Author: viking

Educational and cultural exchanges have become a new casualty of rising tensions between the Philippines and China. About 150 Chinese teachers have left the Philippines months after Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jnr renewed warnings that such people-to-people ties could pose security concerns. Families of volunteer instructors have expressed safety concerns.
Beyond disrupting classes and potentially harming tourism in the Philippines, this could further narrow interaction between the two…

Elon Musk accused unnamed rivals of blocking SpaceX’s Starlink satellite broadband network in India, an apparent swipe at billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Sunil Bharti Mittal.
SpaceX has been awaiting approval from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to offer Starlink service in India, where companies controlled by Ambani’s Reliance Industries and Mittal’s Bharti Airtel have spent years building formidable positions in telecoms.
“Unfortunately, we are being blocked by certain oligarchs in…

The Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland has provided clarity on how public bodies should apply climate duties when approving carbon-intensive projects, experts have said.

Singapore’s air pollution worsened to the highest in the world as haze from Indonesia wildfires blankets the region days before the city state’s annual Formula One weekend.
Air quality levels in Singapore were in the “very unhealthy” range as of Wednesday afternoon, according to data from IQAir. Nearby Kuala Lumpur, which was earlier in the top spot, ranked as the second-most polluted city globally.
In the Malaysian state of Johor, about 140km (87 miles) northwest of Singapore, some 200 schools,…

The US military in Okinawa will impose a curfew from midnight to 5am for a month starting Friday following the arrest of a marine on suspicion of robbing and murdering a local woman, its regional coordinator said on Tuesday.
All US military personnel on Okinawa will also observe a 48-hour operational pause from noon on Wednesday, during which there will be “no off-base liberty, including a complete prohibition of alcohol consumption on or off base”, said Lieutenant General Benjamin Watson,…

Four Indonesian seamen who were kidnapped and held hostage by Somali pirates aboard an oil tanker for more than five months arrived back home on Tuesday.
The men were among 17 crew rescued a week ago when maritime police from the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in northern Somalia stormed the Palau-flagged MT Honour 25 tanker that was hijacked in April.
Before the vessel could be recaptured, the pirates had already killed five crew members – three Pakistanis, an Indian and a Myanmar national…

The off-payroll working rules, known as IR35, apply where a business engages an individual to provide services off-payroll and through an intermediary – commonly a company referred to as a ‘personal services company’ (PSC). IR35 targets the use of PSCs to avoid employment taxes.

The alleged murder of an Okinawan woman by a US marine has put newly elected Governor Genta Koja under intense pressure, raising questions about whether the incident could deepen opposition against the American military presence just as Okinawa assumes greater importance in Japan’s regional security strategy.
Koja only took office on September 30 after campaigning on economic issues rather than the dispute over American troops based in the prefecture, which has dominated local politics for…

With superfund transfers on the rise in the UK market, trustees should be aware of how best to transact with a superfund.

Southeast Asian governments are learning some hard truths about the data centre boom they spent years working to attract, analysts say – it promises jobs, digital infrastructure and a foothold in the AI economy, but the rapid buildout is also straining power grids, land and regulatory systems.
“There is this enthusiasm to attract investments, but now it raises the question: at what cost and at what speed?” said policy researcher Mark Manantan, a research fellow for the Centre for Global Security…