Month: July 2021

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet virtually with Southeast Asian officials every day next week, a senior state department official said on Saturday, as Washington seeks to show the region it is a US priority while also addressing the crisis in Myanmar.The top US diplomat will attend virtual meetings for five consecutive days, including annual meetings of the 10 foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and other nations and separate meetings of the…

When Indonesian national Maria Caritas went to the city of Surabaya two weeks ago to get her first shot of Covid-19 vaccine, she was turned away.Staff at the vaccination centre told the 21-year-old fresh university graduate that she needed a “letter of domicile” from the chief of her neighbourhood in Surabaya, as her electronic identity card, or e-KTP, had been issued in Malang, where she lived more than a decade ago. Non-Surabaya residents could not be jabbed without the letter as “the…

When Pauline Wong misplaced her bank card in the process of moving to Malaysia earlier this year, she was shocked to discover the steps she had to go through to get a new one.“Even after one and half years of Covid-19, they still haven’t made changes,” the 34-year-old media professional said, recounting how she had to visit a branch in person and spend 30 minutes waiting in line just to get a replacement debit card.Unlike in Singapore, where Wong was previously based, many Malaysian banks still…

A Luxembourg regulator is planning to issue Amazon with a record fine under EU data protection laws, the company has disclosed.

Germany’s Supreme Court has specified the scope of the right to access under Article 15 of the GDPR, but has left important questions unanswered.

The recent decision by the European Handball Federation (EHF) to fine the Norwegian Handball Federation (NHF) €1,500 for wearing “improper clothing” highlights a gap in UK employment law that could disadvantage British athletes if similar cases arise, an expert in employment law has said.

The new prime minister of Samoa has confirmed she will cancel a China-backed port project, but hasn’t closed the door to the world’s second-largest economy as she navigates a path for the Pacific nation against a backdrop of intensifying regional competition between Beijing and Washington.Fiame Naomi Mataafa indicated she would only approve investments that had clear benefits for her country as she expressed doubts about the upside for the Pacific in being a pawn in a geopolitical tussle…

The Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) that allows American soldiers to conduct military exercises on Philippine soil is once again in full force after President Rodrigo Duterte “retracted” a previous letter notifying Washington he was terminating it. Duterte arrived at the decision after meeting with US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin in Manila on Thursday. Speaking to reporters at the Philippines armed forces headquarters on Friday, with Austin by his side, Philippines Defence Secretary Delfin…

Czech Republic lawyer Sabina Krajickova outlines the essential steps when restructuring a business in the Czech Republic

Malaysia’s king on Thursday said he was “very disappointed” that the government had misled parliament by incorrectly stating that a state of emergency he assented to in January had been terminated.Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah, who serves as the country’s constitutional head of state, said Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s government had not sought his assent before Law Minister Takiyuddin Hassan declared on Monday that various emergency ordinances – set to expire on August 1 – had been…