Asian Legal Review

Myanmar’s government said it has repatriated the first family of Rohingya refugees, among 700,000 who fled a brutal crackdown, but the move was slammed by rights groups as a publicity stunt which ignored warnings over the security of returnees.
The stateless Muslim minority has been massing in squalid refugee camps across the border in Bangladesh since the Myanmar army launched a ruthless campaign against the community in northern Rakhine state last August.
The UN says the operation…

A traditional Japanese card game has been given a new spin by an expert on midwifery as a fun way to teach students about sex and dating etiquette.
Minako Saho of Osaka Prefecture University in western Japan came up with a version of “karuta” in 2013 to help create a more relaxed classroom environment for teachers and students to discuss what can for some be an awkward topic.
Traditionally played during New Year celebrations, karuta uses cards with poems or proverbs on them. It…

The former US ambassador to Vietnam has said he resigned last year in opposition to a Trump administration plan to deport more than 8,000 Vietnamese people, most of whom are refugees.
Ted Osius, who worked in the US foreign services for 30 years, said the Trump administration asked him to press Vietnam’s government to accept the deportees – who had mostly fled the country after the fall of Saigon in 1975.
“The majority targeted for deportation – sometimes for minor…

Plans to open up China’s financial sector to foreign investment will be accelerated, with some of the existing restrictions due to be lifted “in the next few months”, the governor of central bank the People’s Bank of China (PBC) has announced.

ANALYSIS: The recent announcement by the UK’s Export Control Organisation (ECO) of a six-figure compound penalty for unlicensed exports signifies an increase in both export control enforcement and in the penalties being imposed.

ANALYSIS: A recent decision under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) by France’s highest court appears to signal a return to a literal interpretation by the French courts of international treaties.

Australia’s Mary River Turtle – with its green Mohican-style hair and ability to breathe through its genitals – is one of the world’s most distinctive reptiles.
It is also now officially among the most endangered.
The “punk turtle” was this week ranked 29th on the Zoological Society of London’s Evolutionary Distinct and Globally Endangered list, triggering calls for better protection of the reptile found in a remote part of Australia’s east coast…

In the not too distant future, surveillance cameras sitting atop more than 100,000 lamp posts in Singapore could help authorities recognise faces in crowds across the city state.
The plan to install the cameras, which will be linked to facial recognition software, is raising privacy fears among security experts and rights groups. The government said the system would allow it to “perform crowd analytics” and support anti-terror operations.
GovTech, the Singapore government agency in…

The Philippines and China are forging ahead with plans for joint oil and gas exploration in the disputed South China Sea, even as both sides recognise and accept each other’s firm “red lines” in protecting their sovereignty claims.
In an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post, the Philippine Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said a firm guarantee from Beijing that it would not build new installations on Scarborough Shoal – a rocky outcrop claimed by…

The UK government is to consider whether the powers that the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has at its disposal are fit for the digital age as part of a major review of the UK’s competition law framework.