Asian Legal Review

Positioning Hong Kong as a dealmaking hub and capitalising on a surge of interest from mainland Chinese investors and Southeast Asian companies could deliver a boost to the city’s professional services industry, according to the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC).Since 2019, the HKTDC has accelerated its efforts to facilitate deals, organising about 3,000 “matchmaking” meetings in the past two years.“In our trade events, we ask our overseas stakeholders to bring along their projects…

Too little is known about melted fuel inside damaged reactors at the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant to be able to tell if its decommissioning can be finished by 2051 as planned, a UN nuclear agency official said on Friday.“Honestly speaking, I don’t know, and I don’t know if anybody knows,” said Christophe Xerri, head of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team reviewing progress in the plant’s clean-up.He urged Japan to speed up studies of the reactors to achieve a better long…

It took the Association of Southeast Asian Nations nearly three months to convene a special meeting to discuss Myanmar’s February 1 coup. Then, a further three months elapsed before the bloc agreed on appointing Brunei’s senior diplomat Erywan Yusof as the special envoy to the violence-wracked nation. Now, some three weeks have passed since that August 4 appointment, and the bloc has still offered little indication of what is to come. This week, Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian…

Agreement has been reached on changes to the international tax system to deal with the digitisation of the economy. These changes will have significant implications for telecoms and technology multinationals.

Five Chinese workers at a nickel smelter on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island are facing up to five years in prison after they killed a crocodile and prepared it as soup, according to a local conservation authority.Their acts were captured in photographs and a video that later went viral, prompting the Southeast Sulawesi Natural Resources Conservation Center (BKSDA) to take legal action against the miners, who were deemed to have violated Indonesian law as crocodiles are a protected animal.The…

A group of scientists have uncovered a new chapter of the “human story” in Southeast Asia thanks to a partially preserved skeleton found in Indonesia that dates back some 7,200 years.A new peer-reviewed study published in the journal Nature analyses the first ancient human genome from Wallacea, an island region between the Sunda Shelf (which includes mainland Southeast Asia and the islands of western Indonesia) and the Australia-New Guinea region.Scientists found and excavated the partially…

Two film partnerships were carrying on a trade with a view to profit, meaning that loss relief was available to individual investors, the Court of Appeal has decided, restoring a decision of the First-tier Tribunal (FTT).

Organisations will be able to transfer personal data from the UK to the US more freely than they are able to currently under plans outlined by the UK government.

A Royal Navy task force headed by aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth held its first naval drill earlier this week with the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force off Okinawa, as part of Britain’s bid to join the US and its allies in an expanded role in Indo-Pacific security.The exercise involved the aircraft carrier and HMS Defender and HMS Kent, accompanied by the Dutch warship HNLMS Evertsen, the USS The Sullivans and USS New Orleans as well as the Japanese destroyer Asahi.Tuesday’s exercise…

“William” is refusing to take a coronavirus vaccine because he fears Indonesia’s military will use the country’s inoculation programme to poison him and wipe out his fellow Papuans.Decades of conflict, racism and human rights abuses are fuelling Covid-19 conspiracy theories among his neighbours at a time when their breakaway region is facing a renewed threat from the pandemic.“I won’t take a vaccine if it’s brought here by Indonesia,” said William, who asked not to use his real name.He said…