Asian Legal Review

The bodies of dozens of students have been pulled from their landslide-swamped church in Sulawesi, officials said Tuesday, as an international effort to help nearly 200,000 increasingly desperate Indonesian quake-tsunami victims ground into gear.
The discovery adds to the already-high death toll from Friday’s disaster, when a powerful earthquake triggered a tsunami that smashed into the seaside city of Palu.
At least 1,234 people are already known to have died, but officials say that…

Desperation exploded into anger Tuesday in the town closest to the epicenter of the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit parts of Sulawesi island four days ago, with residents begging Indonesia’s president to help them as hungry survivors crawled into stores and grabbed boxes of food.
“Pay attention to Donggala, Mr. Jokowi. Pay attention to Donggala,” yelled one resident in footage broadcast on local television, referring to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo….

UK manufacturers are putting investment plans on hold in response to uncertainty over the final outcome of Brexit and fears of the growing trade tensions between the US and China.

55% of FTSE100 companies do not mention how they are managing the risks of tax evasion in their published documents, according to research by Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-law.com.

A new push to decriminalise gay sex in Singapore is gaining force three weeks after the Indian Supreme Court struck down a similar colonial-era law, putting liberalising forces in the Lion City on a collision course with conservative religious groups.
A petition to repeal Section 377A of Singapore’s Penal Code – a law both India and the Lion City inherited from British rule – was submitted to the government on Friday, having gained the signatures of 44,650 Singaporeans and…

Indian authorities on Monday said they had seized assets of fugitive billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi worth some US$87 million, piling pressure on one of the main suspects in a US$1.8-billion fraud at a major state-run bank.
The seized assets included overseas bank accounts and diamond-studded jewellery to the tune of US$3.1 million that had been brought back to India from Hong Kong in 23 shipments, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said.
The jewellery had been shipped out after Indian federal…

China will look to infrastructure investment to insulate its economy from the escalating trade war with the US, according to an infrastructure expert.

A video clip of a Chinese tourist being hit by an airport guard in Thailand has prompted a flurry of apologies and vows to take action, as the government went into damage control over the incident.
China is Thailand’s biggest source of tourists, making up about a quarter of its 35 million annual visitors.
But a boating disaster on the popular island of Phuket in July that killed dozens of Chinese holidaymakers has caused a drop-off in visits and put Thailand on alert for problems that…

Squads of orange-clad rescuers clambered over the tangled remains of an Indonesian hotel Sunday, hoping to dig out 50 to 60 guests still feared trapped by an earthquake-tsunami disaster.
Authorities believe the 80-room Hotel Roa-Roa in the city of Palu on Sulawesi island was near capacity when the district was ravaged by a 7.5 magnitude quake and a tsunami wave Friday.
“It is assumed there are still 50 to 60 people trapped under the rubble,” said disaster agency spokesman Sutopo…

A powerful typhoon pummelled Japan’s southern island of Okinawa on Saturday, injuring at least 17 people, as weather officials warned the storm would rip through the country over the weekend.
Typhoon Trami, packing maximum gusts of 216km/h (134mph) near its centre, was forecast to hit the mainland early on Sunday and cause extreme weather across the country into Monday. Television footage showed branches ripped from trees by strong winds blocking a main street in Naha, with massive waves…