Asian Legal Review

A fire killed 41 inmates in an overcrowded prison block in Indonesia’s Banten province, a government minister said on Wednesday, injuring scores more in a blaze that police said may have been caused by an electrical fault.The fire, the country’s most deadly since 47 perished in a firework factory disaster in 2017, broke out at 1.45am in a Tangerang Prison block, Indonesian law and human rights minister Yasonna Laoly said after visiting the scene.“We’re working together with relevant authorities…

The cost and time involved in connecting electric vehicle chargepoints to the national electricity grid in Britain is to be cut for businesses.

The decision of the Chinese authorities to close a vast replica of the ancient Japanese capital of Kyoto built in Dalian on the grounds that it is an example of “cultural invasion” has come in for heavy criticism in Japan, with many commentators claiming Beijing is using the incident for its own political ends.Critics say this is just the latest such effort by Beijing to use the two nations’ often fraught shared history to denigrate Japan and cast the country in a negative light.Some of the…

Myanmar’s shadow government, formed by opponents of military rule, called for a revolt against the junta on Tuesday, setting out a strategy that included action by armed militias and ethnic forces and urging bureaucrats to leave their posts.Duwa Lashi La, the acting president of the National Unity Government (NUG), said in a speech that the shadow government, which is made up of members in exile or in hiding, was declaring a state of emergency.How technology reshaped Asia’s protest…

The UK government will legislate to increase the maximum period for which frozen eggs, sperm and embryos can be stored to 55 years.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday said nationwide coronavirus curbs would be lifted, except in the biggest city of Auckland, as the country gets on top of an outbreak of the Delta variant.Excluding a small cluster of cases in February, New Zealand had been largely virus-free until an infected traveller from Australia seeded an outbreak that prompted Ardern to impose the national lockdown last month.Ardern, who said restrictions would be eased outside Auckland from Wednesday,…

Japan’s largest oil company ENEOS will carry out a study on building up a commercial scale green hydrogen supply chain between Japan and Queensland, Australia, the Queensland government has announced.

When Malaysian retirees Adeline Chang and Zai Saimon began volunteering with a tiny non-profit group called The Lost Food Project in 2016, they never imagined the scale of their work on behalf of the poor could be tangibly measured – let alone in terms of saved greenhouse gas emissions.Five years on, the organisation has risen in prominence because of its crucial efforts during the debilitating pandemic-fuelled economic crisis, with climate activists taking an interest in its operations.The…

When Indonesia’s foreign minister Retno Marsudi met her American counterpart Antony Blinken in Washington last month, she remarked that Jakarta had entered a “new era of bilateral relations” with the United States.This indication of closer ties comes after Retno and Blinken launched a “strategic dialogue” between their countries that resuscitates the US-Indonesia strategic partnership that was agreed on in 2015, only to be largely abandoned during the Trump administration.Since then, China has…

Videos of alleged police brutality are going viral on Thai social media, as whistle-blowers seize the opportunity to demand reform of the scandal-ridden force following the arrest last week of a police chief over the alleged extortion and murder of a suspected drug dealer.Police Colonel Thitisant Utthanaphon was detained on August 26 after the leak of a video allegedly showing him using plastic bags to suffocate 24-year-old Jeerapong Thanapat to death, with the help of six other officers.The…