Month: September 2018

Myanmar’s powerful army chief said the United Nations had no right to interfere in the sovereignty of his country, a week after UN investigators called for him and other top generals to be prosecuted for “genocide” against the Rohingya.
The defiant response is the army chief’s first public reaction since a UN fact-finding mission urged the Security Council to refer Myanmar’s top military brass to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Min Aung Hlaing also shrugged…

The Australian strawberry scare has spread to New Zealand with a supermarket chain announcing on Sunday that needles were found in a box of the fruit sourced from the neighbouring country.
The Countdown supermarket chain said it had taken a brand of Australian strawberries off the shelves after a sabotaged punnet – a plastic box – was sold in an Auckland store.
The strawberries, from Western Australia state, were sold in Countdown stores nationwide last week and only one incident of…

Campaigning for Indonesia’s presidential election officially began Sunday with the two contenders releasing white doves and vowing a peaceful race as concerns simmer the campaign will sharpen religious and ethnic divides.
The election due in April pits incumbent Joko “Jokowi” Widodo against former general and ultranationalist Prabowo Subianto, who lost to Widodo in 2014.
Dressed in traditional clothing, the candidates and their running mates paraded through central Jakarta on…

An Australian filmmaker who received a royal pardon from Cambodia will be deported on Saturday, immigration officials said, a day after he was released from a six-year sentence. James Ricketson, 69, was given jail time three weeks ago for “espionage and collecting harmful information that could affect national defence” by a Phnom Penh court. He was then issued a royal pardon on Friday, after strongman premier Hun Sen requested it from the Cambodian king. “We will…

Singapore hosted an array of concerts, after-parties and events for race aficionados and revellers alike during the Formula One weekend last week. But one controversial gathering almost stole the show from the annual sporting event. A sugar daddy convention, dubbed “The Fast Lane” and supported by Malaysian “sugar dating” app Sugarbook, was held during the five-day F1-themed Sky Grande Prix promotional event run by the Singapore Tourism Board at the Grand Hyatt hotel…

The way banks currently outsource some of their activities does not pose “significant concerns”, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has said.

ANALYSIS: A UK government proposal would expand ministers’ already considerable powers to intervene in mergers on national security grounds.

India has launched its first national register of sex offenders in a bid to stem crimes against women as the country reels from a series of high-profile rape cases.
The database will only be accessible by law enforcement agencies and not the public. According to a home ministry statement, 440,000 names have been registered, including those convicted of rape, gang rape, child sex crimes and sexual harassment. It will also provide their photos, addresses and fingerprints, without compromising…

Tax rulings granted by Luxembourg in favour of McDonald’s were not illegal state aid, the European Commission has concluded following an investigation.

Vietnam’s President Tran Dai Quang died on Friday at age 61 after a prolonged and serious illness, state media reported.
He passed away from a “serious illness despite devoted treatment by professors and doctors” both in Vietnam and abroad, the official Vietnam News Agency said.
In office as president since April 2016 after more than four decades at the powerful Ministry of Public Security, Tran had a reputation as a tough leader with little tolerance for dissent. Though he…