Asian Legal Review

Pakistan’s prime minister pledged his country’s cooperation in fighting Islamist militants during talks on Tuesday with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who insisted Pakistan do more to curb support for terrorist groups or face US reprisals.
“The US can rest assured that we are strategic partners in the war against terror and that today, Pakistan is fighting the largest war in the world against terror,” Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi told Tillerson just before…

Mandatory mediation could be extended to cover a wider range of employment disputes, Singapore’s minister for manpower has announced.

Ride-hailing firm Grab is calling for the Malaysian government to offer subsidies for trips to and from designated transit stations and public amenities, including trips to government hospitals, sports hubs, libraries and Urban Transformation Centre venues in Budget 2018, to be announced on Friday. “This will help increase mobility and support public transportation with first mile and last mile gaps, especially in underserved populations. Eventually, together with the government, we…

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson got a frosty welcome to Pakistan on Tuesday after Washington turned up the heat on Islamabad for allegedly providing “safe havens” for Taliban militants.
America’s top diplomat was quietly greeted by a mid-level Pakistani Foreign Office official at the military airport in the garrison city of Rawalpindi – a welcome devoid of the pomp that usually marks high-level visits.
He was then driven in a convoy of Land Cruisers amid tight…

Residents of a southern Philippine city where Islamic State (IS) supporters waged a brutal five-month battle began returning home on Tuesday, but gunfire greeted them as soldiers scoured devastated neighbourhoods for remaining militants.
Defence chiefs announced on Monday that the fighting, which claimed more than 1,100 lives and left the eastern half of Marawi in ruins, had ended following a final clash in a mosque in which dozens of gunmen were killed.
The militants had occupied Marawi, the…

Participation in the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA’s) regulatory sandbox is helping firms to attract investment for their innovations, the regulator has said.

The UN opened a major fundraising conference on Monday aimed at securing hundreds of millions of dollars aid groups say is needed to care for Myanmar’s Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
More than 600,000 people from the Muslim minority group have fled violence in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state since August.
That has taken the total number of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh to an estimated 900,000, including those who fled before the latest surge in violence.
The pledging conference…

A mining company under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has been granted the right to appeal a High Court decision over its rights to litigation privilege.

Malaysia has asked Interpol to try to locate a Malaysian financier for questioning over his suspected involvement in a multibillion-dollar scandal at state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), the deputy prime minister said on Monday.
The US Justice Department is seeking to seize US$1.7 billion in assets that it said were bought with misappropriated funds from 1MDB, according to dozens of civil lawsuits filed by the department in the past two years.
The assets include a private jet, a…

Philippine troops on Sunday were battling a final group of about 30 pro-Islamic State group militants who were surrounded in one building with all their hostages gone as a nearly five-month siege neared its end in southern Marawi city, a military official said.
Army Colonel Romeo Brawner said troops were aiming to end the crisis before midnight on Sunday.
He said the battle area was around a two-floor building near Lake Lanao where the firefight continued to rage at noon.
“Our government…