Malaysia has barred controversial Bollywood film Padmaavat from being screened in theatres, the home ministry said on Friday, citing its negative portrayal of a Muslim ruler.
The film has already attracted protests in India, after groups critical of the project accused its director, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, of distorting history by portraying the Muslim ruler as the “lover” of Queen Padmavati of the Hindu Rajput warrior clan.
Last month, India’s top court allowed the film to be…
Online gambling firms urged to raise standards on terms and conditions for bonus promotions
Standards committed to by three gambling operators on the terms and conditions applied to “bonus promotions” set a benchmark that the rest of industry must also meet, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and Gambling Commission have said.
Donald Trump’s preference for ‘bloody nose’ attack on North Korea is clear, analysts claim
The White House’s rejection of Victor Cha for the post of US ambassador to South Korea shows US President Donald Trump is leaning toward launching a “bloody nose” preventive strike against North Korea to force the reclusive country back to the negotiating table, analysts said.
The Trump administration abandoned Cha – a former director for Asian affairs in the White House’s National Security Council and a top adviser for Korean affairs under former US…
Brexit Bill passes first House of Lords hurdle, but real test still to come, says expert
The government’s main piece of legislation on withdrawal from the European Union has cleared its first hurdle in the House of Lords.
Indonesian rubber plantation workers claim self-defence after shooting, beheading endangered orangutan
Two Indonesian men arrested for shooting an orangutan multiple times and then decapitating it before tossing the corpse into a river, have told investigators they acted in self-defence, police said on Thursday.
The suspects, both rubber plantation workers on the island of Borneo, admitted they killed the critically endangered male Bornean orangutan whose headless body was found last month.
Its hair was burned off its body which was riddled with at least 17 bullet wounds.
Pictures of the…
Indonesia poised to criminalise extramarital sex, which would include gay relationships, amid rising tide of religious conservatism
Riding a tsunami of moral conservatism and anti-gay prejudice, Indonesia’s Islamic political parties appear on the cusp of a major victory: outlawing all sex outside marriage.
Revisions to Indonesia’s criminal code being considered by Parliament would allow prison sentences of up to five years for sex between unmarried people. Those changes would also criminalise gay sex, the bugbear of Indonesia’s Islamic and secular political parties.
Rights groups and legal experts fear a…
EU agrees Brexit transition period negotiating guidelines
The UK would be expected to apply EU law “as if it were a member state” during any post-Brexit transition period, EU leaders have said.
Philippines hails US rights remarks, denies state-backed murders
Philippine officials on Wednesday welcomed comments by a US official noting what he described as its improving human rights record in the drugs war, but they denied Manila abetted the extrajudicial killing of suspects.
James A. Walsh, a senior US State Department drug official, said on Tuesday he was “cautiously optimistic” the rights record was improving, even though President Rodrigo Duterte is pressing on with a war on drugs in which law enforcers have killed nearly 4,000…
US drops planned South Korean ambassador ‘because he disagreed with attack on North Korea’
The White House has dropped its planned ambassador to South Korea one month after Seoul was notified of his appointment – because he privately expressed disagreement with the Trump administration’s North Korea policy in late December, sources say.
Victor Cha raised concerns with National Security Council officials over their consideration of a over a limited strike on the North aimed at sending a message without sparking a wider war – a risky concept known as a “bloody…
A £1m fine for broker shows potential shortcomings with group-wide controls and surveillance, says expert
A fine served on an online broker shows that financial firms should not rely solely on group-wide controls and surveillance systems to pick up on suspicious transactions, an expert has said.