Daughter of Malaysian Tycoon Gives Up Inheritance for Love

Agencies
August 5, 2017

London, Aug 5: Angeline Francis Khoo, the daughter of Malaysian tycoon Tan Sri Khoo Kay Peng, has revealed that she gave up her share of the family fortune to marry the man her father had disapproved of.

Kay Peng, the 78-year-old is the chairman of Malayan United Industries, an investment holding firm with substantial stakes in lifestyle brand Laura Ashley UK and the Corus group of luxury hotels.

Forbes, which estimated his net worth at US$300mil (RM1.27bil), ranked him 44th on its list of Malaysia's 50 richest people in 2015.

Angeline, the fourth of Kay Peng's five children with his ex-wife and former Malaysian beauty queen Pauline Chai, met Carribean-born data scientist Jedidiah Francis while studying at Oxford University in 2008.

Kay Peng and Chai married in 1970, and had five children before splitting up in 2013. They have spent more than £6 million (RM34mil) between them on lawyers to fight their financial dispute, according to The news agency.

Angeline told her father she wanted to marry Francis but he refused to give her his blessing.

"I believed dad's stance was wrong, so there was no question about what was right," she said in the interview.

"I've been fortunate to have that perspective: you can have money and it's a blessing; it allows you to do things and gives you options, but there are also things that come with it, such as control.

"Money amplifies negative characteristics and that can cause problems. To walk away from that was actually very easy. I didn't even consider it."

The couple reportedly wed in the chapel of Pembroke College where Francis worked.

It was a modest £1,500 affair attended by 30 guests, with no one from the Khoo family attending.

Until her marriage, she appeared destined to work for the family business.

She spent her university holidays (she first moved to Britain in 2001 to study law at the University of Buckingham) working in the different departments of Laura Ashley, as the plan was that she would get involved in the retail side of the company.

Now a fashion designer, she also claimed she had no idea about the size of her father's wealth until it was revealed in court during a long-running divorce saga between her parents, who were married for 43 years.

Her father was ordered by a British court in April this year to pay £64mil to her 68-year-old mother as settlement for their divorce, which the latter filed for on Valentine's Day in 2013 citing his "unreasonable behaviour".

Angeline was the only witness called in her parents' divorce.

She expressed hope in the interview that her father could one day "let go of his anger and his hurt" so they could share a cordial relationship.

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Agencies
July 2,2020

Paris, Jul 2: Several interacting exoplanets have already been spotted by satellites. But a new breakthrough has been achieved with, for the first time, the detection directly from the ground of an extrasolar system of this type.

An international collaboration including CNRS researchers has discovered an unusual planetary system, dubbed WASP-148, using the French instrument SOPHIE at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence (CNRS/Aix-Marseille Universite).

The scientists analysed the star's motion and concluded that it hosted two planets, WASP-148b and WASP-148c. The observations showed that the two planets were strongly interacting, which was confirmed from other data.

Whereas the first planet, WASP-148b, orbits its star in nearly nine days, the second one, WASP-148c, takes four times longer. This ratio between the orbital periods implies that the WASP-148 system is close to resonance, meaning that there is enhanced gravitational interaction between the two planets. And it turns out that the astronomers did indeed detect variations in the orbital periods of the planets.

While a single planet, uninfluenced by a second one, would move with a constant period, WASP-148b and WASP-148c undergo acceleration and deceleration that provides evidence of their interaction.

The study will shortly be published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

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Agencies
January 26,2020

New Delhi, Jan 26: Google on Sunday marked India's 71st Republic Day by dedicating a doodle illustrating the country's rich cultural heritage that permeates and unites the diverse nation.

From its world-famous landmarks like the Taj Mahal and India Gate, to the wide array of fauna such as its national bird (the Indian peafowl), to classical arts, textiles, and dances, the doodle, designed by Singapore-based artist Meroo Seth, brings together the rich cultural heritage of the country.

Republic Day marks the completion of India's transition towards becoming an independent republic after its constitution came into effect. The governing document had taken nearly three years of careful deliberation to finalise, and its eventual enactment was joyfully celebrated across the country.

While the Constitution was adopted by the Indian Constituent Assembly on 26 November 1949, it came into effect on January 26 -- a day when Declaration of Indian Independence (Purna Swaraj) was proclaimed by the Indian National Congress back in 1929, as opposed to the Dominion status offered by the British Regime.

Festivities embody the essence of diversity found in one of the world's most populous nations, celebrated over a three-day period with cultural events displaying national pride.

Last year's doodle on Republic Day, designed by artist Reshidev RK, had featured Rashtrapati Bhavan in the background along with a display of the country's iconic monuments and heritage.

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Agencies
June 26,2020

Facebook will introduce a new notification screen on its platform that will warn users if the article they are about to share is over 90 days old, the company announced on Thursday.

“We’re starting to globally roll out a notification screen that will let people know when news articles they are about to share are more than 90 days old,” Facebook wrote in a blog post.

The social media platform had previously introduced a context button in 2018 that provides information about the sources of articles in the News Feed. Building upon that, the new feature will inform users about the timeliness of the article.

“To ensure people have the context they need to make informed decisions about what to share on Facebook, the notification screen will appear when people click the share button on articles older than 90 days, but will allow people to continue sharing if they decide an article is still relevant,” Facebook said.

The social media giant stated that timeliness is important in understanding the context of an article and curbing the spread of misinformation on the platform.

“News publishers, in particular, have expressed concerns about older stories being shared on social media as current news, which can misconstrue the state of current events. Some news publishers have already taken steps to address this on their own websites by prominently labelling older articles to prevent outdated news from being used in misleading ways,” Facebook added.

Apart from this, the platform will also be testing a similar notification screen for information related to the global Covid-19 pandemic. The notification screen will provide information about the source of the link shared in a post if the link is related to information on Covid-19. It will also direct people to its previously introduced Covid-19 information centre for “authoritative” health information, it said.

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