PETALING JAYA: The Jalur Gemilang-themed underwear worn by a group of men at the Formula 1 Petronas Grand Prix on Sunday come from an Australian swimwear label and are available online.

Checks revealed that the briefs, made with polyester fabric with the Malaysian flag design, cost AUD$55 (S$57) on the label’s online store.

Besides the Malaysian flag design, there are also briefs adorned with flags from Brazil, the United States, France, Sweden and Japan, among others.

For reasons unknown, the Malaysian flag design is not available for purchase at the time of writing.

On Sunday, a group of nine Australians, aged between 25 and 29, disrobed and revealed their briefs to spectators at the Sepang International Circuit (SIC).

The group were detained at 5pm on the same day shortly after the incident.

They are being remanded for four days to facilitate investigations.

The case is being probed for provocation and public indecency.

A Japanese sushi chain is being accused of ‘wasabi terrorism’ after it admitted to heaping excess dollops of the pungent root into foreign customers’ food.

Osaka-based Ichibazushi issued an apology on its website on Sunday (Oct 2), owning up to the charges but denying discrimination was at play.

It insisted that the wasabi-laced sushi was a response to many foreign-born patrons ordering extra portions of the fiery green paste used a condiment for the raw fish dish.

The chain did, however, acknowledge that some of its chefs had slipped copious amounts of wasabi – reportedly sometimes twice as much as usual – into unsuspecting customers’ food.

It was not immediately clear how many incidents there had been.”Because many of our overseas customers frequently order extra amounts of pickled ginger and wasabi, we gave them more without checking first,” the chain’s operator said.

“The result was unpleasant for some guests who aren’t fans of wasabi.” The story was picked up by national media which pointed to comments online complaining of so-called “wasabi terrorism” – and racism.

“That is no apology; it’s an excuse. What they did was a hate crime,” @sakeuchi317 wrote on Twitter.

A trio of male Japanese politicians has gamely strapped on “pregnancy vests” that simulate swollen bellies in a lighthearted campaign for men to pick up the slack in a nation where women do most of the housework.

The three governors of southwestern prefectures are taking to the airwaves with the public awareness campaign that loosely translates as: “The governor is a pregnant woman.”

Japanese men are not very helpful husbands when it comes to housework: they do just one hour of unpaid work daily compared to five hours for their wives, according to a 2014 study by the 35-nation Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The three-minute spot, which started running last week, shows the hapless lawmakers being outfitted with seven kilogramme (16 pound) vests that mimic the belly of a woman who is about seven months pregnant.

Then it is time to clumsily navigate stairs, carry groceries, or wait for someone to give up their seat on the bus.

One politician struggles to put on socks, while another wipes sweat from his brow after hanging a load of laundry, as an upbeat tune plays in the background.

“I can see how hard it is to be carrying a child and do house chores,” says 52-year-old Shunji Kono, the governor of Miyazaki prefecture.

“I think I have to be much kinder,” the father of three adds in the video.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made drawing more women into the workforce a top priority to fix the economy, heeding calls to make better use of a highly educated but underemployed labour pool.

The head of Taiwan’s top financial regulator resigned Monday after US authorities fined a local bank linked to the so-called Panama Papers scandal.

Ding Kung-wha, chairman of the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), had been criticised over his handling of the controversy involving Mega International Commercial Bank, which was hit with a US$180 million fine in the US in August.

American regulators accused the bank of showing “flagrant disregard” for anti-money laundering laws, saying they had identified “suspicious transactions” between the bank’s New York and Panama Branches.

The Panama Papers, which were released by media in April, comprised a trove of leaked documents that revealed a murky financial underworld of tax evasion by politicians, celebrities, and sports stars using shell companies.

Mega Bank had dealings with a Panamanian law firm at the centre of the scandal, the US Department of Financial Services said.

Panama Papers: Secret accounts of the rich and powerful

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AFP, Reuters, The Star/ANN

The US order does not specify whether the Taiwanese bank actually engaged in money laundering.

Some lawmakers criticised Ding for being slow in handling Mega and another case in which a local entertainment company was accused of insider trading and market manipulation. The firm is now under investigation.

“I resigned to maintain my innocence and hope that it will end the harm for the FSC,” Ding said in a statement, adding that the FSC had launched a probe into the Mega case at the earliest possible time.

Ding was appointed by Premier Lin Chuan in May and is the first cabinet minister to leave office under the new government.

The FSC hit Mega Bank with a Tw$10 million (S$431,200) fine last month and demanded the bank fire six people, including its legal representative and former chairman McKinney Tsai.

Taiwan’s cabinet passed a bill to toughen its anti-money laundering laws following Mega International’s fine.

Indian police said Monday (Oct 3) they have taken a pigeon into custody after it was found carrying a warning note to Prime Minister Narendra Modi near the nation’s heavily militarised border with Pakistan.

Border Security Force (BSF) officers found the bird at Pathankot in the northern state of Punjab, where Pakistan-based militants launched a deadly attack on an airforce base in January.

“We took it into custody last evening,” Pathankot police inspector Rakesh Kumar told AFP by telephone.

“The BSF found it with a note in Urdu saying something like ‘Modi, we’re not the same people from 1971. Now each and every child is ready to fight against India’,” Kumar said.

The neigbours fought their third and last full-blown war in 1971.

The note was apparently signed by the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) “so we are investigating the matter very seriously”, Kumar said.

It is not the first time birds have become embroiled in the often deadly decades-old rivalry between the two nuclear-armed nations.

But it comes as tensions escalate over a raid on an Indian army base in Kashmir two weeks ago that New Delhi blamed on the same militant group held responsible for the attacks in January.

Last week, India’s military hit militants across the de-facto border dividing disputed Kashmir, in a rare move that sparked fury from Islamabad.

Two balloons were also recently found in Punjab with similar messages addressed to Modi in Urdu.

Last year, Indian police seized a pigeon on suspicion it was being used for espionage by Pakistan and also X-rayed it to check for any spy camera, transmitter or hidden chip.

In 2013, Indian security forces found a dead falcon fitted with a small camera, and in 2010 another pigeon was detained over spying fears.