for Virgin Galactic.

Siebold was piloting SpaceShipTwo on Friday and Alsbury was serving as co-pilot, Scaled Composites said in a statement.

Alsbury was flying for the ninth time aboard SpaceShipTwo, including serving as the co-pilot on its first rocket-powered test flight on April 29, 2013, according to his biography on the company's website.

He was found dead in the aircraft, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said on Friday.

Siebold parachuted from SpaceShipTwo and was found a mile from the fuselage, Youngblood said. He had moderate to major injuries and was taken by helicopter to Antelope Valley Hospital, the Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

He was alert and talking with his family and doctors on Saturday, the statement from Scaled Composites said. He had been the pilot alongside Alsbury on SpaceShipTwo's maiden test flight last year, according to the company's website.

A team of investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board arrived at the crash site on Saturday to begin piecing together what led to the accident.

"This was a test flight, and test flights are typically very well documented in terms of data," said Christopher Hart, acting chairman of the NTSB. "We may have lots of evidence that will help us with the investigative process," he said.

Friday's crash was the second disaster in less than a week suffered by a private space company, dealing a blow to the fledgling commercial space industry that has been taking on work traditionally done by governments.

On Tuesday, an Antares rocket built and launched by Orbital Sciences Corp exploded after liftoff from Wallops Island, Virginia, destroying a cargo ship bound for the International Space Station.

NEW TYPE of FUEL

The Virgin probe will likely focus on SpaceShipTwo's rocket engine, which on Friday was flying with a new type of fuel for the first time, experts said.

The solid plastic-type propellant is ignited by nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas.

Virgin Galactic announced in May that it was replacing the rubber-based propellant used during the spaceship's three previous rocket-powered test flights to get better performance.

"We've tested both of these fuel grains a lot," Virgin Galactic chief executive George Whitesides told Reuters at the time.

Before Friday's flight, SpaceShipTwo's last powered test flight was in January, though the rocket and its new propellant had passed multiple ground tests.

Virgin Galactic is a U.S. offshoot of the London-based Virgin Group founded by Branson, one of the world's most famous entrepreneurs whose business empire ranges from airlines to music stores and mobiles phones.

Friday's accident marked the fourth fatality in Scaled's SpaceShipTwo development effort. In 2007, a fuel tank exploded, killing three Scaled employees.

"While not a NASA mission, the pain of this (new)tragedy will be felt by all the men and women who have devoted their lives to exploration," NASA, the U.S. space agency, said in a statement.

(Additional reporting by Victoria Cavaliere in Seattle and Curtis Skinner in San Francisco, Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis,; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt and Chizu Nomiyama)

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Branson's Virgin Money opens first bank branch in Britain

LONDON — Richard Branson's Virgin Money opened its first bank branch on Monday in northeast England after its takeover of state-rescued Northern Rock.

Nationalized at the height of the global financial crisis in 2008, Northern Rock was sold in November to Virgin Money for £747 million ($1.18 billion, 872 million euros) in cash.

"The Virgin Group has always gone into markets where there's been an opportunity to make things better for customers," Branson told reporters at the group's first converted branch in Newcastle, where Northern Rock was based.

"We've been doing it for 40 years, with some real milestone moments along the way, from our first steps in the record industry to launching Virgin Atlantic. Now we want to do the same for banking.

"It's not something we take lightly. There's a lot of hard work ahead. But we have the people, the products and the plans in place," he added.

The takeover deal covered 75 Northern Rock branches, one million customers, 2,100 employees, a £14-billion mortgages book and £16-billion of retail deposits.

All the branches will be rebranded under the Virgin Money banner over the next nine months, while the acquisition gives the former online lender a presence in the mortgage market for the first time.

Northern Rock was plunged into crisis in mid-September 2007 when its exposure to the credit crunch forced it to seek emergency assistance from the Bank of England, sparking the first run on a British bank in recent history.

The lender was last year split in two, forming a so-called "good bank" for its healthy businesses and a "bad bank" management company to wind down toxic assets. Only the "good" bank — Northern Rock Plc — was sold to Virgin.

Founded in 1995, Virgin Money is backed by Wilbur Ross, the billionaire Wall Street investor, as well as an Abu Dhabi investment fund.

The group has pledged to make no compulsory redundancies at Northern Rock for at least three years. — Agence France-Presse

source:gmanetwork.com