Asian Legal Review

Around 40 police officers sent to provide security at the Tokyo Paralympics have been sent home for drinking, brawling with members of the public and frequenting a brothel. The detachment from a special Yamanashi Prefectural Police security unit was in the Japanese capital to support local police at venues and to control traffic during the Games. The unit’s internal regulations stated that the men were not permitted to drink alcohol at their accommodation in Tokyo, but a number of the…

Singapore’s High Court on Wednesday awarded Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong a total of S$370,000 (US$275,000) in damages, after he won two separate defamation lawsuits against the chief editor and a writer from news website The Online Citizen.The lawsuits stemmed from an article published by the site in August 2019 about the home of his late father Lee Kuan Yew at 38 Oxley Road, that included references to a disagreement within the Lee family about what to do with the property.In a 60-page…

Singapore and the US have agreed to build a partnership and work on climate change, environmental governance, sustainable development and low carbon solutions.

Japan’s defence ministry is seeking an annual budget increase that will add to past years’ hikes to expand military spending over a decade by almost one-sixth, as it looks to counter the growing strength of neighbouring China.Since last year, Japan has identified China as its main national security threat, pointing in a July policy paper to a “sense of crisis” over Beijing’s threat to Taiwan, which lies close to Japanese islands along the edge of the East China Sea.The ministry’s budget…

Singapore’s count of daily coronavirus cases remained above 100 for the seventh consecutive day amid a surge in clusters at bus depots, testing its resolve to use one of the world’s best vaccination rates to continue reopening the economy.The city state reported 147 new cases of locally transmitted Covid-19 infections on Monday, according to data released by the Health Ministry. That level, about 26 cases per million people, is high for Singapore though well below levels seen in neighbours such…

Temporary adjustments to the process for checking individual rights to work in the UK will now end on 5 April 2022, the Home Office has announced.

Two Malaysians and an Indonesian linked to deadly bombings in Bali nearly two decades ago are expected to get their first day in court on Monday at the United States Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Indonesian Encep Nurjaman, also known as Riduan Isamuddin and better known by his nom de guerre Hambali, and Malaysians Mohammed Nazir bin Lep, 45, and Mohammed Farik bin Amin, 46, were to be arraigned on Monday before a military commission on charges that include murder, conspiracy and…

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) is developing a cloud-based connections simulation tool which it hopes will reduce the time it takes for developers to connect projects to the National Electricity Market (NEM).

For more than a year, Caspien Gruta has been teased because his circumcision – a rite of passage for boys in the Philippines – was delayed, first by a volcanic eruption and then the coronavirus pandemic. “I worry if I don’t get circumcised now, I will be shamed,” said Gruta, 12. The Philippines has one of the highest rates of circumcision in the world, with many seeing the centuries-old practice as key for boys to enter manhood. Even as circumcision comes under increasing scrutiny…

A priest and three other men have been charged with the gang-rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl, Indian police said, in a case that sparked days of protests in New Delhi.The low-caste girl was allegedly assaulted by the priest, 53, and three workers on August 1 after she had gone to a crematorium to fetch water.The four men, who have been in custody since they were detained in early August, face the death penalty.The girl’s mother earlier told police the men called her to the crematorium…