Homosexuality had already been illegal in Brunei and punishable by imprisonment, but with the law changes enforced this week, it joins a small group of countries where homosexuality is punishable by death. The weakening economy in Brunei as well as concerns about possible erosion of support underscore this increasing reliance on religion.
Police have released footage of alleged drug smuggler Mostafa Baluch from inside the flight that returned him to Sydney. The West Australian Premier has been slammed for enforcing two very different sets of quarantine rules for athletes and everyday Australians. Best of shopping Premium Membership. In the know quiz. Bolkiah has four other children shared between his two other wives.
Bolkiah is the 29th sultan to come from the same family, one which was famous for marrying internally. Jefri was notoriously bad with money, and said to be a bad influence on the newly appointed sultan. Source: Vanity Fair. The zoo contains falcons, flamingos and cockatoos which can play basketball, ride bicycles, sing, talk, and imitate other animals, the sultan's zoo keeper told The Bangkok Post.
Jefri — who was finance minister for much of s and s — spent tens of billions of dollars of the crown estate's money funding an even more lavish lifestyle than his brother. Prince Jefri's remaining assets were sold off by the crown in a auction. CNN reported it took six days to sell off over 10, items. The auction included, CNN said, one eight-foot bronze Trojan horse, several jacuzzi covered in gold plate, several statues of flamingos, a Comanche helicopter simulator, a plane, and an F1 race car.
Source: Sydney Morning Herald. The 1,room palace covers an estimated 2. Source: The Associated Press. Source: Guinness World Records. In , Lauren told CNN : "I am a witness to the fact that the sultan was drinking, was committing adultery, was not exactly living on the straight and narrow. The Brunei government have dismissed Lauren's claims, saying in a statement to CNN : "We vehemently deny the allegations.
According to CNN, both brothers denied the allegations, with Bolkiah claiming he had never even met Marketic. The case was dropped when courts "granted the brothers immunity from legal action, owing to their joint status as a foreign head of state," CNN said.
During the s, the Sultan's family reportedly accounted for almost half of all Rolls-Royce purchases in the world. Source: Gizmodo , Vanity Fair. Source: The Independent. Source: The Times. The Times reported that Bolkiah flies out his favourite barber from London, where he works at the Dorchester hotel in Mayfair. Source: Daily Mail. Source: Business Insider. The tiny Muslim nation said the new laws are meant to prevent rather than punish, and to safeguard family values, and admitted they will be very hard to enforce.
In a televised speech, the sultan said Allah would never hand down laws meant to inflict cruelty on others. George Clooney, probably the most vocal celebrity voice against the law, said people need to keep up the boycott despite the assurances. When I was there oil prices were at a reasonable level, production was good. There was absolutely no tax of any kind in the country, no income tax, no real estate tax, no sales tax, no taxes whatsoever. Free education through the university level for those capable of benefiting from it.
Free health care. Most people who were Bruneians worked for the government in various capacities with a very relaxed type work day. The government was the largest employer. The grunt work in the country was done by imported laborers from the Philippines and Indonesia, but the Philippines were the largest single contingent. The average Bruneian would not mow a lawn or do anything of that nature.
The grunt work was done by foreigners. Being a Muslim country, the government gave interest-free loans or near to it for the purchase of your home. There were dirt cheap trips organized by the government to take people to Saudi Arabia for the hajj, the pilgrimage that Muslims are supposed to make once in their life if they can.
It was hard to find a lot of discontent in Brunei at that time. One area of concern was the fact that the Chinese element in the community was discriminated against on the question of citizenship.
That was a little difficult for the Chinese. Of course no Bruneian could participate in the political life of their country, either, as there was, in effect, no political life there. With regard to religion there were also constraints.
Brunei is a Muslim country, a moderate Muslim country, but with an element in the country personified by the Education Minister at that time who wanted a tougher, more fundamentalist approach to the Islamic religion. The Sultan, in my view, walked maybe a middle path. There were some. They would tell me sometimes that they were really annoyed because their daughter or someone had been criticized by somebody or they had gotten a phone call because their daughter was seen out at night, for example.
As an indication, women could work anywhere they wished to work. They were encouraged to cover their hair, but not compelled to. They could do all of that by themselves.
It was a decent life for women considering Brunei was a Muslim country. The right wanted to push Islamic practice a little further…. On the religious question, there was nil tolerance for the expansion of other religions. So, when I was there, there were at most two Catholic priests.
There had been mostly Australian priests, white Australian priests, and ministers, too. They were expelled. Brunei was not going to have any foreign priests there…. The first time that I had an occasion to be at the palace with the entire diplomatic corps would have been at the conclusion of Ramadan when you have the celebration of Eid al-Fitr.
You have three days of visiting people and wishing everybody well. The Sultan had a reception for the diplomatic corps in the palace. Now, the palace is another piece of work, 1, rooms I think, incredible.
Just absolutely incredible. At any rate this would have been in January …. The diplomatic corps was ushered into this main reception room of the palace to meet with the Sultan.
I was not a spouse of an ambassador, I was an ambassador, so I remained in the central area with the ambassadors and ministers.
Her ambassador was ill and was in the Philippines a good bit of the time so she was also there. I had met some of them and so I greeted them. Women have to be over there. I spotted the Deputy Foreign Minister and so I went over and explained what was happening. He was a little jumpy. At this point the Sultan and his family came in.
Any time I needed to meet with the Sultan I got very quick favorable responses, even when it was a little unreasonable as far as I was concerned in terms of deadline. When you get something on a Friday, the [State] Department would sometimes insist they had to have this answer from the Sultan by Monday.
But the Sultan always came through for me, I have to say. Some among the petroleum industry people guessed that the end could come early in the 21st century — but that, of course was only a guess.
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