Asian Legal Review

Consulting firm PwC has revealed the pay gap between its white and black and minority ethnic (BAME) employees for the first time.

The wife of Pakistan’s former prime minister Nawaz Sharif appeared to have won the parliamentary seat vacated by her husband following his disqualification by the Supreme Court from holding public office.
Victory by Kulsoom Sharif, who is currently receiving medical treatment in London, was declared by her daughter Sunday in front of supporters at the head office of Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party in Lahore.
“Nawaz Sharif has won” against the court…

Philippine troops have rescued a Roman Catholic priest and another civilian who were among dozens of people abducted in May when hundreds of militants aligned with Islamic State laid siege on southern Marawi city, officials said on Sunday.
Presidential adviser Jesus Dureza and two senior security officials said without elaborating that troops retrieved the two late on Saturday after a battle to recapture a key mosque and another Islamic building used as a command centre by the gunmen in Marawi…

Myanmar’s army chief has urged the country to unite over the “issue” of the Rohingya, a Muslim group he says has no roots in the country, and which his troops are accused of systematically purging.
The military says its “clearance operations” in northern Rakhine state are aimed at taking out Rohingya militants who attacked police posts on August 25.
But the violence has engulfed the border region and triggered an exodus of more than 400,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh,…

Malaysian police have arrested seven people aged 11 to 18 in connection with a recent fire at a religious school that killed 23 people.
The suspects were being investigated on suspicion of “mischief by fire” and murder over Thursday’s fire at the school, Pusat Tahfiz Darul Quran Ittifaqiyah, in Kampung Datuk Keramat on the outskirts of the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur police chief Amar Singh said.
He said the group planned to set fire to the school following conflict with…

The inauguration this week of India’s first high-speed rail corridor between Mumbai and Ahmadabad, using Japanese technology and financing, has a geostrategic significance that transcends its economic worth. It amplifies the growing closeness between India and Japan at a time when both nations are struggling to find their footing in an Asia being re-fashioned by an ascendant China.
New Delhi and Tokyo have long-standing territorial disputes with China. Both are concerned about Beijing…

In most cases, the conviction of a Thai man trafficking rhino horns through a bizarre scheme that involved hiring prostitutes to pose as trophy hunters would have marked the end of the story.
But investigators took an unusual, next step – deciding to “follow the money” that helped bankroll the South African operation, and ultimately winning a court order last year to seize Chumlong Lemtongthai’s Thai bank accounts and other assets, including a house worth US$142,000, to…

A new facility designed to boost skills in data science is to be set up in Newcastle, the UK government has announced.

Pregnant workers can only be dismissed during a collective redundancy in exceptional cases that are not connected to the pregnancy, and where there is no plausible chance of moving the worker to another role, according to advocate general Eleanor Sharpston of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

The European Parliament and member states have agreed to extend the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) to 2020 and increase its financial targets.