Month: January 2019

A rare political poll released in Singapore on Monday shone a light on a topic that thus far had been confined to pockets within the chattering classes: will a “third-generation” member of the city state’s powerful Lee family enter politics?
The family of the revered late founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew has dominated Singapore’s politics for the best part of six decades – his eldest son Lee Hsien Loong is the country’s third and current premier –…

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a double bomb attack on a Catholic church on a southern Philippine island that killed at least 18 people, according to the SITE Intelligence Group which monitors jihadist activities.
IS issued a formal communique claiming two suicide bombers had detonated explosive belts Sunday inside the church and its car park on Jolo – a stronghold of Islamist militants in the Catholic-majority nation.

For half a century since 1969, a white polymarble statue of Sir Stamford Raffles stood by the Singapore River, purportedly at the exact spot where the British colonial official first landed when he reached the Lion City.
This month, it “disappeared”. In a city state where vandalism can be punished by caning, a state-sanctioned artwork was commissioned to create an optical illusion that the statue was no longer there. The aim was to make Singaporeans think harder about Raffles….

Thousands of Indians converged on a ceremonial boulevard in the country’s capital to watch a display of military power and cultural diversity amid tight security during Saturday’s national day celebrations.
Schoolchildren, folk dancers, and police and military battalions marched through the capital’s parade route on a cold morning, followed by a military hardware display that included M777 Howitzer artillery guns, T-90 main battle tanks, locally made nuclear-capable missile…

Less than a year after Malaysia’s landmark elections that saw a new party take power for the first time in more than six decades, the administration has been accused of failing to crack down on nepotism and cronyism in government-linked companies (GLCs) and agencies.
The Pakatan Harapan coalition unseated long-time ruling alliance the Barisan Nasional in May after running on an anti-corruption platform, highlighting financial mismanagement and graft that it alleged was running rampant in…

For a government that has spent so much time and money trying to stop asylum seekers from trying to reach its shores by boat, Australia has spent much of the past week making quite a lot of noise about an empty vessel. The announcement that A$6.7 million (US$4.8 million) would be spent on sailing a replica of Captain Cook’s ship, the HMS Endeavour, around the country for the next 14 months has been met with something between raised eyebrows and well-deserved opprobrium – and not…

Insurers have called for clarity from global policymakers about the extent to which they can provide coverage for regulatory fines and penalties, such as those issued for breaches of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

More clarity is needed over which organisations are required to comply with modern slavery reporting requirements, while the reports themselves need a consistent structure and far stronger enforcement, an independent review has recommended.

Indian foresters have begun relocating around 300 crocodiles to allow a seaplane service for visitors to the world’s tallest statue, the newly erected 182-metre Statue of Unity.
The reptiles, the largest around three metres, are being lured into metal cages and moved elsewhere in the western state of Gujarat on the back of pickup trucks.
So far about a dozen had been extracted “from dyke number three of the reservoir which has been identified as a probable site for the seaplane…

Pharmacists will be asked to intervene to avoid over-prescription of antibiotics under new plans that have been outlined by the UK government to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR).