BEIJING (BLOOMBERG) – Ant Group and Chinese regulators have agreed on a restructuring plan that will turn Mr Jack Ma’s fintech giant into a financial holding company, making it subject to capital requirements similar to those for banks. The plan calls for putting all of Ant’s businesses into the holding company, including its technology offerings […]
KABUL (REUTERS) – Nearly a third of the people held by Afghan authorities for suspected security and terrorism-related offences are subjected to torture or mistreatment in detention centres, a United Nations report said on Wednesday (Feb 3). The report, released jointly by the UN mission to Afghanistan and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, […]
JAKARTA – The Indonesian government has banned schools throughout the vast country from forcing students or faculty members to don a tudung (Muslim headscarf) or any other religious attribute, saying the prerogative for such lies with the individual not the institution. A joint ministerial decree on this was issued on Wednesday (Feb 3) following a […]
SINGAPORE – The rehabilitation of the 16-year old student influenced by far-right ideology will draw on best practices gained in steering previous youth terror detainees away from extremism, the Internal Security Department(ISD) has said. This includes facilitating his studies – in consultation with his parents and former school – while he is in detention, and […]
SINGAPORE – The prosecution has urged a district court to sentence a British man, convicted of molesting a toddler in Singapore, to at least two years’ jail with four strokes of the cane. Deputy Public Prosecutor Nicholas Khoo told District Judge Chee Min Ping on Wednesday (Feb 3) that the offender, Richard Christopher Monks, 29, […]
BANGKOK – Myanmar’s military government has filed criminal charges against civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi for breaches of import-export laws, according to a police document. She has been remanded in detention until Feb 15, the document said. It said the military had raided her home and found hand-held radios that were illegally imported and […]
SINGAPORE – Terror suspects in Singapore detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA) undergo a rehabilitation process which involves religious, psychological and social aspects. The approach is a “holistic, intensive and long-term one”, the Internal Security Department (ISD) said in a media statement on Wednesday (Feb 3). The statement was the first time the ISD disclosed in […]
SINGAPORE – Singapore, along with Italy, is the most vacation-deprived country in a new survey by travel booking company Expedia. Singaporeans used five fewer vacation days during the pandemic-stricken year of 2020, taking an average of 10 vacation days instead of the usual 15, according to the survey results released on Wednesday (Feb 3). This […]
NEW DELHI (BLOOMBERG) – A year ago, Krishna Ella was simply known for running a small Indian pharmaceutical company with a reputation for scientific rigour. Then came the pandemic that put the scientist and his family at the centre of one of the world’s loudest furores over a coronavirus vaccine. In June last year, India’s […]
HONG KONG (BLOOMBERG) – A record number of Hong Kong residents have relocated to Taiwan following China’s crackdown on the city’s protest movement and the implementation of a controversial new national security law. Newly released figures from Taiwan’s Immigration Agency show that more than 10,800 Hong Kongers received local resident permits in 2020, nearly double […]