Asian Legal Review

Businesses and manufacturers will be held more responsible for the costs of recycling packaging and products in England under plans put forward by the government.

Communist guerillas abducted two soldiers and at least a dozen militiamen in an attack on an army base in the south of the Philippines on Wednesday, officials said.
Government forces are trying to track down about 80 New People’s Army rebels who took the hostages in a predawn attack on an army patrol base near Sibagat town in Agusan del Sur province, according to Military Chief of Staff General Benjamin Madrigal Junior. The guerillas seized more than 20 assault rifles and two-way radio…

A British man who was arrested in Bali for possession of cannabis oil says he is now living a “terrible nightmare” and faces a jail term of up to 15 years.
Pip Holmes, 45, was arrested on December 3 for possession of what he described as “a tiny amount of THC oil”, which he had sent to him in Indonesia to help with his arthritis pain. He was one of five people arrested by Indonesian police for alleged drug smuggling last week in Denpasar, the capital of Bali province….

The official death toll from Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drugs campaign has surpassed 5,000, authorities said on Tuesday.
Government figures covering the period from July 1, 2016, when the campaign was launched, to November 30 this year show that 5,050 people have been killed. A total of 164,265 “drug personalities” were arrested as part of 115,435 anti-drugs operations across the country during the reporting period.
Derrick Carreon, spokesman of the…

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has confirmed it is to make it easier for victims of authorised push payment (APP) fraud to make a complaint about a transaction.

Company directors in the UK can now be fined up to £500,000 if their businesses engage in unsolicited marketing activity.

At least six people died and 129 others were injured in a fire that broke out on Monday in a hospital in Mumbai, India’s financial and entertainment capital, police said.
The fire in the five-floor government-run ESIC Kamgar Hospital in the suburban Andheri area was believed to have been caused by an electrical short circuit, said police officer A.P. Lokhand. It took 10 engines to bring the fire under control, while 15 ambulances rushed the injured to other hospitals, Lokhand said.
Modi…

A lawyer representing a Khmer Rouge leader who was sentenced to life imprisonment last month is threatening to seek up to US$1 million in damages over his dismissal by the international tribunal that handed down the sentence.
Victor Koppe was dismissed on Thursday on the advice of Cambodia’s bar association, which said that the Dutch national had not been a member of the bar in the Netherlands for nearly three years and should not therefore be practising law in Cambodia. He nonetheless…

Japanese police say more than 40 people have been injured in an explosion at a restaurant in northern Japan.
The blast occurred in Toyohira Ward in Sapporo, the capital city of Japan’s northern main island of Hokkaido. Police say 41 people were injured, most of them mildly, though one is in serious condition. They are being treated at nearby hospitals.
Television pictures showed the restaurant in flames.
There was no immediate word on the cause of the blast, which local media said caused…

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Sunday criticised Australia’s move to recognise West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, saying countries had “no rights” to do so. At the same time, Israel complained that Canberra’s move was “a mistake”, insisting the whole of the city belongs to the Jewish state.
Australia’s move follows US President Donald Trump’s decision to relocate the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in May, which…