In a testy message to the Chinese embassy on Monday, Manila warned it would file diplomatic protests for every day that Beijing’s maritime militia ships continued to linger near the Whitsun Reef, which sits within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the South China Sea.The warning came as Duterte’s aide Salvador Panelo said the incident was straining ties and could “trigger unwanted hostilities” between the two nations. “We can negotiate on matters of mutual concern and benefit,…
‘We must win’: Myanmar coup protesters inscribe Easter eggs with messages of defiance
Opponents of military rule in Myanmar inscribed messages of protest on Easter eggs on Sunday while thousands of others were back on the streets, denouncing a February 1 coup and facing off with the security forces who shot and killed at least three men.In the latest in a series of impromptu shows of defiance, messages including “Spring Revolution”, “We must win” and “Get out MAH” – referring to junta leader Min Aung Hlaing – were seen on eggs in photographs on social media.“Easter is all about…
Indonesia, East Timor floods and landslides kill dozens
Flash floods unleashed by torrential rains killed at least 41 people on the Indonesian island of Flores on Sunday, the disaster management agency BNPB said, and at least three more were reported killed in neighbouring East Timor.At least 49 families were hit on Flores, in the east of Indonesia’s sprawling archipelago, Raditya Jati, a BNPB spokesman said.“Dozens of houses were buried in mud in Lamanele village … residents’ houses washed away by the flood,” Raditya said, referring to the eastern…
Malaysian Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein clarifies controversial ‘older brother’ remark during China visit
Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein on Saturday sought to clarify a remark made during his trip to China this week that appeared to suggest he viewed Beijing as a “big brother”, saying the remark was directed at his counterpart Wang Yi. The Malaysian foreign minister wrote on Twitter that he “was not referring to our bilateral relations, as strong [Malaysia-China] ties are based on mutual trust and equality. “Respecting that Wang Yi is older, and a more senior foreign minister,…
Across Asia-Pacific and Europe, Covid-19 has thrown up another risk – an addiction to lockdowns
During the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, authorities around the world asked people to put their lives on hold for a period of days or weeks to “flatten the curve” and save lives.More than a year into the global crisis, governments continue to enforce lockdowns and other restrictions in response to Covid-19, while sluggish vaccine roll-outs cloud expectations for a swift return to normal. For public health and civil liberties experts, the normalisation of extraordinary pandemic…
China’s use of maritime militia demonstrates its control over South China Sea
Just as the world watched the saga of the Evergreen container ship in the Suez Canal, at the other end of Asia another major maritime waterway was witnessing its own worrying events.In the South China Sea, some 200 Chinese civilian vessels were moored off a sandbank for much of March. Much as the ship stuck in the Suez Canal showed the precarity of global trade, with a choke point that carries some 12 per cent of the world’s trade closed for six days, so the South China Sea development showed…
How middle-class Indonesian millennial Zakiah Aini became an Islamic militant
Last Wednesday morning, 25-year-old Indonesian university dropout Zakiah Aini wrote a letter saying goodbye to her family and headed out of the house.As morning turned to dusk, the quiet millennial’s parents began to worry – there had been no word from Zakiah, who rarely left the family home. They became even more anxious when her sister found the goodbye note.“Her sister wanted to report her [missing] but didn’t quite know where to report to,” said Reno Fitria Sari, a lecturer in forensic…
Suez blockage: the potential for recourse
Businesses are likely to find it difficult to recover costs incurred as a consequence of the recent blockage of the Suez canal by the grounding of large container ship, the Ever Given.
Court of Appeal rejects chance to diverge from EU copyright law
The UK’s divergence from EU law is unlikely to be hastened by the Court of Appeal in London if the reasons it gave for following the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) in a recent copyright ruling is anything to go by, according to a brand protection and creative rights expert.
The JCT’s new Dispute Adjudication Board documentation
The Joint Contracts Tribunal (JCT) is seeking to follow other standard form contract publishers in allowing users to adopt a dispute adjudication board (DAB) as part of the regular dispute resolution machinery.