Denpasar, Indonesia – Indonesian police have detained a family of five, including three children, after they were deported from Turkey for allegedly seeking to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State (IS) group, an official said Thursday.

The family were the latest Indonesians to be caught attempting to join the jihadists. Hundreds of radicals from the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country have flocked to the Middle East to fight with IS in recent years.

The family left Indonesia for Turkey in August, from where they planned to cross to Syria to join IS, police said.

But they were caught by Turkish soldiers this month and deported back to Indonesia, arriving late Tuesday on the resort island of Bali, local police spokesman Hengky Widjaja said.

“We interrogated them for two days,” he said. “This morning they were sent for further questioning by the national police (in Jakarta).” The 39-year-old father received his masters degree in Australia and their youngest child – now aged three – was born in Australia, authorities said.

The other two children are aged seven and 12.

Seventeen Indonesians were also arrested at the weekend after being deported from Turkey due to suspicions they were trying to reach Syria to join IS.

The emergence of IS has provided a potent new rallying cry for radicals in Indonesia, which has long struggled with Islamic militancy, and sparked fears of a revival of long-defunct extremist networks.

A gun and suicide attack in Jakarta last year, that left four civilians and four assailants dead, was the first attack claimed by IS in Southeast Asia, and the first major assault in Indonesia for seven years.

BANGKOK – A new warrant has been issued for the arrest of an influential Thai Buddhist monk and Thailand’s police chief said on Thursday they would do their best to bring him to justice despite previous failures.

Police in the predominantly Buddhist country have tried several times to arrest Phra Dhammachayo, former abbot of the futuristic-looking Wat Phra Dhammakaya, the country’s biggest and richest monastery.

Read also: Thousands gather at Thai temple as police fail to arrest abbot

A fourth arrest warrant was issued against Dhammachayo on Wednesday – for encroaching on land in southern Thailand. He already faced accusations of money laundering and of taking over land unlawfully elsewhere to build meditation centres.

“We cannot say we will arrest him within this year, but we will try our best to bring him to justice,” Chakthip Chaijinda, chief of the Royal Thai Police, told Reuters.

The temple, just outside Bangkok, says it has millions of followers, including some senior politicians and business people. But critics say it exploits its followers and uses religion to make money.

The latest warrant was approved by a court in the southern province of Phang Nga. A police spokesman said the monk was charged with “burning down forest and taking possession of the land for himself without permission”.

Phra Sanitwong Wuttiwangso, the temple’s public relations chief, told Reuters the temple was not worried about the new warrant or the others. He declined to confirm whether Phra Dhammachayo was still in the temple. “He is in our hearts,” he said.

The temple had previously said the former abbot was too sick to face questioning and refused to hand him over, defying a junta that has shut down most opposition since taking power in a 2014 coup.

In 2015, Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation summoned Phra Dhammachayo for questioning after his temple was accused of receiving more than 1 billion baht (S$40 million) of embezzled funds.

The controversy over the abbot in part reflects more than a decade of divisive politics in Thailand, which has permeated all aspects of life, including Buddhism.

The abbot is widely perceived to have had links with populist former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was overthrown in a 2006 coup. The military overthrew a government led by his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, in the most recent coup.

Read also: Scandal-hit monk Phra Dhammachayo barred from leaving Thailand

Beijing – Thousands of people wearing thick coats and clutching suitcases line up in freezing conditions at Beijing Railway Station in the hope of snagging a ticket home for China’s Lunar New Year.

They are among hundreds of millions of migrant workers travelling to far-flung towns and cities to see their families and celebrate the most important holiday on the Chinese calendar, which falls on January 28 this year.

The demand for tickets is so high that some people spend days trying to snare seats on public transport for the annual mega migration. Qi Xi is one of the lucky ones.

Unable to nab a high-speed rail ticket to whisk him from Beijing to his hometown in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang in just four hours, Qi will have to spend almost a full day on a hard, uncomfortable seat to reach his destination.

But he’s not complaining.

“My coworker who’s from Harbin still hasn’t been able to buy a train ticket and doesn’t know how else to get home, so he might just not go back at all this year,” Qi said, chain-smoking outside the station as endless hordes of passengers carrying rucksacks and suitcases streamed past.

The holiday, also known as Spring Festival, is a time for families to gather their members for plentiful food and fireworks.

Travellers taking part in the world’s largest annual human migration must be home by Friday to usher in the new year on Saturday.

Transport officials predict that Chinese passengers will make almost three billion trips during the 40-day Lunar New Year period, including more than 2.5 billion journeys by road, the official Xinhua news agency said.

High travel volumes mean that navigating stations can be as much of a nightmare as nabbing a ticket in the first place.

Without internet access or a smartphone, 65-year-old Wang Wentai asked a more plugged-in friend to help him buy his train ticket back to Handan city in neighbouring Hebei Province.

Excited to go home after a year of washing dishes at a Korean restaurant to supplement his son’s income from a factory job, he arrived at the station two hours early – but still ended up missing his train due to the crowds.

“There were so many people in line, and I just didn’t know which line to wait in, so I wasted a lot of time,” he said.

The next available ticket was for a train that left 14 hours later.

“I can’t wait inside the station because it’s still too early, but I don’t know where else to go,” he said, standing in front of the entrance with his hands in his pockets to protect them from the sub-zero chill.

“During the trip, you sometimes look at your phone, get bored, sleep a bit, though you can’t really sleep well on the train, and just hold out until it’s over,” said a woman surnamed Qian who was about to embark on a 20-odd hour train ride to the distant southwestern province of Yunnan.

“But then, there are so many people crammed around you on the train that you can always chat to make it less boring.”

A traditional doll celebrating Girl’s Day in Japan made in the likeness of US President Donald Trump was unveiled in Tokyo on Thursday (January 26).

Standing 60cm (1.96 feet) tall, the doll was clad in a gold kimono and was presented along with three other dolls, of which one was the governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike.

The dolls were unveiled ahead of the March 3 celebrations in Japan dedicated to the health and happiness of girls, called ‘Hinamatsuri’. Every year, Japanese “hina” doll maker Kyugetsu chooses the most influential people to make as dolls as part of their collection.

“There is talk about his derogatory comments about women, but we made this in the hope he will make the world better including in that respect,” Yokoyama Hisatoshi, Senior Vice President of Kyugetsu said. But others disagreed with his choice.

Debbie Walker, a US tourist from Ohio who visited the store to choose a set of dolls for her newborn granddaughter, did not think the Trump doll was appropriate.

“Yes, he is not for women or little girls, so I do not support him,” she said. Another customer, Saori Baba, said she hopes Trump will stop making derogatory comments targeting women.

“I think his sexist remarks in public give an impression that we women are looked down upon. I hope he won’t make such comments anymore in public,” she said, herself a mother of a newborn daughter said.

Last year, the company created a doll of Hilary Clinton, as one of the ‘new leaders’ they were expecting to lead the world in 2016. Dolls will be displayed in the store until Girl’s Day on March 3.

Read also:

– Trump and Kim Jong-un impersonators hit Hong Kong

BEIJING – Chinese cities must avoid looking identical in their urban development and focus on each city’s unique historical value, the government said in a policy document released late on Wednesday.

Rapid development over the last four decades of breakneck economic growth has seen many old buildings demolished and cookie-cutter skyscrapers and other edifices put up in their place.

While some places like Shanghai and Tianjin have done a relatively good job at protecting their cultural heritage, such as the colonial-era architecture of these two cities, others have lost swathes of historic buildings.

The new policy to better protect traditional Chinese culture, released by the central government, states cities have to set more store on their “historic and cultural value”.

“Refine and carefully choose prominent examples of special cultural characteristics and symbols, put this into urbanisation and city planning, rationally use public spaces for sculptures, squares and parts,” it said.

“Avoid a thousand pieces of the same tune, a thousand cities with the same face.”

In many parts of China the destruction of old buildings pre-dates the country’s economic reforms of the late 1970s and can be dated back to the early days of Communist rule ushered in by the 1949 revolution.

Large parts of old Beijing, including the city walls, were demolished to make way for what is now Tiananmen Square and the cavernous Great Hall of the People, home to China’s largely rubber-stamp parliament.

The document said that the Communist Party has a “historical responsibility” to protect and promote traditional Chinese culture.

The guidelines also state the need to protect traditional Chinese villages and supporting poetry, music, dance, calligraphy and painting.

Brief mention is made too of protecting dialects, which have fallen out of favour with the government’s push to get everyone speaking one national language, Mandarin.