ASEAN News

Singapore – Defamation cases he successfully brought against Terry Xu, chief editor of the now-defunct sociopolitical website The Online Citizen (TOC), and the author of a defamatory post, were granted costs and disbursements of S$87,833 by the High Court yesterday. Mr Lee, who sued Mr Xu and Ms Rubaashini Shunmuganathan, was given S$210,000 in total damages by Justice Audrey Lim …

ASEAN – Singapore Samsung CEO Jay Y. Lee pleaded guilty in court on Tuesday to a charge of illegal use of a controlled drug, as legal problems continue to plague the executive despite his August parole release after a bribery conviction. Market observers anticipated a rush of significant choices at Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and its affiliates after Lee’s announcement, …

Philippines – President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration applauded writer Maria Ressa on Monday for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, describing it as “a victory for a Filipina.” Ressa, the creator of the Philippine news site Rappler, along with Dmitry Muratov received the 2021 award for risking the wrath of the Philippines and Russia’s governments in order to expose corruption and misrule. …

India – Indian police said on Sunday that the son of a minister has been detained on preliminary accusations of murder, a week after the deaths of eight people during a farmers’ protest which has caused widespread anger throughout the country. Ashish Mishra was recently arrested in Uttar Pradesh, where he was charged with involvement in the event in the …

China – President Xi Jinping of China recently declared that “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan “would be and can be realized,” days after Chinese aircraft made unprecedented incursions into the democratically ruled island’s air defense zone. Taiwan, which has never officially proclaimed independence, is constantly threatened by China, which regards the island as its own and has promised to take it, …

India -India will re-open for tourists from October 15 after being closed for more than a year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the government said yesterday. The country had suspended all visas for foreigners in March 2020 when the pandemic took off as Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s government imposed a strict lockdown. “After considering various inputs, the MHA (home ministry) …

Singapore – Primary school students will return to school for face-to-face lessons progressively from next week, while the year-end examinations for Primary 3 and 4 students will be cancelled, the Ministry of Education (MOE) said on Thursday (Oct 7). Year-end examinations for Primary 5 pupils will, however, still proceed under strict Covid-19 infection controls, MOE said in a statement. This …

Singapore – Singapore’s parliament has approved a law that gives broad powers to the government to deal with foreign interference that has sparked concern from the opposition and experts about its wide scope and limits on judicial review. The small and open city-state, which says it is vulnerable to foreign meddling, targeted fake news with a far-reaching law in 2019, …

ASEAN – Netflix has scored another success with the new Korean series Squid Game, which is on track to become the streaming service’s highest-rated series of all time. According to co-CEO Ted Sarandos, the Korean dystopian horror thriller is on pace to become the streaming service’s most popular program in a language other than English. Sarandos, who is also Netflix’s …

Russia – Russia’s old imperial dynasty descendant wedded his Italian fiancée in the first royal wedding on Russian territory in more than a century, since tsarist times. Grand Duke George Mikhailovich Romanov married Italian Victoria Romanovna Bettarini at Russia’s old imperial capital St Petersburg’s St Isaac’s Cathedral. The lavish ceremony was performed by Russian Orthodox clergy in front of hundreds …