Asian Legal Review

Indonesia’s new sovereign wealth fund is exploring investing in several infrastructure projects including 24 toll road concessions worth $2.6 billion, according to Reuters.

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published changes to its rules clarifying how consumer credit lenders and debt collection firms are to comply with the government’s ‘breathing space’ regulations in the context of their obligations under the FCA’s rules .

An influential Australian senator has hit back at Beijing for accusing Canberra of meddling in Hong Kong’s affairs by allowing fugitive ex-lawmaker Ted Hui Chi-fung to enter the country.James Paterson, who chairs the powerful parliamentary security and intelligence committee, on Thursday said immigration policy was a solely a domestic matter for Australia after China blasted Canberra’s decision to accept Hui, a Hongkonger who fled to Europe in December while facing a raft of charges related to…

Myanmar’s military might be “hated” but it needs to be part of the solution to the country’s post-coup crisis, or the nation could become another Libya or Iraq.That is the view of Singapore’s former foreign minister George Yeo, who warned on Wednesday that dissolving the Tatmadaw, as Myanmar’s military is known, would destabilise the Southeast Asian country in the long term.He pointed to how the dissolution of military forces in Iraq and Libya after Western powers invaded in 2003 and 2011…

500 small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore will be given help to digitise their businesses.

The Sunday slayings of nine activists by Philippine security forces show that in his last full year in office, President Rodrigo Duterte is not letting up on the killing spree he started five years ago.In what is now being called “Bloody Sunday”, police and soldiers raided the offices and homes of community organisers in provinces near Manila. They shot dead nine of them – including a married couple – and arrested six.The authorities said caches of weapons and grenades were found, and that the…

Christians in Muslim-majority Malaysia can use the word “Allah” in publications, a court ruled on Wednesday, overturning a decades-old ban after a lengthy legal battle that fuelled religious tensions.The Arabic word for God has long been divisive in Malaysia, with Christians complaining attempts to stop them using it highlight creeping Islamisation. But some Muslims accuse Christians of overstepping boundaries.Wednesday’s case began 13 years ago when officials seized religious materials in the…

The New South Wales state of Australia is investing A$750 million over the next 10 years in emission reduction measures, according to the NSW energy minister Matt Kean.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi said they would work together to realise a free and open Indo-Pacific during a 40-minute phone conversation on Tuesday.The two leaders agreed to boost cooperation bilaterally as well as with the United States and Australia, the Japanese foreign ministry said. Together the four countries make up the Quad, a group of major democracies that have been strengthening security ties as a counter to China’s increasing…

Targeted coronavirus lockdowns were expanded in the Philippine capital on Tuesday and nighttime curfews reintroduced in hotspots as authorities battle a resurgence in infections.The number of new daily cases has soared past 3,000 in recent days – twice as many as two weeks ago and the highest in five months – as more contagious variants of the virus spread.Most of the new cases are in Metro Manila where officials have been quarantining compounds, streets, neighbourhoods and even hotels in a bid…