Month: February 2019

North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme has for several years posed a growing threat to international security – to its neighbours in the South and to the rest of the world.However, the hermit kingdom has also been fashioning another weapon with which to harass the global community: it has carefully and quietly honed its cyberwarfare capabilities to the point that today, according to cybersecurity experts, its hackers are among the best in the world.In terms of speed – a crucial weapon in the…

With just days to go before his long-awaited second meeting with Kim Jong-un, US President Donald Trump on Sunday thanked China for its help setting up the summit in Vietnam aimed at ridding North Korea of nuclear weapons.“The last thing China wants are large scale nuclear weapons right next door,” Trump wrote in a series of tweets in which he praised President Xi Jinping for being “very helpful in his support” of the talks.President Xi of China has been very helpful in his support of my…

Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit is one uncharacteristic plutocrat.The law is after him, the ladies call him “daddy”, and he’s running in Thailand’s impending elections promising a welfare state.As the March 24 polls draw nearer, the 40-year-old scion of Thailand’s biggest auto-parts manufacturer is emerging as a darling among millennials – many of whom are disenchanted with long-standing strife between the “red shirts” and “yellow shirts” that have dominated the kingdom’s politics.And with some…

When Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un hold their second summit in Hanoi in the coming days, 26-year-old Airul Qaiz will be watching more closely than most Singaporeans.Airul leads the 50-member strong Singapore branch of the Korean Friendship Association (KFA), an international network of fervent North Korea supporters who claim they have direct links to Pyongyang.Led by Alejandro Cao de Benós, a Spain-based sympathiser of the regime, the KFA says it has members in 120 countries, though its…

Teju Bai walked for a month to join a rally in India’s capital by thousands of sexual assault survivors who came together in public for the first time to demand justice.Bai’s daughter-in-law was raped last year. The young woman has been shamed and remains a target for abuse while her attacker remains free, she said.Sexual assault has become a tinderbox social issue in India after the horrific rape and killing of a student on a New Delhi bus in 2012 that made global headlines.Changes were…

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. Shakespeare’s musing on the trappings of monarchy may be 400 years old, but it appears as pertinent now as ever for the royal families of Asia. In Thailand, King Vajiralongkorn has vetoed his sister’s bid to run for prime minister; in Malaysia, the public reels from the abdication of a king rumoured to have married a Russian model; in Japan, an ageing emperor will soon become the first to step down voluntarily in more than 200 years.Still, what looks…

Online gambling operators could be restricted or even prohibited from accepting deposits from customer credit cards in future under plans being considered by the British gambling regulator.

Plans for a temporary run-off regime, allowing UK insurers to continue to serve their Irish customers for a time-limited period after a no-deal Brexit, have been published by the Irish government.

The Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) has issued a long-awaited decision on the meaning and effect of the consideration and compensation provisions in the 2017 Electronic Communications Code (‘new Code’).

A fire in Bangladesh that killed at least 67 people in the oldest part of the capital shows the lapses in public safety that still plague the South Asian country despite its rapid economic growth.While the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina touts the garment factories and gleaming office towers in Dhaka’s north side as signs of progress, illegal shops and overcrowding in Chawkbazar, one of the city’s many warren-like southern districts, impeded firefighters’ ability to put out Wednesday…