Latest news with #Asians
Indian Express
an hour ago
- Climate
- Indian Express
‘Giving rich Asian wedding vibes': Filipino couple marries in flooded church amid typhoon, wedding photos win hearts
Not even heavy flooding could stand in the way of Jade Rick Verdillo and Jamaica Aguilar's big day. On July 22, the couple tied the knot at the historic Barasoain Church in Malolos, Bulacan, in the Philippines, despite the venue being flooded due to tropical storm Wipha. Despite the weather challenges, Verdillo and Aguilar were determined to tie the knot. Now-viral photos from the ceremony captured an unusual and rather surreal wedding. The bride walked down the aisle through floodwaters, her lace wedding dress and veil soaked at the hem, while the groom, dressed in a traditional embroidered Barong Tagalog, stood waiting for his bride in the knee-deep water. Guests, including flower girls and young children, walked barefoot through the church, some leaving their shoes behind on pews. 'We just mustered enough courage,' Verdillo told PEOPLE. 'We decided today because it is a sacrifice in itself. But there will be more sacrifices if we don't push through today,' he added. Aguilar shared that this was only one of many challenges they expect to face in their life together. 'I feel that challenges won't be over. It's just a test. This is just one of the struggles that we've overcome,' she shared. See photos: A post shared by The Associated Press (AP) (@apnews) The photos were widely hailed, with one user commenting, 'Imagine getting married in a monsoon and still looking SO BEAUTIFUL.' Another user wrote, 'Amazing courage.. Congratulations to you two on this special day that you both will never forget.' 'That is a solid marriage If they can make the best of this,' a third user reacted. 'It's giving crazy rich Asians wedding scene,' a fourth user said. Earlier classified as a typhoon, Wipha was downgraded to a tropical storm before hitting northern Vietnam. However, it had already left parts of the Philippines grappling with torrential rain, flooding, and landslides. According to the Associated Press, over 80,000 people were still in emergency shelters across the country following days of heavy rain. In a similar incident, a couple got married at the Barasoain Church under extreme weather conditions. In July 2023, another bride, Dianne Victoriano, married her partner Paulo Padilla at the same church, which was also flooded due to typhoons.
Spectator
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Spectator
Raise the age of suffrage to 25
If I had been given the vote at the age of 16, I would have put my cross beside the name of the Communist party candidate, assuming that he was not a tankie. If he was, I would have had to think long and hard; a left-wing Labour candidate might well have been preferable. I was a moderate within the CP, you see – a fan of the Italian Communist party leader, Enrico Berlinguer – and I had no time for the wretched Stalinists who, swaddled in dystopian nostalgia, comprised a broad rump of the British party. They were nicknamed tankies because they thoroughly approved of Soviet interventions in Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968). I was what was then called a Eurocommunist. I knew my stuff too. I'd read Das Kapital, The Communist Manifesto and Marx's Grundrisse, desperately dull though they were, as well as Edmund Wilson's brilliant history of the left, To the Finland Station. And yet of course, I still knew less than nothing. My vote for whatever bitter and deluded old oaf was standing for the CP would have been an act of radical-chic performative attitudinalising and far more fraudulent than even my mother's vote for the National Front in the first general election of 1974 because she couldn't stand Asians. All Asians. At least she meant it. Luckily, if 16-year-olds had been enfranchised in 1974, I would have still been more than two years too young to vote, thank the Lord. Sense took some time to work its way into my skull. In the 1979 general election I voted Labour and compounded that mistake by then voting for Tony Benn as the party's deputy leader in 1981. But my direction of travel was evident, at any rate. I was 25 before common sense properly dawned, which – no coincidence – is exactly the age at which the medical profession assesses a human's brain to be properly developed. It is the age at which I would grant suffrage now, providing there were also a property qualification, if I were running the country. It is the prefrontal cortex, the bit of the brain responsible for decision-making, that's the last to form. This is why, in Scotland, people under 25 are not treated as full adults when being sentenced for crimes in a court of law. But they are still allowed to vote in Scottish parliamentary elections from the age of 16. This clear contradiction in terms used to make me laugh, but not now, seeing as the whole UK is on a similar trajectory. I am a little surprised that there has not been more outcry about the government's decision to lower the voting age to 16: it is political gerrymandering of the very worst kind. According to the Office for National Statistics, there are about 1,500,000 16- and 17-year-olds in the UK and these wretched, entitled little shits may well decide the result of the next election. Don't attempt to console yourself with the notion that they won't bother voting, they'll be too busy scrolling through their phones, ha ha. The lesson from Scotland is that they vote in very great numbers – a larger proportion than for any age band until you reach the mid-fifties. And they will vote for whatever jackanapes provides them with the most unrealistic, utopian vision of the future. They will slouch towards the polling booth determined to make the world a 'kinder' place and in so doing will fuck us over completely. Nor is there any logical reason why 16 should be the end of it. I think 18 is too young to vote, but at least it has a resonance as the age of majority; 16 does not. Already, in Scotland, one can register to vote at the age of 14 and there was an article in the Guardian recently (which I blogged about for The Spectator) which suggested that babies should be allowed to vote. That's the way we're going, and it would not surprise me if one day the left attempts to win back the foetal vote by assuring the unborn that, while they are probably going to be killed a few hours before birth, they still have full voting rights. The counter-argument, parroted by all those who support lowering the age of suffrage, is that while the brain may not be fully formed at 16 (or anywhere near being so), there are plenty of people in later years with cognitive impairment, such as those suffering from Alzheimer's or dementia. Yes, indeed – but they tend not to vote. I mean, I suppose they may venture out of the booby hatch intending to, but they will almost certainly find themselves half an hour later standing in Halfords asking if they can buy some gravy granules. And yes, of course, there are plenty of people over the age of 17 who are fantastically stupid, pig-ignorant of almost everything, scarcely able to draw a breath without becoming intellectually challenged, like the woman on the quiz show Tipping Point the other night who located Singapore in Europe. But broadening the spectrum of stupidity is not, to my mind, a means of redressing the problem. My clarion call is 'no representation without taxation', and to the ninnies who insist that 16-year-olds would be liable to pay tax if they earned more than about £12,000 per annum, I say: how many actually do so? Nine? But if that's the chief objection, then by all means allow voting only for those who pay tax – which would handily remove from the electoral roll around half of those in the next generation band, the 18- to 24-year-olds. I was 13 at the time of that first 1974 election, and my comprehensive school held a mock election which, as the Communist candidate, I won by a landslide. I think an end to exams and the school uniform were the central planks of my manifesto.
NDTV
15 hours ago
- Entertainment
- NDTV
Watch: Brazilian Influencer Crawls Through Japanese Streets Wearing Bizarre Snake Costume
A viral video showed a Brazilian influencer, dressed up as a giant snake, slithering through public streets, plazas and subway stations in Japan. The video has divided the internet, with some treating it funny, while others criticising it. Watch the video here: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Junior Caldeirão (@juniorcaldeirao) The Instagram video was posted in June and has gone viral now. In the video, the influencer, Junior Caldeirao, is seen wearing a full-body anaconda costume, mimicking the fluid motion of a reptile. The video has garnered millions of views, but also sparked widespread criticism and outrage among Japanese netizens, Gateway Hispanic reported. It was condemned as "culturally disrespectful" and a "reckless provocation endangering public safety," with some even demanding legal actions, the report noted. The incident highlights growing concerns over the impact of social media influencers on the public and the need for greater responsibility and respect for local norms. Here's how social media has reacted The video was posted on Instagram with the caption, "I only know how to laugh." "The people saying that it's not that the Japanese don't like foreigners, sorry but I don't like them here either, lol I just wouldn't do the same because I don't have a outfit like that, but they come to our country to live and still manage to treat us bad up to here," one user said. "Only those who live here know how they are thinking a lot about the tourist entry," another wrote. "Funny how Brazil has always been a stage for foreigners to paint and embroider, now a lot of people talking about them being in shock with foreigners," another user said. "He scaring even Asians who are used to the strangest things in the world," one user said. "The Japanese walking away in fear of the sting," another wrote.
Kuwait Times
a day ago
- Business
- Kuwait Times
Kuwait population tops 5m
Citizens drop, Asians dominate, domestic helpers rise, workforce up By B Izzak KUWAIT: Kuwait's population has surpassed the 5-million mark, recording 5,098,539 people as of June 30, 2025. Kuwaiti citizens dropped one percentage point, making up 30.4 percent of the population, the Public Authority for Civil Information (PACI) said on Tuesday. Kuwaitis numbered 1,550,547 on June 30 compared to 1.57 million at the end of 2024, PACI said in a population report. Kuwaitis made up 31.4 percent of the total population at the end of last year. For the first time, the Kuwaiti male population overtook their female counterparts. On June 30, Kuwaiti men numbered 776,656 against 773,891 Kuwaiti women. In previous statistics, Kuwaiti women formed 51 percent of the population against 49 percent of men. Kuwait's total population on June 30 grew by 2.16 percent from the end of last year and as high as 3.5 percent a year ago, despite the drop in the Kuwaiti population. The non-Kuwaiti population rose to a record 3,547,992 residents, or 69.6 percent of the country's population, growing by a strong 3.8 percent from the end of last year and adding 130,000 new entrants. Asians continue to dominate with 2.073 million or 40.7 percent of the total population, making up 58.4 percent of total expats. Asians rose by 3.65 percent from the end of 2024. Arabs come in third place with 1.37 million residents, around 26 percent of the total population. Africans, Americans, Europeans and others make up the rest. Indians remain the top expat community with over one million residents, followed by Egyptians at 660,000. Domestic helpers, a majority of them Asian, grew to 823,000 on June 30 from 781,000 at the end of 2024, an increase of 5.4 percent, according to the PACI report. On June 30, total workforce in Kuwait reached 3.1 million, slightly up from 3.065 million at the end of 2024. However, the strength of the Kuwaiti workforce dropped from 505,000 six months ago to 491,000 on June 30. A majority of the Kuwaiti workforce of 393,000 or 80 percent are government employees. Over 67,000 are in private sector jobs and 30,600 are unemployed, the report said. The expat workforce reached 2.65 million on June 30, up from 2.56 million at the end of 2024. Only 127,000 expats are employed in the government sector while about 1.696 million work in the private sector. The remaining 823,000 are domestic helpers.
Bangkok Post
a day ago
- Health
- Bangkok Post
Beauty clinics harness tech for new surgeries
Beauty clinics in Thailand are differentiating themselves by incorporating the latest technology to meet client needs, according to a dermatologist. Competition in the Thai beauty industry is expected to continue growing this year, with a projected market value of 76.5 billion baht, representing 2.8% year-on-year growth, driven by a greater number of clients and rising treatment costs, said Dr Nicha Kaewprasom, a board-certified dermatologist at Eleven i Clinic. She said several beauty clinics are looking for ways to differentiate themselves in this highly competitive market. Among these clinics, EndoliftX technology has become a revolutionary laser treatment for lifting and tightening skin, as well as reducing fat, she said. This non-surgical, non-anaesthesia, and scarless procedure utilises a micro-optical fibre to deliver laser energy into the skin, she added. Dr Nicha noted that this technology offers a remarkable alternative for facelifts and options for body contouring. As one of the first medical teams in Thailand to try EndoliftX technology, she said she had found this to be a revolutionary and highly effective method in treating skin laxity and fat melting, especially in some specific areas where traditional methods are not addressed. Dr Nicha has played a role in developing protocols and treatment procedures designed to suit the skin structure of Asians, which differs from that of Westerners in terms of the condition and its responsiveness to laser energy. She said Thailand is currently the leader in EndoliftX technology in Asia because it is the first country to have seriously implemented it and achieved effective results for many patients.
