Literature on partnerships has grown rapidly in the past decade across different disciplines. However, despite conceptual attention to the value of strategic multi-stakeholder collaboration to promote peace and reconciliation, challenges posed by (post-)conflict, fragile contexts have barely been considered in empirical studies. In this article we contribute by bringing together debates from different partnership literatures and providing an overview of existing, relatively limited research insights on partnerships for peace in fragile states. We present a typology of different levels (local, national, international) at which collaboration takes place and different types of partnerships (philanthropic, transactional, engagement, transformative). This is exemplified with specific attention to Africa, where most fragile states are found, and to partnerships with transformative potential. The analysis suggests that the lowest-level (local) partnerships tend to exclude the national government, while the most recent international, multilateral-driven collaboration has not included business; national cases are most transformative but incidental and not yet leveraged internationally. Despite the interconnected nature of conflict and fragility issues, linkages between partnerships and partners at different levels are largely missing, offering potential for further development by a broad spectrum of scholars and thought leaders. Insights from 'extreme' unconventional contexts thus have relevance for management research more generally.

There is a growing consensus that cooperative goal structures are more effective at motivating groups than competitive goal structures. However, such results are based largely on studies conducted in highly-controlled settings where participants were provided with the necessary resources to accomplish their assigned task. In an attempt to extend the boundary conditions of current theoretical predictions, we undertook a field experiment within a base-of-the-pyramid setting where resource scarcity is extremely high. Specifically, we collected data on 44 communities within rural Sri Lanka who were tasked with contributing a portion of their resources to the construction of a school building; 24 were assigned to a competition condition and 20 to a cooperation condition. The results of our field experiment, and subsequent follow-up interviews and focus groups, collectively suggest that competitive goal structures generally lead to higher levels of motivation within a resource scarce environment. However, our results also suggest that cooperative goal structures can be highly motivating when groups are unfamiliar with one another, as cooperating with unfamiliar groups can provide access to valuable and rare knowledge within such settings.

We extend the knowledge-based perspective to consider the impact of spin-out founders on knowledge transfer to new ventures. We argue that existing theory largely ignores the founder's role as team catalyst who mobilizes a team and transmits the team's knowledge to a new venture. We address this gap by building theory on the role of a spin-out founder as a facilitator of co-mobility, and whose impact on firm outcomes is mediated by the size and organizational experience of the recruited team. The support for our hypotheses, through use of linked employee-employer US Census data from the legal services industry, has theoretical and practical implications for the knowledge-based view and human resource strategies for both existing and entrepreneurial firms.

Using data from 607 subjects organized in 161 teams (84 laboratory teams and 77 organizational field teams), we examined how leader humility influences team interaction patterns, emergent states, and team performance. We developed and tested a theoretical model arguing that when leaders behave humbly, followers emulate their humble behaviors, creating a shared interpersonal team process (collective humility). This collective humility in turn creates a team emergent state focused on progressively striving toward achieving the team's highest potential (collective promotion focus), which ultimately enhances team performance. We tested our model across three studies wherein we manipulated leader humility to test the social contagion hypothesis (Study 1), examined the impact of humility on team processes and performance in a longitudinal team simulation (Study 2), and tested the full model in a multistage field study in a health services context (Study 3). The findings from these lab and field studies collectively supported our theoretical model, demonstrating that leader behavior can spread via social contagion to followers, producing an emergent state that ultimately affects team performance. Our findings contribute to the leadership literature by suggesting the need for leaders to lead by example, and showing precisely how a specific set of leader behaviors influence team performance, which may provide a useful template for future leadership research on a wide variety of leader behaviors.

How does the presence of domain experts on a corporate board—directors whose primary professional experience is within the focal firm's industry—affect organizational outcomes? We argue that under conditions of significant decision uncertainty, a higher proportion of domain experts on a board may detract from effective decision making and thus increase the probability of organizational failure. Building on exploratory interviews with board members and CEOs, we derive hypotheses from this argument in the context of local banks in the United States. We predict that the greater the level of decision uncertainty—due to rapid asset growth or operation in less predictable markets—the stronger the relationship between the proportion of banking expert directors and the probability of bank failure. Longitudinal analyses of 1,307 banks between 1996 and 2012 support this prediction, even after accounting for both the overall level of professional diversity among directors and banks' different propensities to have an expert-heavy board. We discuss implications for the key dimensions of board composition, the conditions under which the professional background of directors is more or less consequential, and the mechanisms whereby board composition affects organizational outcomes.

Drawing on theories of behavioral decision making and situational strength, we developed and tested a multilevel model that explains how the performance outcomes of personal initiative tendency depend on the extent of alignment between organizational control mechanisms and proactive individuals' risk propensities. Results from a sample of 383 middle managers operating in 34 business units of a large multinational corporation indicated that risk propensity weakens the positive relationship between personal initiative tendency and job performance. This negative moderating effect was further amplified when middle managers receive high job autonomy but was attenuated in business units with a strong performance management context. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on proactivity, risk taking, and organizational control.

Despite recognizing the importance of personal identification in organizations, the literature has rarely explored its dynamics. We define personal identification as perceived oneness with another individual, where one defines oneself in terms of the other. While many scholars have found that personal identification is associated with helpful effects, others have found it harmful. To resolve this contradiction, we distinguish between three paths to personal identification -threat-focused, opportunity-focused, and closeness-focused - and articulate a model that includes each. We examine the contextual features, how individuals' identities are constructed, and the likely outcomes that follow in the three paths. We conclude with a discussion of how the threat-, opportunity-, and closeness-focused personal identification processes potentially blend, as well as implications for future research and practice.

Effectively capturing opportunities requires rapid decision-making. We investigate the speed of opportunity evaluation decisions by focusing on firms' venture termination and venture advancement decisions. Experience, standard operating procedures, and confidence allow firms to make opportunity evaluation decisions faster; we propose that a firm's attentional orientation, as reflected in its project portfolio, limits the number of domains in which these speed-enhancing mechanisms can be developed. Hence firms' decision speed is likely to vary between different types of decisions. Using unique data on 3,269 mineral exploration ventures in the Australian mining industry, we find that firms with a higher degree of attention toward earlier-stage exploration activities are quicker to abandon potential opportunities in early development but slower to do so later, and that such firms are also slower to advance on potential opportunities at all stages compared to firms that focus their attention differently. Market dynamism moderates these relationships, but only with regard to initial evaluation decisions. Our study extends research on decision speed by showing that firms are not necessarily fast or slow regarding all the decisions they make, and by offering an opportunity evaluation framework that recognizes that decision makers can, in fact often do, pursue multiple potential opportunities simultaneously.

Identification is integral to mentoring relationships, yet we know relatively little about the process through which mentors and protégés identify with each other, how this mutual identification shifts through the phases of the mentoring relationship, and how identification impacts the quality of the relationship over time. In this paper, we integrate theories of the self, relationships, and relational mentoring to consider the role of identification in informal mentoring. Specifically, we theorize how the process of personal identification occurs in mentoring from the perspective of both the mentor and protégé and offer a model that demonstrates how shifts in identification relate to the quality of the relationship that develops over time. We conclude with a discussion of implications for research and theory in mentoring.

As research begins to accumulate on employee volunteering, it appears that this behavior is largely beneficial to employee performance and commitment. It is less clear, however, how employee volunteering is perceived by others in the workplace. Do colleagues award volunteering "credit"- for example, associating it with being concerned about others - or do they "stigmatize" it - for example, associating it with being distracted from work? Moreover, do those evaluations go on to predict how colleagues actually treat employees who volunteer more often? Adopting a reputation perspective, we draw from theories of person perception and attribution to explore these research questions. The results of a field study revealed that colleagues gave credit to employee volunteering when they attributed it to intrinsic reasons and stigmatized employee volunteering when they attributed it to impression management reasons. Ultimately, through the awarded credits, volunteering was rewarded by supervisors (with the allocation of more resources) and coworkers (with the provision of more helping behavior) when it was attributed to intrinsic motives - a relationship that was amplified when stigmas were low and mitigated when stigmas were high. The results of a laboratory experiment further confirmed that volunteering was both credited and stigmatized, distinguishing it from citizenship behavior, which was credited but not stigmatized.

We study the effects of actors' audience-specific reputations on their levels of success with different audiences in the same field. Extending recent work that has emphasized the presence of multiple audiences with different concerns, we demonstrate that considering audience specificity leads to an improved understanding of reputation effects. Using data on emerging artists in the field of contemporary art from 2001 to 2010, we investigate the manner in which artists' audience-specific reputations affect their subsequent success with two distinct audiences: museums and galleries. Our findings suggest that audience-specific reputations have systematically different effects with respect to success with museums and galleries. Our findings also illuminate the extent to which audience-specific reputations are relevant for emerging research on the contingent effects of reputation. In particular, our findings support our predictions that audiences differ from one another in terms of the extent to which other signals (specifically, status and interaction with other audiences) enhance or reduce the value of audience-specific reputations. Our study thus advances theory by providing empirical evidence for the value of incorporating audience-specific reputations into the general study of reputation.

Growing workforce diversity increases the likelihood that supervisors and subordinates will differ along demographic lines, a situation that has important implications for their relationship quality and individual outcomes. In a sample of 1,253 employees from 54 work-units, we investigate the effects of differences in disability status between supervisors and subordinates on leader-member-exchange (LMX) quality and subsequent performance ratings, and find that incongruence in general is related to lower LMX quality and lower performance. In addition, we propose and find an asymmetrical effect of disability incongruence, such that LMX quality is worse in dyads in which the supervisor has a disability than in dyads in which the subordinate has a disability. Furthermore, we investigate the moderating role of unit-level climate for inclusion on this relationship and find support for a buffering effect of inclusive climates on the negative incongruence-LMX relationship for scenarios in which the supervisor, but not the subordinate, has a disability. We build relevant theory for the relational demography, disability, LMX, and organizational climate literatures by predicting these effects on the basis of status mechanisms. These findings have important practical implications, as they provide companies with a feasible way to manage their diverse workforce.

Drawing on resource drain theory, we introduce self-regulatory resource (ego) depletion stemming from family-to-work conflict (FWC) as an alternative theoretical perspective on why supervisors behave abusively toward subordinates. Our two-study examination of a cross-domain antecedent of abusive supervision stands in contrast to prior research, which has focused primarily on work-related factors that influence abusive supervision. Further, our investigation shows how ego depletion is proximally related to abusive supervision. In the first study, conducted at a Fortune 500 company and designed as a lagged survey study, we found that after controlling for alternative theoretical mechanisms, supervisors who experience FWC display more abusive behaviors toward subordinates, and that this relationship was stronger for female supervisors and for supervisors who operate in environments with greater situation-control. These results were then replicated and expanded in an experience sampling study using a multi-organization sample of supervisors. This allowed us to study the FWC-abusive supervision relationship as it emerges on a day-to-day basis and to examine ego depletion as an explanatory mechanism. Consistent with our hypotheses, we found that FWC is associated with abusive supervision, ego depletion acts as a mediator of the FWC-abusive supervision relationship, and that gender and situation-control serve as moderators.

This paper examines when firms pursue structural realignment through the recombination of business units. Our results refine and extend contingency theory and studies of organization design by drawing on theories of decision avoidance and delay to describe conditions when firms pursue or postpone structural realignment. Our empirical analysis of 46 firms from 1978 to 1997 operating within the U.S. medical device and pharmaceutical sectors demonstrates that while decision makers initiate structural recombination during periods of industry growth (i.e., munificence), they reduce their recombination efforts during periods of industry turbulence (i.e., dynamism) and managerial turbulence (i.e., growth in top management team size). We also find evidence that firms delay realignment and bide their time for better environmental conditions of declining turbulence and industry growth before pursuing more structural realignment. Together, these findings suggest that decision makers often delay initiating structural recombination until they can effectively process information and assess how structural changes will help them realign the organization to the environment.

This study draws on social identity theories of behavioral contagion and research concerning narratives in organizations to present and test a framework for understanding how narratives embed values in organizational newcomers' actions. Employing a field experiment using 632 newly-hired employees in a large IT firm that prioritizes self-transcendent values, this study explores how narratives varying in terms of the organizational level of main characters and the values-upholding or values-violating behaviors of those characters influence newcomers' tendencies to engage in behaviors that uphold or deviate from the values. Results indicate that stories about low-level organizational characters engaging in values-upholding behaviors are more positively associated with self-transcendent, helping behaviors and negatively associated with deviant behaviors, than are similar stories about high-level members of the organization. Stories in which high-level members of the organization violate values are negatively related to newcomers' engagement in both helping and deviance more strongly than are values-violating stories about lower-level members. Content analyses of the stories suggest that they convey values in different and potentially important ways. Implications, future directions, and limitations are discussed.

Labor codes have been voluntarily adopted and used by manufacturers in emerging economies for the past two decades, as a means of ensuring minimally acceptable or core labor standards for workers. However, far too little is known of the potential benefits from the voluntary adoption of labor codes to the manufacturer, and prior human resource management research has been virtually silent on the business implications of their use for emerging economy manufacturers participating in global supply chains. Drawing on previous work across multiple disciplines and proposing a framework that extends human resource management theory more explicitly and rigorously to the context of emerging economy manufacturing, I theorize and demonstrate that the voluntary adoption of a labor code may constitute an effective human resource investment in emerging economies in improving establishment-level employee outcomes and operational and financial performance. The hypotheses are tested using longitudinal data on a sample of apparel manufacturing plants in Sri Lanka. Implications of this study include providing insight into how to expand the scope and relevance of human resource management theory to better understand research and practice in emerging economies.

Do you teach anyone whom you would consider a member of the next generation of global leaders? If you answered "yes" to this question, you likely teach an audience within which many of its members already possess intercultural experience, have traveled widely, and perhaps speak several languages. These globally minded students demand in-depth learning approaches which help them prepare for complex global leadership settings. Global Leadership Practices is an excellent source of teaching materials and tools targeted to these learners.

Studies suggest that category-spanning organizations receive lower evaluation and perform worse than organizations focused on a single category. We propose that (1) these effects are contingent on clients' theory of value and that as clients expect more sophisticated services, they tend to value category spanners more positively and (2) the evaluation of producers mediates the relationship between category spanning and performance. We test our hypotheses using original data on corporate legal services in three markets (London, New York City, and Paris) over the decade 2000-2010. We find that (1) category spanners receive a better evaluation, and more so when their categorical combination is more inclusive and (2) evaluation mediates significantly the relationship between category spanning and performance. This study enriches our understanding of how audiences apprehend a whole market category system and why organizations span categories.

We study the interplay between regulatory mandates and competition on a focal firm's new resource investments. While prior literature has separately pointed to the influence of competition and regulatory policy on a focal firm's resource decisions, less is known about how the policy effect interacts with the competitive effect. Studying how regulatory mandates moderate the effect of competition on a focal firm's new resource investments, we show that resource redeployment is not simply a function of internal firm decisions but a response to external forces. We find that regulatory mandates dampen the effect of competitors' new resource investments on a focal firm's new resource investments. Distinguishing between different clean technology types, we show that this dampening effect is the stronger, the more distant the new resource is from incumbents' old resource base, and the more established the mandate is. We test our hypotheses in the context of renewable energy investments in waste-to-energy, wind, and solar in the U.S. electricity industry. Our data comprises 1542 utilities and private energy firms and their renewable investments from 1999 to 2010.

In this paper, we use a practice-based wisdom perspective to address the challenges of managing competing logics in social enterprises. From previous work it is clear that a major task for social entrepreneurs is to manage the tension between social welfare and commercial logics. Although the social welfare logic and its related values and practices form the foundations of social enterprises, social entrepreneurs have also to ensure that their businesses are commercially sustainable making it necessary to engage with the commercial logic. To this end, we develop a curriculum matrix based on social practice wisdom to assist students to learn appropriate knowledge and skills, enact social entrepreneurship goals, and integrate competing logics in innovative and sustainable ways.

Female corporate leadership has drawn increasing attention from academia and practitioners. We contribute to the literature by examining the impact of CEO succession with gender change—i.e., a male CEO succeeded by a female or vice versa. We propose that due to gender differences in executive leadership positions, CEO succession with gender change may amplify the disruption of the CEO succession process and thus adversely affect post-succession firm performance and increase the likelihood of successor early departure. Using data from 3,320 CEO successions in companies listed in China's Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 1997 to 2010, we find evidence to support this argument. We also find that the negative (positive) impact of male-to-female succession on firm performance (the likelihood of successor early departure) may be weakened by positive organizational attitudes toward female leadership as indicated by the presence of other female leaders on the firm's board of directors and/or top management team, and the successor's inside origin.

Management scholars have noted that leader departures often foreshadow higher turnover intentions (or lower organizational attachment) by subordinates left behind, especially when relationships between the departing leader and the subordinates, or leader-member exchanges (LMX), had been of high quality. In this paper, we posit that the quality of subordinates' relationships with all members of their relational system, not only their leader, must be considered to better understand how leader departures affect subordinates' organizational attachment. Our proposed relationships are illustrated in a theoretical model that includes phenomena at the individual-level (i.e., a subordinate's identification with the departing leader and with his/her organization), at the group-level (i.e., turnover contagion), and at the organizational level (i.e., organization-wide developmental climate). As such, we propose that elucidating how leader-departures affect organizational attachment requires multi-level theorizing and constructs. Theoretical and practical implications of such a 360-degree relational perspective on leader-departure effects are discussed.

Iperius is a complete backup utility for Windows that can be used by both home users and Company servers (without any time/license limitation). Iperius also has different paid editions available, which allow for making advanced backup types, su...

With this book, O’Regan efficiently addresses a wide range of ethical and legal issues in computing. It is well crafted, organized, and reader friendly, featuring many recent, relevant examples like tweets, fake news, disinformation

Understanding the free and open-source software (FOSS) movement has, since its beginning, implied crossing many disciplinary boundaries. This article describes FOSS’s history, explaining its undeniable success throughout the 1990s, and why the

BBC Sport takes a look at the players interim boss Lee Carsley has fast-tracked into the England squad for the upcoming Nations League matches.

Rory McIlroy vows to retain DP World Tour events as a key part of his schedule next year while skipping some tournaments in America after an intense 2024.

A penalty awarded to West Ham during Erik ten Hag's final match in charge of Man Utd was a 'misread', according to refereeing boss Howard Webb.

Chancellor Scholz’s three-party coalition government has fallen apart

Hegseth, who is also a former soldier without political experience, will lead the world's most powerful military.

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THIS Hari Raya, The Gardens Mall is bringing the comfort of home and the memories of celebrations with loved ones to its mall decor. With many unable to travel back to their kampung to visit grandparents and other loved ones, the Mall decided to bring elements of grandma’s eclectic home to the mall for all to enjoy this year.

Step into the mall and be greeted by a burst of colour and patterns with traditional woven pandanus ware and hand-sewn patchwork fabric. Snap photos with friends and family at the various vignettes set-up along the Ground Floor. Much like atok’s garden, there is much greenery around
to coax nostalgia for the simple kampung life.

Not forgetting the underprivileged this season, over at the South Palm on the Ground Floor, The Gardens Mall is collecting your unwanted denim to donate to the single mothers of SURI. SURI is a social enterprise that employs single mothers from low-income communities to turn unwanted denim material into fashionable apparel and other household items. SURI also believes in protecting the environment through upcycling.

As part of the partnership during Hari Raya, The Gardens Mall has pledged RM10,000 to SURI for its efforts in helping these single mothers gain financial independence.

CLOSE to one million youths have successfully claimed their eBelia credit via ShopeePay. As of June 7, the programme has succeeded in generating sales amounting to 120% of the total amount disbursed by the Ministry of Finance (MOF) through ShopeePay. Additionally, some 140,000 sellers and traders that accept ShopeePay have already benefited from the eBelia programme.

Head of ShopeePay Malaysia Alain Yee said: ”As one of the newest mobile wallets to enter a crowded space, it is indeed humbling to receive the resounding support from eligible eBelia participants. When compared against MOF’s announcement, the bulk of the 1.7 million successful applicants have chosen ShopeePay. This is possibly because our e-wallet can be used both online and offline nationwide, with a reach as far and wide as Semporna, Sabah; Miri, Sarawak; Kemaman and Gong Badak in Terengganu and Bachok, Kelantan.”

Yee added that based on the preliminary data from June 1 till 7, user behaviour amongst eBelia recipients suggest that the programme has driven adoption of e-wallets and is likely going to lead to long term usage.

“Of the total successful eBelia applicants via our mobile wallet, about 40% are new ShopeePay users that activated their e-wallet just for eBelia. Additionally, we are positive that customer retention rate amongst these new users will be high as over 20% have already topped up their e-wallet at least once within the first week of using ShopeePay,” he explained.

On what the recipients have been spending on, Yee shared that many were seen to be using the eBelia credit on very practical purchases: daily necessities, food and beverages, books, as well as home and living items, among others. A closer look into the spending pattern of these eBelia youths for the past week reveals the following (Observations are made based on top 100 merchants by transactions recorded offline, online (merchants’ webstores and Apps), and on Shopee.

I HAD the privilege of attending a lecture by Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University at Universiti Malaya in early January this year.

His candid critique of US economic and foreign policies was both striking and inspiring.

Remarkably, his criticisms were delivered without hindrance and were even appreciated.

Our nation’s highest leaders, the prime minister and higher education minister, were present to listen to his insights.

Ironically, in Malaysia, the academic freedom of our local scholars is still curtailed by Act 605.

The developments at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and the continued existence of legislation that can be used against critical voices within academia should be taken seriously by the academic community and academic unions nationwide.

We cannot allow academic freedom – a cornerstone of the intellectual tradition – to be so easily stifled.

Academic freedom must be preserved, defended and enshrined in law.

In this context, it is crucial to remember that every Oct 5, Malaysia celebrates Academia Day, an annual reminder to appreciate the contributions and struggles of academics worldwide.

On this significant day, stakeholders such as the government, higher education institutions and academic unions should redouble their efforts to uphold and promote the principle of academic freedom.

Academia Day is not merely a celebration of knowledge but a reminder to ensure that the rights of academics continue to be respected and protected.

As public servants are paid with taxpayers’ money, the views of academics should be publicly accessible to the people.

The public has a right to hear their criticisms, research findings and direct commentaries on policies and decisions that affect the nation.

In today’s post-modern era, social media serves as a platform for both local and international academics to constructively express their views on national policies.

If these voices are silenced, all that remains is content that does not contribute to the nation’s development, such as shallow entertainment or sensational issues of no value.

Academics do not merely engage in idle chatter; they share research findings funded by public grants, using validated research instruments to critique and improve existing systems.

For instance, academics are among the critical voices that are actively voicing concerns about the state of the country’s education system based on the findings of their research, using the CIPP (Context, Input, Process and Product) model of curriculum evaluation.

Academics are specifically trained to think critically and analytically, and they are accountable for whatever they produce as my PhD supervisor once reminded me, “Question everything, even the accepted wisdom.”

If this critical thinking is stifled, it is a waste of public funds that finance the higher education of these scholars.

Returning to Sachs’ lecture, our nation will not be able to produce scholars of his calibre if the mouths and hands of our academics are tied by restrictive laws and regulations.

Therefore, academic freedom should be enshrined in stronger laws, such as amendments to the Universities and University Colleges Act.

Certainly other academics and I welcome the statement by Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir, who supports the amendment of Act 605, and we are aware that this amendment effort has gone through important processes as initiated by former education minister Dr Maszlee Malik. Therefore, it should not take long to implement.

This is important so that there are no more circulars or instructions from higher education institutions that attempt to silence legitimate dissent.

If local academics are prevented from voicing their opinions and criticisms for the good of the nation, then there is no point in talking about efforts to educate the people.

Without academic freedom, we will not be able to produce academic figures of the calibre of Sachs, Professor Joseph Stiglitz or Professor Noam Chomsky, who dare to go against the grain and champion the truth.

Freedom of expression for academics is the cornerstone of a nation’s intellectual and moral development.

If we want this country to produce outstanding scholars, we must loosen the bonds of restrictive regulations.

Only with true academic freedom can we ensure that the nation’s intellectual future continues to grow and be competitive on the international stage.

The writer is a senior lecturer at the Department of Building Surveying, Faculty of Built Environment, Universiti Malaya. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

MOSCOW: Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accused European leaders on Tuesday of seeking to dangerously escalate the Ukraine conflict following the re-election of former U.S. President Donald Trump.

Medvedev, a senior security official, wrote on Telegram that European politicians were aiming to “push the conflict with Russia into an irreversible phase” while they could and warned against allowing Kyiv to use Western long-range missiles to fire at targets inside Russia.

Medvedev dismissed what he called “ultimatums” issued by German opposition leader and possible next chancellor Friedrich Merz about Ukraine’s use of such weapons as “electioneering in nature”.

“It is clear that these missiles are not capable of changing anything significantly in the course of military operations”, he said.

French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer reaffirmed their support for Kyiv during talks in Paris on Monday, while France’s foreign minister urged Ukraine’s allies not to prejudge how Trump will handle the conflict.

“Generally speaking, it is surprising to what extent the current generation of European politicians wants to drag the war into their territory”, Medvedev said.

Medvedev previously said that Trump’s win would likely be bad news for Ukraine. Trump, a Republican, has repeatedly criticised the scale of Western aid to Kyiv and has promised to end the conflict swiftly, without explaining how.

The Kremlin dismissed on Monday reports that Trump had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent days as “pure fiction.”

ZHUHAI: A hit-and-run attack at a sports centre in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai killed 35 people and severely injured 43, local police said on Tuesday.

The incident happened at 7:48 p.m. (1148 GMT) on Monday, when a small off-road vehicle was driven into a large group of people exercising outside the sports centre.

Zhuhai police said in a statement that the suspect, a 62-year-old man surnamed Fan, was being treated at a hospital after hurting himself with a knife in his car.

A Reuters reporter at the scene on Tuesday evening said people had begun leaving wreaths, counting 18 laid in front of a sign for the Zhuhai People’s Fitness Square. Others lit candles and incense. The police presence was low.

A video, verified by Reuters, of the scene on Monday following the attack had shown at least 20 people lying on the ground. Cries of “terrorist” could be heard as ambulances arrived to take the injured to hospital.

Hundreds of rescue personnel from Zhuhai city and Guangdong province were deployed to provide emergency treatment, and more than 300 healthcare workers from five hospitals worked around the clock to save lives, state media Beijing Daily reported.

Fan was apprehended by police at the scene after attempting to flee, police said, adding that he had self-harmed using a knife, causing severe neck injuries.

Police said their preliminary investigation suggested the incident was triggered by Fan’s discontent following a divorce.

President Xi Jinping, cited by Chinese state television CCTV, ordered all-out efforts to treat the injured and demanded severe punishment for the perpetrator. The central government has dispatched a team to provide guidance on handling of the case, CCTV said.

The attack sparked thousands of angry comments on Chinese social media, many of which were quickly censored after the police reported the high death toll.

“Zhuhai is one of the most relaxed, peaceful, and liveable cities in the country, and this tragic incident has left a painful memory that will be hard to erase for many years to come,“ one user of the Weibo platform said.

Violent crime is rare in China due to tight security and strict gun laws. However, a rise in reports of knife attacks in large cities has drawn public attention to safety in public spaces.

In October, a knife attack in Beijing left five people wounded outside one of the city’s top primary schools. A month earlier, a Japanese student was fatally stabbed outside his school in Shenzhen.

Zhuhai is hosting China’s biggest annual air show this week where a new stealth jet fighter will be on display for the first time.

JAKARTA: Indonesia's President Prabowo Subianto met with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday and offered his congratulations to President-elect Donald Trump by phone during an official visit to Washington.

“I will work very hard to strengthen Indonesian-United States relationship, and I would like to work towards this end that we have a strong cooperation,“ said Prabowo.

Prabowo, who has said he will pursue a non-aligned foreign policy, met with Biden in the Oval Office after posting a video of his call to Trump.

He arrived in Washington straight from China, where he had met with President Xi Jinping on his first overseas trip since taking office last month.

Washington sees Indonesia, the most populous country in Southeast Asia, as an important partner in a region where its rival Beijing has deep trade and investment ties. Indonesia is also the world's most populous Muslim-majority country.

While China is a key economic partner for Indonesia, Jakarta has also become a big buyer of U.S. arms, and it wants to sell the West more metals from its mines.

At the White House, Biden said the two leaders were discussing climate, conflict in the Middle East and the South China Sea.

Indonesia said on Monday it does not recognize China's claims over the vast majority of the South China Sea, despite signing a maritime development deal with Beijing.

“We continue to encourage Indonesia to work with their legal experts to make sure any agreement they make with (the People’s Republic of China) is in accordance with international law, especially the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea,“ said White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre at a press briefing.

TRUMP CALL

Prabowo's office said he made the call to Trump on Monday after arriving in Washington. It did not immediately respond when asked if he is scheduled to meet Trump in person.

“Wherever you are, I’m willing to fly to congratulate you personally, sir,“ Prabowo said in the video of the call posted on his social media accounts.

“We’ll do that, anytime you want,“ Trump replied.

Trump described his own election victory as amazing, and said it gave him a big mandate.

He also said the Indonesian president was “very respected,“ and praised his English, to which Prabowo, a former special forces commander, replied: “All my training is American, sir.”

Prabowo also met with several U.S. company representatives in Washington, his office said, including from Freeport McMoRan and energy company Chevron, and urged the companies to invest in Indonesia. (Reporting by Stanley Widianto in Jakarta and Jeff Mason in Washington; Writing by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by John Mair, David Gregorio and Rosalba O'Brien)

WASHINGTON: U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Tuesday he has picked Fox News Channel host Pete Hegseth to be secretary of defense, tapping an outsider who has railed against diversity in the military.

“Pete is tough, smart and a true believer in America First,“ Trump said in a statement. “With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice - Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down.”

Hegseth is an Army National Guard veteran and according to his website served in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Hegseth has said he left the Army in 2021 after being deemed an extremist by an Army that didn't want him anymore.

“The feeling was mutual -- I didn’t want this Army anymore either,“ Hegseth said in his book “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free.”

There is already anxiety in the Pentagon that Trump aims to root out military officers and career civil servants he perceives to be disloyal.

Culture war issues could be one trigger for firings. Trump was asked by Fox News in June whether he would fire generals described as “woke,“ a term for those focused on racial and social justice but which is used by conservatives to disparage progressive policies.

“At a basic level, do we really want only the woke ‘diverse’ recruits that the Biden administration is curating to be the ones with the guns and the guidons?” Hegseth wrote in “The War on Warriors,“ which was published in June.

“We want those diverse recruits -- pumped full of vaccines and even more poisonous ideologies -- to be sharing a basic training bunk with sane Americans,“ he said.

Trump's former U.S. generals and defense secretaries are among his fiercest critics, with some declaring him unfit for office. Angered, Trump has suggested that his former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, could be executed for treason.

KUALA LUMPUR: The man who allegedly murdered a woman believed to be his mother and stuffed her body in a freezer about three years ago at a house in Taman OUG, Jalan Klang Lama here has been remanded for seven days starting today.

Kuala Lumpur police chief Datuk Rusdi Mohd Isa said the 53-year-old unemployed suspect will be remanded until Nov 19.

He said the suspect has no prior criminal record, and the police are still awaiting a health report from the hospital as well as the autopsy report on the victim’s body.

“The suspect himself contacted the police to surrender, and his actions are still under investigation,” he said in a statement today.

At about 8.45 am yesterday, police were alerted about the discovery of a woman’s body at a house in Taman OUG, leading to the arrest of the suspect.

The victim’s body was sent to the University Malaya Medical Centre for a post-mortem and the case is being investigated under Section 302 of the Penal Code.

GEORGE TOWN: Three local men, active in firearms smuggling, house break-ins, and luxury vehicle thefts that resulted in losses exceeding RM4 million, were shot dead during a shootout at Jalan Changkat-Pulau Burung, Nibong Tebal, earlier today.

Penang police chief Datuk Hamzah Ahmad said that at 5.30 am, a team from the Penang Criminal Investigation Department (JSJ) and Seberang Perai Selatan (SPS) district police were conducting a crime prevention operation when they noticed two suspicious vehicles in the area.

“The police approached the two vehicles, a Honda Accord and a Perodua Myvi, which were acting suspiciously. Upon identifying themselves as police officers, the suspects suddenly fired several shots at our vehicles.

“The police team then returned fire in self-defence, and the three men, aged between 30 and 42, were found dead at the scene,“ he said in a press conference at the Penang Police Headquarters today.

He added that a search at the scene revealed a semi-automatic pistol, a revolver, a box of Master bullets containing 50 rounds of 9mm Luger A USA ammunition, a box of 9mm Luger D62 ammunition containing 44 rounds, two machetes, a crowbar, a sledgehammer, and various other tools used in vehicle theft.

Hamzah said checks revealed that the Honda Accord used by the suspects was a stolen vehicle, which had been reported missing in Seri Kembangan, Selangor.

He added that during the incident, the suspects were believed to be on their way to commit a robbery at a location they had already identified, which was not far from the site of the shootout.

“Initial investigations found that the three men were actively involved in luxury vehicle and 4x4 vehicle thefts, as well as house break-ins across the state since the start of this year.

“Their modus operandi was to target luxury homes, break in, and steal valuables, while the stolen vehicles would be smuggled into neighbouring countries and sold,“ he said, adding that the firearms used by the suspects were also smuggled from abroad.

He explained that none of the suspects had regular employment. The first suspect, aged 42, who was the gang leader, had 35 prior criminal offences and eight drug-related convictions; the second suspect had six previous drug-related offences, while the third suspect had no identification, and all three were believed to be criminal associates.

“With the elimination of these three criminals, police believe they have successfully solved 33 cases of vehicle theft, robbery, and house break-ins that have occurred in Penang since the beginning of this year,“ he said.

KUALA TERENGGANU: A crane driver and two tow truck operators pleaded not guilty in the Magistrate’s Court here today to charges of abducting a man last week.

The accused, Mohd Sabri Zakarya, 42, Muhamad Hafiz Hasbullah, 35, and Hairudin Sabri Abas, 40, claimed trial after the charges were read before Magistrate Noor Mazrinie Mahmood.

According to the charge, the three men were accused of forcibly abducting a 53-year-old man with the intent to confine him secretly and unlawfully in the motorcycle parking area in front of Bank Islam at a hypermarker here at around 2 pm on Nov 7.

They were charged under Section 365 of the Penal Code read together with Section 34 of the same code, which carries a prison sentence of up to seven years and a fine upon conviction.

Prosecuting officer Insp Ahmad Fitri Mohamed Kamal offered bail at RM10,000 for each accused, while lawyer Ghazali Ismail requested a lower bail amount, citing the financial circumstances of his three clients.

Ghazali noted that Mohd Sabri, who works as a crane driver, and Muhamad Hafiz and Hairudin Sabri, both tow truck operators, earn between RM2,000 to RM2,500 per month and support their respective families.

Magistrate Noor Mazrinie subsequently granted bail at RM6,000 for each accused and ordered them not to disturb or contact the victim until the case is resolved. The case was set for mention on Dec 12 for document submission.