Asian Legal Review

The UK government has announced more details behind its upcoming Data Protection Bill, which will transpose into domestic law the European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Asia-Pacific foreign ministers made plain to North Korea on Monday it is time that it stop taking actions posing threats to regional peace.
But North Korea’s foreign minister, who attended an annual security meeting in Manila with them, staunchly defended his country’s missile nuclear programme as legitimate and self-defensive in nature.
“We will, under no circumstances, put the nuclear and ballistic missiles on the negotiating table…unless the hostile policy and the nuclear…

The United States has been providing the Philippines with surveillance capabilities, training, information and aircraft to help it fight a months-long siege of a southern city by pro-Islamic State group militants, the top US diplomat said Monday as he prepared to meet the country’s polarising president.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in Manila for a regional gathering, said the equipment includes a few Cessna aircraft and a few drones. He said they’ll help the Philippines…

Singapore’s Keppel Land, part of conglomerate Keppel Group Ltd, said its independent director has resigned after his permanent residency was cancelled when he was accused of being an agent of influence for a foreign country.
Chinese-American professor and his wife to be expelled from Singapore
The Ministry of Home Affairs said on Friday that Huang Jing, a professor of US-China relations at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, “knowingly interacted with intelligence…

The United Nations Security Council has unanimously passed a resolution to expand sanctions aimed at ­cutting North Korea’s ability to fund its nuclear ­programme, but analysts are sceptical on how ­effective it will be.
The new resolution prohibits UN member states from buying coal, iron ore and other key commodities from North Korea, a move meant to cut the country’s export revenue by one third, or US$1 billion, annually, according to the Security Council. But the…

When Cambodian actress Denny Kwan was banned from making films by the government, she faced an ultimatum: dress in a more traditional manner, or risk losing your career. In late April, the 24-year-old was barred from appearing in movies for a year after Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts deemed that her style of dress had violated a 2010 code of conduct relating to “virtue” and “ethics” in the Southeast Asian country. Kwan, who has appeared in many movies…

Almost 14,000 people from across Asia and the Pacific region were refused entry to Hong Kong last year, with most of them told the purpose of their visit was “doubtful”.
That figure has more than doubled in the past three years, according to official statistics, and experts say the trend could be a result of heightened fears over terrorism.
Statistics provided by the Immigration Department showed 13,871 people in the region were denied entry in 2016. Some 11,667 were rejected over a…

Southeast Asia’s top diplomats slammed North Korea with a sharp rebuke on Saturday over its intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests and admonished Pyongyang to comply with its duty of helping avert conflicts as a member of Asia’s biggest security forum.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations foreign ministers, however, were split on an American proposal to suspend Pyongyang from the Asean Regional Forum, a 27-nation bloc that includes North Korea and its bitter…

The French Senate has approved the bill allowing the government to fast-track changes to the country’s employment laws after prior discussions with unions and employers’ groups.

The Court of Appeal has overturned a ruling that IBM did not act in good faith when it implemented a series of changes to its defined benefit (DB) pension schemes.