Month: April 2018

The challenge of funding the replacement of flammable cladding similar to that which caught fire in the Grenfell Tower disaster in London last year has been highlighted by a case ruled on by a tribunal in March.

Employers need to deduct income tax and pay national insurance contributions (NICs) on all payments in lieu of notice (PILONs) made in connection with a termination of employment on or after today, as rules announced in the UK’s 2016 Budget come into force.

India was on Friday night seeking the arrest of Nirav Modi, the fugitive billionaire jeweller at the centre of the country’s biggest ever banking scam, who was believed to be hiding in Hong Kong.
A source confirmed that Indian authorities had submitted a request to the city’s Department of Justice for the provisional arrest of the diamond merchant, wanted over a US$2 billion (HK$15.7 billion) fraud at the state-run Punjab National Bank. 
“We have reason to believe that he…

The Philippine tourism industry scrambled on Friday to manage the fallout from the temporary shutdown of its world-famous Boracay island, which threw into chaos trips planned by hundreds of thousands of tourists.
President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the once-idyllic white-sand resort closed to tourists for up to six months from April 26, after describing the country’s top tourist attraction as a “cesspool” tainted by raw sewage.
Checkpoints manned by police or soldiers will be…

A new deposit return scheme for ‘single use’ drinks containers in England has the potential to help reduce plastic, glass and metal waste, but the benefits promised will not be straightforward to deliver, an environmental law expert has said.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Thursday “genocide” was taking place in Myanmar and he was willing to accept Rohingya Muslim refugees fleeing from it, though Europe should help too.
The United Nations and rights groups say some 700,000 people, most of them Rohingya, have fled from Myanmar into Bangladesh since August last year when Rohingya militant attacks on the security forces sparked a military crackdown.
The United Nations and several Western countries have said…

Cows in a conservative Malaysian state could be played Koranic recitals in the hope it will help them relax and improve the quality of their beef, a senior official said on Thursday.
Che Abdullah Mat Nawi, a member of the executive council in Kelantan state, put the idea forward in the hope that it will be taken up by cattle farmers in the rural state.
The influential Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) is in charge of the state legislature in Kelantan, in the north of the Muslim-majority country…

More than £1.3 billion has been raised from the latest ‘4G’ and ‘5G’ spectrum auctions in the UK, the country’s telecoms regulator has announced.

The Thai political group that has won every national election since 2001, only to be forced out of power repeatedly by non-electoral means, has taken an initial step on a comeback trail, registering its members to contest polls promised for early next year.
The Pheu Thai Party last held power in 2014, when an army coup ousted it and installed a military government that until last month banned almost all organised political party activity.
The ruling junta, having promised an election for…

A contest at a leading Malaysian university seeking ideas to “convert” gay students sparked anger on Wednesday, with activists warning it could drive people in the Muslim-majority country to suicide.
It was the latest example of what rights groups say is growing intolerance towards Malaysia’s gay community as religious fundamentalism increases, eroding the multi-ethnic country’s traditionally moderate Islam.
The contest organised by the Muslim Students Association at…