Asian Legal Review

Chinese President Xi Jinping is likely to make his first visit to North Korea in April, and the two sides are agreed on the matter, South Korean parliamentary sources told the South China Morning Post.
“Pyongyang and Beijing have reached a general consensus that Xi will visit Pyongyang in April,” said one of the sources, who has close ties to the Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee in Seoul.
North Korea has issued repeated invitations for Xi to visit – including in…

Fresh from celebrating four decades since the downfall of the former Khmer Rouge rulers, Cambodia welcomed several Chinese warships. Just days after last week’s anniversary, the vessels docked in the resort city of Sihanoukville, reviving concerns about the implications of close military ties between the two countries and the possibility China is planning a naval base in the kingdom. Cambodia’s leader Hun Sen swatted away similar rumours about Beijing’s intentions last…

Nissan Chief Performance Officer Jose Munoz, who took a leave of absence a week ago, is leaving, the first high-profile departure at the Japanese carmaker publicly acknowledged as related to the arrest of former Chairman Carlos Ghosn.
Munoz on Saturday said in a statement on LinkedIn he made the decision after serious thinking because the company was “involved in matters that have and will continue to divert its focus”, referring to Ghosn’s case.
Munoz is among several…

Two insurgents believed to be tied to a motorcycle drive-by shooting at a school in Thailand’s south were shot dead Saturday, police said, as Unicef warned of trauma for children near the scene of the lunchtime violence.
Since 2004, clashes between Malay-Muslim rebels and the Buddhist-majority Thai state that annexed the area over 100 years ago have killed nearly 7,000 people, mostly civilians of both faiths.
The conflict rarely makes global headlines but is a reality for residents of…

Many things about Wang Fuman’s life have changed since he became an international sensation a year ago.
Then, he was an eight-year-old who had to walk for an hour in a thin jacket from his grandmother’s mud hut to his freezing cold, poorly-resourced school. His father was working far away, and his mother had deserted the family.
His teacher posted a photo of him arriving at school with his head covered in icicles, a photo that quickly spread on social media and earned him the…

The government is consulting on changes to developer contributions focussed on the operation of the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), which allows local planning authorities to raise funds from new development to help fund local infrastructure.

A Saudi teenager who fled to Thailand over alleged abuse by her family has been granted asylum in Canada, Thailand’s immigration chief told Reuters on Friday.
Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, 18, will be boarding a Korean Air flight from Bangkok to Seoul on Friday night, before boarding a connecting flight to Canada, immigration chief Surachate Hakparn said.
“Canada has granted her asylum. She’ll leave tonight at 11.15pm.”
The office of Canada’s foreign minister however,…

An e-commerce law has come into force in China that seeks to regulate online business, protect intellectual property rights and increase cybersecurity. The law came into force on 1 January

A recent UK Supreme Court decision on the common law meaning of ‘highway’ will have significant implications for property developers, an expert has said.

Footage of a troop of snow monkeys in northeastern Japan making their way across electrical wires has charmed hundreds of thousands of people on Twitter.
The minute-long clip, posted on Monday, shows about 20 Japanese macaques walking across a wire tightrope-style, as though they were circus acrobats. They were apparently heading in the direction of a forest near a residential area. 実家に猿の大群現れたって
母…