Australia and Japan imposed more sanctions on Friday against Russia, and Canberra said it was “unacceptable” that China was easing trade restrictions with Moscow at a time when it invaded Ukraine.“We will work along with our partners for a rolling wave of sanctions and continuing to ratchet up that pressure on Russia,” Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said during a media conference.Morrison said the fresh sanctions will be placed against “oligarchs whose economic weight is of strategic…
‘Let me get Covid, please’: Shifting views of virus in Singapore prompts expert to warn against actively seeking out infection
After advertising tech firm manager Lukas Ng kept telling his friends he wanted to “catch Covid-19”, one of them wrote a song about it. A line in the lyrics of the song, that friends of the 32-year-old have been circulating among themselves goes: “Let me get Covid, please!”Ng, who has received two shots of the Pfizer vaccine, tested positive on February 14. It felt like it could not come soon enough though. His girlfriend had tested positive earlier and he continued spending time with her as…
Malaysia 1MDB scandal: ex-Goldman banker Roger Ng’s US trial paused over new evidence disclosure
Tim Leissner was supposed to be the US government’s star witness in the bribery case against Roger Ng, the only Goldman Sachs banker to go to trial in the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal.Instead, a misstep over crucial evidence about Leissner could end up tanking the case, after the US disclosed that it failed to turn over to the defence more than 15,500 documents related to him.On Wednesday the judge said she would pause the trial to give the defence time to review the newly disclosed…
As Dutch say sorry for atrocities in postcolonial Indonesia, time for Jakarta to address its own dark past of racial violence, genocide?
A recently published study in the Netherlands that revealed the Dutch’s systematic use of extreme violence in Indonesia during the revolutionary war in the 1940s has prompted calls for the country to address its own dark past, including genocide committed against Indonesian residents who were suspected communists and leftists, or from the ethnic Chinese community, in the 1960s.A team of 115 researchers in the Netherlands and Indonesia last week published the findings of their six-year study,…
1MDB trial: Ex-Goldman chief met Najib Razak to get his children jobs, jury told
The star witness in the bribery trial of former Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng testified that ex-Goldman chief Lloyd Blankfein in 2009 met former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak ahead of US$6.5 billion in bond deals for the country’s wealth fund – and that the meeting came with an agenda.In return for the lucrative business, Goldman was to get Najib’s three children jobs at the bank, former Southeast Asia chairman Tim Leissner told the jury on Tuesday about the 1MDB scheme.Leissner, 52, was…
Aukus: France drops Australia as key Indo-Pacific partner after sub snub
France removed Australia from its list of key partners in the Indo-Pacific region as tensions between the two countries linger five months after the Aukus submarine debacle.A decision by the government in Canberra to abandon a multibillion-dollar submarine contract with France in favour of American technology and a new security pact with the United States and Britain was viewed by President Emmanuel Macron as a betrayal, and sparked a diplomatic row.The shift was announced in September without …
Tricky issues for employers as England ends Covid restrictions
UK employers will have to carefully balance workplace health and safety risks, particularly for vulnerable staff, as the country’s approach to managing Covid-19 changes, employment law and workplace health and safety experts have warned.
Russian sanctions necessitate fresh due diligence and screening by businesses
Businesses need to stiffen their efforts to ensure that who they are transacting with – including intermediary financial institutions through which funds may pass – are not subject to newly imposed sanctions on Russia, experts have said.
Asian Development Bank sets up Indonesian green infrastructure fund
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a US$150 million loan for a facility to encourage public and private funds to invest in green, financially sustainable infrastructure projects in Indonesia.
Australia aircraft had ‘right’ to watch China navy vessel in its waters, Morrison says
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said an Australian surveillance aircraft was doing its job when it was “put under threat” with a laser from a Chinese navy ship, rejecting Beijing’s assertion the plane came too close.The P-8A Poseidon, a maritime patrol aircraft, detected a laser emanating from a People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) vessel last Thursday, and Australia released photographs of two Chinese vessels sailing close to its north coast.“Our surveillance planes have every right…