Asian Legal Review

Vietnam issued arrest warrants and placed two top telecom bosses under investigation on Wednesday for suspected involvement in a loss-making private TV deal, authorities said, as a crackdown on corruption gathers pace.
A conservative leadership that came to power in the one-party state in 2016 has carried out the sweeping campaign, going after high-rolling executives once thought to be untouchable in Vietnam, one of Asia’s most corrupt countries.
Is Vietnam’s new leader taking cues…

Businesses in Singapore that come under fire for the innovative way they use personal data will generally be immune from enforcement action in the city state if its data protection authority has previously endorsed the activities, the authority has said.

Japan’s Cabinet approved a bill on Tuesday to assign one-off holidays related to the imperial succession next year, creating a 10-day “golden week” holiday period from late April.
Once the bill clears the Diet, May 1 – the day when Crown Prince Naruhito will ascend the imperial throne – will become a holiday.
With April 29 and May 3-6 already assigned as national and public holidays in 2019, April 30 and May 2 would also become public holidays as a result, as Japanese law…

The death of a 13-year-old boy, knocked out during a Thai boxing match, has inflamed debate about whether children should be allowed to take part in a dangerous sport that many of them see as their only chance of escaping poverty.
Anucha Kochana was pronounced dead from a brain haemorrhage on Monday after he was knocked out in a match on the outskirts of Bangkok on Sunday evening.
Thai boxing, or Muay Thai as it is known, is a passion in Thailand with millions of boys dreaming of glory in the…

The Pakistani government, already struggling with a crisis surrounding a Christian woman acquitted of blasphemy charges after eight years on death row, now has to deal with “fake” images on social media purporting to show her outside the country.
The deceptive images have prompted death threats to a lawmaker shown in one photograph, and are likely intended to whip up radical religious fervour over Asia Bibi’s case. It is unclear who is behind the circulation of the images….

South Korea has sent 200 tonnes of tangerines to the North in return for mushrooms Pyongyang gave earlier, Seoul said on Monday, in the latest reconciliatory gesture between the neighbours.
Seoul is pushing ahead with a rapprochement with the nuclear-armed North while its security ally the US insists pressure on Pyongyang should be maintained until it denuclearises.
The tangerines – a rarity in the North – were being airlifted to Pyongyang from the southern island of Jeju, where…

Australia’s prime minister Scott Morrison has announced that the country is to set up a A$2 billion fund to support infrastructure development across the Pacific Region.

Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), led by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, on Sunday unveiled a major shake-up of its top leadership before an expected handover of power by 2020.
Internal elections by the party saw five heavyweights including Lee’s popular deputy Tharman Shanmugaratnam – once seen as a potential successor – and Teo Chee Hean – another deputy prime minister – step down from the PAP’s Central Executive Committee (CEC)….

Chequebook diplomacy is gaining ground in Asia as China, Japan and the United States compete for economic and strategic influence in the region.
The latest case is Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s offer of 200 billion yen (US$1.75 billion) in aid to help wean Malaysia off what has become its financial dependence on China.
Malaysia will use the aid, in the form of a loan, to replace some of its debt to China, whose lending to Malaysia and others for the Belt and Road Initiative has…

A Sri Lankan student who was detained in an Australian “supermax” prison on terrorism charges that were later dropped has criticised the “embarrassing and biased” police investigation against him.
Mohamed Kamer Nilar Nizamdeen, 25, was arrested in August and charged with creating a document in connection with preparing for a terrorist act.
Police claimed a notebook found in a workspace sometimes used by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) PhD student laid out a…