Aung San Suu Kyi (filepix)

(April 17): Myanmar's detained former leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has been moved from prison to house arrest, a spokesperson for the military government told media.

"Since the weather is extremely hot, it is not only for Aung San Suu Kyi ... For all those who need necessary precautions, especially elderly prisoners, we are working to protect them from heatstroke," junta spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun said in comments reported by four media outlets late on Tuesday (April 16).

It was not immediately clear where Suu Kyi had been moved to. Zaw Min Tun did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

Suu Kyi was held under house arrest for a total of 15 years under a previous junta at a decrepit, colonial-style family residence on Yangon's Inya Lake, where she famously gave impassioned speeches to crowds of supporters over the metal gates of the property.

Suu Kyi, 78, has been detained by the Myanmar military since it overthrew her government in a 2021 coup. She faces 27 years in prison for crimes ranging from treason and bribery, to violations of the telecommunications law, charges she denies.

In February, her son Kim Aris said she was being held in solitary confinement and that she was in good spirits "even if her health is not as good as it was in the past".

World leaders and pro-democracy activists have repeatedly called for her release.

A spokesperson for the NUG shadow government called for the unconditional release of Suu Kyi and U Win Myint, Myanmar's ousted president, who has also been moved to house arrest, according to the media reports.

"Moving them from prisons to houses is good, as houses are better than prisons. However, they must be unconditionally freed. They must take full responsibility for the health and security of Aung San Suu Kyi and U Win Myint," spokesperson Kyaw Zaw told Reuters late on Tuesday.

JERUSALEM/CAIRO (April 17): Israel will make its own decisions about how to defend itself, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday, as Western countries pleaded for restraint in responding to a volley of attacks from Iran.

The United States, European Union and G7 group of industrialised nations all announced plans to consider tighter sanctions on Iran, seen as aimed at mollifying Israel and persuading it to rein in its retaliation for the first ever direct Iranian strikes after decades of confrontation by proxy.

Netanyahu met the German and British foreign ministers, who both travelled to Israel as part of a coordinated push to keep confrontation between Israel and Iran from escalating into a regional conflict fueled by the Gaza war.

Netanyahu's office said he thanked David Cameron and Annalena Baerbock for their support, while telling them: "I want to make it clear — we will make our own decisions, and the State of Israel will do everything necessary to defend itself."

Earlier, Cameron said it was now apparent Israel planned to retaliate for the Iranian missile and drone strikes, which Tehran launched on Saturday in response to a presumed Israeli airstrike that killed military officers at its embassy in Syria.

Baerbock said escalation "would serve no one, not Israel's security, not the many dozens of hostages still in the hands of Hamas, not the suffering population of Gaza, not the many people in Iran who are themselves suffering under the regime, and not the third countries in the region who simply want to live in peace."

More than six months into the Gaza war between Israel and the Iran-backed Palestinian militant group Hamas that has seen flare-ups across the Middle East, diplomats are searching for a way to avert direct battle between Israel and Iran.

The Iranian missiles and drones launched on Saturday were mostly shot down by Israel and its allies and caused no deaths. But Israel says it must retaliate to preserve the credibility of its deterrents. Iran says it considers the matter closed but will retaliate again if Israel does.

Washington says it is planning to impose new sanctions targeting Iran's missile and drone programme in coming days and expects its allies will follow suit. EU leaders are due to discuss sanctions at a summit in Brussels, and sanctions are also on the agenda at G7 talks in Italy.

'Stop the war! stop the war!'

Since Hamas fighters triggered the war in Gaza by attacking southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and capturing 253 hostages according to Israeli tallies, clashes have erupted between Israel and Iran-aligned groups based in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

Inside Gaza, Israel has launched a massive air and ground assault, with nearly 34,000 people confirmed killed, according to Palestinian medics, and thousands of others feared dead, still lost among the ruins.

Apart from a single week of ceasefire in November when around half of the hostages were freed, diplomats have so far failed to hammer out terms for a truce.

This month, Israel abruptly pulled most of its troops out of southern Gaza, site of most of the heaviest fighting since the start of the year. Fighting in recent days has been focused in central Gaza, in the Nuseirat camp north of Deir al-Balah, one of the few areas that Israeli troops have yet to storm.

At a hospital morgue in Deir al-Balah, members of the al-Nouri family bellowed in sorrow and anger over bodies in body bags, several the size of small children, in video obtained by Reuters. Authorities said 11 people had been killed in an Israeli strike on the family home on Tuesday.

"Oh people of the world, what is happening is wrong! Have mercy on us! Stop the war! Stop the war! Children are dying in the streets!" a man cried inside the crowded hospital.

Elsewhere, Hamas media reported Israeli forces had withdrawn from Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza after a 36-hour raid there.

On Israel's northern border with Lebanon, where cross-border battles between Israeli forces and the Iran-aligned Hezbollah movement pose an escalation risk, Hezbollah said it had fired on a military target in an Israeli village in retaliation for Israeli strikes that killed Hezbollah members and commanders.

Western countries, including the United States, which initially strongly backed Israel's campaign against Hamas, have grown increasingly uncomfortable with the high civilian death toll and have called for a ceasefire.

Israel says it will discuss a pause to free hostages but will not stop fighting until Hamas is wiped out; Hamas says it will not release hostages without a truce leading to an end to the war.

The prime minister of Qatar, which has served as mediator, said negotiations were at a delicate phase. The Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, three of whose sons were killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza this month, is set to visit Turkey in coming days for talks with President Tayyip Erdogan.

With the prospect of famine looming, the United States and Israel say access for aid has improved this month. Aid agencies say supplies of food and medicine are still too paltry to stave off humanitarian disaster.

JAKARTA (April 17): Indonesia is revising a regulation designed to control imports of more than 3,000 products, amid concerns from business groups that the rule could disrupt domestic supply chains and exports, the country's trade minister said on Wednesday.

Southeast Asia's biggest economy issued a regulation late last year to tighten monitoring for many imported goods, from food ingredients to electronic equipment to chemicals, due to concern about an influx.

Importers are required to obtain import permits for various goods, including footwear, textiles and washing machines, and a technical recommendation from other government institutions is needed to secure such a permit.

"Business players, associations, and stakeholders have conveyed that they were having difficulties in obtaining technical documents from related institutions," Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan said in a statement.

In a separate statement, Indonesia's Coordinating Ministry of Economic Affairs said the government is also suspending the requirement for the technical documents to obtain permits. The ministry did not elaborate the timeline for the suspension.

The coordinating ministry said the Trade Ministry will allow a transition period for the new regulation once the revision has been issued.

Business groups have said the new rules, which took effect on March 10, have restricted their access to some raw materials.

Following complaints and warnings of shortages, the trade ministry last month eased restrictions for aircraft spare parts and raw materials for the plastics industry. But business groups demanded further relaxation.

The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said inappropriately targeted restrictions could disrupt operations in export-oriented industries, including automotive, mineral smelting and electronic manufacturing, as well as the food and beverage sector.

JAKARTA (April 17): Apple Inc will look into building a manufacturing facility in Indonesia, its CEO said on Wednesday after meeting President Joko Widodo, who hoped the tech giant would increase its local content by partnering with domestic firms.

Apple chief executive Tim Cook arrived in Jakarta on Tuesday after visiting Vietnam. He met with Jokowi, as the president is popularly known, and will inaugurate its fourth developer academy on the island of Bali.

"We talked about the president's desire to see manufacturing in the country, and it is something that we will look at," Cook told reporters after the meeting.

Apple has no manufacturing facilities in Indonesia, but since 2018 it has been setting up app developer academies, which including the new academy have a total cost of 1.6 trillion rupiah (RM474.4 million).

Indonesia's industry minister, Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita, who also attended the meeting, told reporters that if Apple decided to build manufacturing facility in Indonesia, it would have the capacity to produce for export.

"We will discuss how Apple's facility in Indonesia could become a global supply chain," he said, adding that the government said that even if Apple didn't build a factory, it could partner with Indonesian companies to obtain components.

Apple has met Indonesia's 35% local content requirement to sell its products by investing in developer academies, Agus said, but the government hoped that number could be pushed higher with a manufacturing facility.

Apple has based much of its key manufacturing of iPads, AirPods and Apple Watches in Vietnam; suppliers for MacBooks are also investing in the country.

Indonesia has a huge, tech-savvy population, making the Southeast Asian nation a key target market for tech-related investment.

(April 17): Vietnamese electric-vehicle maker VinFast reported higher first-quarter revenue on Wednesday on the back of increased vehicle deliveries.

The company's quarterly revenue more than tripled to US$302.6 million.

VinFast maintained its 2024 goal of 100,000 EV deliveries.

The company delivered nearly 9,700 cars in the first three months of this year, with a large portion going to its affiliate Green SM, a taxi operator and leasing provider backed by VinFast CEO Pham Nhat Vuong.

(April 17): Vietnam has mounted an "unprecedented" rescue of Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SCB), a lender engulfed in the nation’s biggest financial fraud, according to three bank documents and new official information provided to Reuters by a person with access to the documents.

"Without lending, SCB will collapse," according to the new information provided to Reuters. "If the lending continues, the national treasury will gradually dry up."

Reuters is not identifying the source more specifically due to the sensitivity of the matter.

The new information also described the situation as “unprecedented” for the massive volume of the cash injections, the complexity of the operation and the scale of existing and potential damage to Vietnam’s financial system.

Reuters was unable to establish whether the conclusions about the impact on state coffers were broadly shared by other officials currently involved with monitoring SCB.

Vietnam's public debt was stable last year at 37% of gross domestic product, while the budget deficit widened slightly to 4.4% of GDP. Foreign reserves were around US$100 billion (RM479.2 billion) at the end of the year, according to the central bank. That is up from about US$90 billion at the end of October, according to the independent regional watchdog Asean+3 Macroeconomic and Research Office.

As of the start of April, the Southeast Asian nation’s central bank had pumped US$24 billion in "special loans" into SCB, according to one of the bank documents seen by Reuters, which provides daily updates since March 29 on overall injections from the central bank.

Lending has slowed slightly but averaged more than US$900 million a month in the past five months, according to that document, a second document with updates from March 15 to March 20, and a third document from November with monthly updates from October 2022 to October 2023.

The central bank did not reply to requests for comment about the rescue effort. The finance ministry referred a question to the central bank. SCB initially told Reuters it would circulate the news agency's request for comment, but did not respond to subsequent emails. An SCB official declined to comment when contacted by phone.

Run on bank after tycoon’s arrest

The State Bank of Vietnam's previously unreported cash injections into SCB amount to 5.6% of the nation's annual economic output, or about one-fourth of Vietnam's foreign-exchange reserves.

The central bank placed SCB under its supervision to stem a run on the bank sparked by the October 2022 arrest of real estate tycoon Truong My Lan. Since then, SCB has been using the injections to cover cash withdrawals, according to one of the bank documents, which SCB sent to the central bank in November to account for its use of the loans.

After the central bank stepped in, SCB's deposits plunged 80% to about US$6 billion by December 2023, according to the new official information from the source. SCB could run out of deposits by mid-year at the current pace, and bad loans had surged to 97.08% of SCB's credit balance as of October, it said.

Lan, the tycoon whose October 2022 arrest sparked the bank run, was sentenced to death on Thursday after being found guilty of masterminding the fraud. She had pleaded not guilty to embezzlement and bribery for allegedly siphoning off US$12.5 billion in loans from SCB to shell companies while effectively controlling SCB through proxies.

Lan, formerly a prominent figure in Vietnamese finance, will appeal the verdict of the People's Court of Ho Chi Minh City, one of her lawyers said.

Despite the official support, as of December SCB continued to face liquidity problems and at times struggled to settle payments on time when its customers transferred money to other banks, and to process payments via the country's main clearing system, according to the new information. This affected customer "psychology" and created risks to the entire banking and financial system, it said.

The central bank had provided SCB, previously one of the country's largest commercial lenders by deposits, with 592.7 trillion dong in "special loans" as of April 2, according to a recent update produced by the bank on the matter, seen by Reuters.

That was up from 478 trillion dong at the end of October, according to the SCB document that was sent to the central bank. That indicates injections of 23 trillion dong a month since November.

This has slowed from the initial average of US$3.7 billion a month the central bank initially injected in October and November 2022 and the monthly pace of nearly US$1.2 billion from then until October 2023, the bank document shows.

Bank restructuring sought

Vietnam's banking sector is already facing heightened risks from prolonged turmoil in the real estate sector. The fraud prosecution is part of the authorities' "blazing furnace" anti-corruption campaign, which triggered the real estate crisis, weighing on the economy and clouding the outlook for banks.

The central bank and the government have repeatedly sought help for SCB from the private sector, specifically calling on foreign investors, state media say, despite restrictions such as a 30% cap on combined foreign ownership of Vietnamese banks.

Late last year the central bank assigned private real estate company Sungroup to craft a plan to restructure SCB, according to the recent information from the source and three people familiar with the plan. Sungroup did not reply to a request for comment.

Reuters could not determine whether the Sungroup plan has been approved.

Any restructuring plan would hinge on the evaluation of real estate assets used by Lan and her companies as collateral for loans, but the legal status of those assets is often unclear, as many are still seeking permits while some violated rules on public land or permits, according to the new information.

Some of the assets include valuable properties in high-end districts in Ho Chi Minh City but most are unfinished projects.

The Lan family estimated the assets at US$30 billion, a family representative told Reuters this month, while the market appraisal firm Hoang Quan, hired by the central bank for an assessment, valued them around US$12 billion, according to a November public document from the police, which detailed Lan’s alleged wrongdoing.

Some of Lan's Hong Kong business partners have expressed interest in the assets, Reuters reported earlier this month. They did not respond to requests for further comment about their interest in the assets after Lan’s trial verdict.