Month: February 2018

A complex web of lies and deceit was spun when 37-year-old Singaporean Adrian Kin, who was an interior designer, had the idea to rope in men struggling with financial difficulties to enter into sham marriages with Vietnamese women.
Separately, Vietnamese beautician Ho Thi Be Ba, 31, had the same idea. She suggested to Vietnamese women to enter into such sham marriages with Singaporean men so the men could apply for or sponsor their Visit Pass in Singapore.
The aim was to extend the women’…

When Win Thida Khine and her husband first saw Salay House, it was in a similar state of disrepair to the other colonial-era buildings that rather forlornly dot this riverside town of the same name. The paint was either peeling back to the brickwork or stained black where decades of rain had leaked through broken guttering. The windows were tightly shuttered, the roof had holes in it and the garden that ran down to the Irrawaddy had been reclaimed by jungle.
It was exactly what she and her…

A packed tourist bus returning from an outing collided with a motorbike and plunged from a hill on Indonesia’s main island of Java after its brakes apparently malfunctioned, killing at least 27 people, police said on Sunday.
At least 18 others were hospitalised with injuries, some in critical condition, following the crash Saturday on a winding slope in Subang in West Java province, said local police chief Muhammad Joni.
Television footage showed police, soldiers and medical personnel…

It used to be said that when American stock markets caught a cold, Asian stock markets needed to worry about influenza. The turbulent events of this week on global stock exchanges partially vindicates this adage but something has changed and it’s quite profound, namely that the major Asian markets of today are proving to be less excitable than they used to be. In percentage terms, Asian stock prices this time have fallen pretty much in line with their US counterparts. Compare that with…

Cambodia is sliding into dictatorship, and it’s playing out on Facebook. The country’s government, led by Prime Minister Hun Sen, has bought millions of fake “likes” on the platform, used it to silence critics and spread propaganda, opponents claim.
On Thursday morning, former Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy’s lawyers filed a petition in a Northern California court that could shed light on this behaviour, raising questions about the social media giant’…

New restrictions on employers’ use of limited term employment contracts could be introduced as part of coalition negotiations with the German government, an expert has said.

The enforcement of anti-doping violations is coming under increasing scrutiny with athletes significantly emboldened in challenging doping bans, a sports lawyer has said.

ANALYSIS: The increasing size and complexity of international disputes means that experts will more frequently be called on to provide expertise, and in a wider variety of capacities, according to the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA).

Signs of life were detected as a major operation to rescue a Hong Kong couple and five mainland Chinese tourists trapped in a partially collapsed building in the Taiwanese city of Hualien continued on Friday.
 The seven missing people were staying at the Pretty Baby Inn, a hotel on the first three floors of the Yun Men Tsui Ti building, where seven people died after Tuesday’s magnitude 6.4 quake, Taiwan’s Central Emergency Operation Centre said.
The Hong Kong couple, who…

“Ambitious” plans to create new international sections of the Paris Court of Appeal will be welcomed by international businesses operating in France, particularly those for whom French is not the native language, experts have said.