Asian Legal Review

Japan’s Defence Minister Takeshi Iwaya said on Saturday Tokyo will invite commissioned air force officers from every member state of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to observe Air Self-Defence Force training.
“The Indo-Pacific region is facing complicated security issues and we need to collectively deal with them,” Iwaya told an Asean meeting in Singapore with his counterparts from the Asean region, an area in which China has been increasing its influence. Iwaya…

The majority of businesses are not yet “fully compliant” with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), according to a survey carried out by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP).

EU and US officials have begun the second annual review of the Privacy Shield, an important framework that facilitates the free flow of personal data across the Atlantic for businesses.

Unclaimed urns containing ashes of the dead are piling up by the thousands across Japan, creating storage headaches and reflecting fraying family ties and economic pressures in a rapidly ageing nation.
The identities of the dead, cremated at public expense, are usually known. But in most cases, relatives either refuse or do not respond to requests to collect their remains. Burials can be costly and time-consuming, a burden on family members who may hardly know the deceased relative.
“When…

The crumbling lakeside villa, which served as Aung San Suu Kyi’s prison for 15 years during her house arrest, has become the source of a bitter family dispute between the Myanmar state counsellor and her brother.
Suu Kyi’s estranged older brother, Aung San Oo, an engineer who lives in the United States, has submitted an appeal at the Supreme Court, petitioning for the auction of the home and a share of the proceeds.
While the two-storey villa has long fallen into disrepair, Aung San…

Financial institutions need to ask additional questions to prevent residence and citizenship by investment schemes being used as tools to hide assets from the tax authorities, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has said.

ANALYSIS: A new bill recently introduced to the Australian Senate would give the construction industry a statutory basis to challenge tender decisions as a result of non-compliance with the Commonwealth Procurement Rules (CPR).

About 6,000 people have been evacuated following a landslide in Tibet that blocked the flow of one of the region’s key rivers, China’s emergency services said on Thursday.
A barrier lake was formed on the Yarlung Tsangpo, the headwater of India’s Brahmaputra River, after the Wednesday morning collapse of a cliff in the deep valley through which the river flows, the local emergency response bureau said in a report carried by state media.
No deaths or injuries have been reported…

Susi Pudjiastuti, Indonesia’s minister for fisheries and maritime affairs, has a strong message for China, owner of the world’s largest fishing fleet.
“What they are doing is not fishing, it is transnational organised crime,” she tells This Week in Asia after a press conference in Jakarta. “You should write that. They need to understand.”
The straight-talking, self-made businesswoman, who is known as much for her chain-smoking and tattoos as her no-nonsense…

Singapore on Wednesday announced stricter guidelines on the maximum number of units in new blocks of private flats and condominiums in a move to tackle what authorities have called “excessive development of shoebox units” in the island-state.
The guidelines, which apply to applications for developments outside the central area received on or after January 17 next year, tighten rules first introduced in 2012.
Malaysia considers reviving Mahathir’s ‘crooked bridge’…