Month: October 2018

Three suspected rebels were killed in a gun battle with Indian government forces in disputed Kashmir on Sunday, and at least five civilians were killed in an explosion at the site after the fighting was over, officials and residents said.
The fighting erupted after troops cordoned off a village in the southern Kulgam area on a tip that rebels were hiding there, India’s military said. The exchange lasted for several hours in which three militants were killed and two soldiers injured, it…

Gunmen killed nine members of a farmers’ group who occupied part of a privately owned sugarcane plantation in a central Philippine province, police said Sunday.
The victims were resting in a makeshift hut Saturday night when about 10 gunmen opened fire, police said.
At least four farmers survived the attack at the plantation in Sagay city in Negros Occidental province, which has a history of bloody land feuds.
“There are groups fighting over that land,” Sagay police Chief…

In an email arranging to hand over US Navy information to flamboyant contractor Leonard Francis, Navy Commander Troy Amundson described himself as “a small dog just trying to get a bone”.
Later that night, Francis organised several prostitutes from Mongolia for Amundson, prosecutors say, just one in a string of bribes Francis paid for leaked military data.
On Friday, Amundson was sentenced to 30 months in prison. He joins the ranks of more than a dozen other US Navy officials whose…

Japan’s Defence Minister Takeshi Iwaya said on Saturday Tokyo will invite commissioned air force officers from every member state of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to observe Air Self-Defence Force training.
“The Indo-Pacific region is facing complicated security issues and we need to collectively deal with them,” Iwaya told an Asean meeting in Singapore with his counterparts from the Asean region, an area in which China has been increasing its influence. Iwaya…

The majority of businesses are not yet “fully compliant” with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), according to a survey carried out by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP).

EU and US officials have begun the second annual review of the Privacy Shield, an important framework that facilitates the free flow of personal data across the Atlantic for businesses.

Unclaimed urns containing ashes of the dead are piling up by the thousands across Japan, creating storage headaches and reflecting fraying family ties and economic pressures in a rapidly ageing nation.
The identities of the dead, cremated at public expense, are usually known. But in most cases, relatives either refuse or do not respond to requests to collect their remains. Burials can be costly and time-consuming, a burden on family members who may hardly know the deceased relative.
“When…

The crumbling lakeside villa, which served as Aung San Suu Kyi’s prison for 15 years during her house arrest, has become the source of a bitter family dispute between the Myanmar state counsellor and her brother.
Suu Kyi’s estranged older brother, Aung San Oo, an engineer who lives in the United States, has submitted an appeal at the Supreme Court, petitioning for the auction of the home and a share of the proceeds.
While the two-storey villa has long fallen into disrepair, Aung San…

Financial institutions need to ask additional questions to prevent residence and citizenship by investment schemes being used as tools to hide assets from the tax authorities, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has said.

ANALYSIS: A new bill recently introduced to the Australian Senate would give the construction industry a statutory basis to challenge tender decisions as a result of non-compliance with the Commonwealth Procurement Rules (CPR).