Tag: Region Asias

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak fired the chairman of the governing Conservative Party on Sunday for a “serious breach” of ethics rules in failing to come clean about a tax dispute. Sunak had faced days of pressure to sack Nadhim Zahawi amid allegations he settled a multimillion-dollar unpaid tax bill while he was in charge of the country’s Treasury. The…

North Korea on Sunday criticized for a second day a U.S. decision to send Abrams tanks to Ukraine, calling it an “unethical crime” aimed at perpetuating an unstable international situation. Washington’s allegations that North Korea has provided arms to Russia are a “groundless rumor” to justify its own military aid to Ukraine, Kwon Chung-keun, director of U.S. affairs at North…

China and the United States exchanged sharp criticism at a World Trade Organization meeting on Friday, with Beijing calling Washington a “unilateral bully” and the U.S. accusing its rival of illegal retaliatory measures. China’s ambassador to the WTO Li Chenggang spoke at a meeting on trade disputes shortly after the United States lodged an appeal against a series of WTO…

The Philippine government said Friday it intended to appeal an International Criminal Court decision to reopen an inquiry into Manila’s brutal anti-drug campaign, which left thousands dead. The Hague-based tribunal launched the inquiry in 2019 but suspended it later that year at the request of the government of then Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, who had launched the crackdown in 2016,…

Turkey’s foreign minister on Thursday accused Sweden of being complicit in a “hate and racist crime” for failing to prevent weekend protests in Stockholm by an anti-Islam and pro-Kurdish groups. Mevlut Cavusoglu also confirmed that a key meeting in Brussels to discuss Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership has been postponed, saying such a meeting would have been “meaningless” in the…

The preservation of plant seeds as a genetic resource is becoming more and more important at a time when many crops are threatened by extinction or lower productive output due to climate change and the destruction of ecosystems through overdevelopment. The shifting of ideal growing zones due to warming across the globe makes the creation of seed banks a cause…

Today, the Justice Department, along with the Attorneys General of California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia, filed a civil antitrust suit against Google for monopolizing multiple digital advertising technology products in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the…

Defence Minister Anita Anand says she has “no news to share” on whether Canada is willing to send some of its battle tanks to Ukraine — should Germany greenlight the export — following a meeting of 50 allied defence leaders this week. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly issued pleas for tanks, although members of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group…

A former high-ranking member of the Russian private military contractor Wagner Group seeking asylum in Norway is in custody on suspicion of entering the Scandinavian country illegally, authorities said Monday. Russian Andrey Medvedev “has been arrested under the Immigration Act and it is being assessed whether he should be produced for detention,” Jon Andreas Johansen of Norwegian immigration police told…

Home finance companies General Commercial Group Pty Ltd (formerly known as Urban Commercial Group) and Eden Capital (Australia) Pty Ltd (formerly known as Southside Lending) have each been penalised $50,000 by the Federal Court for failing to cooperate with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA). General commercial director Dale Brendan Heremaia and his son, Eden Capital director Benjamin Eden Heremaia,…

A former Special Agent in Charge of the FBI New York Counterintelligence Division and a former Soviet and Russian diplomat were arrested Saturday on criminal charges related to their alleged violating and conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and conspiring to commit money laundering and money laundering.

Mun Chol Myong (Mun), 55, a national of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), was sentenced today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to time served of 45 months’ imprisonment for multiple money laundering offenses.

Two businessmen, Vladislov Ospiov, 51, a dual Russian and Swiss national, and Richard Masters, 52, a United Kingdom national, are charged in separate indictments unsealed today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, with facilitating a sanctions evasion and money laundering scheme in relation to the ownership and operation of the Motor Yacht (M/Y) Tango (International Maritime Organization number 1010703), a $90 million, 255-foot luxury yacht owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg.

A complaint was unsealed this morning in federal court in Brooklyn charging Anatoly Legkodymov, a Russian national and senior executive of Bitzlato Ltd. (Bitzlato), a Hong Kong-registered cryptocurrency exchange, with conducting a money transmitting business that transported and transmitted illicit funds and that failed to meet U.S. regulatory safeguards, including anti-money laundering requirements. Legkodymov was arrested last night in Miami…

Britain’s government stood accused Wednesday of actively undermining talks with union leaders in a bid to encourage strike action and depress workers’ wages across the economy. The government was hoping for a public backlash, to justify newly introduced legislation that would force unions to provide a “minimum service” in public sectors, railway union leaders said. The allegation came as ambulance…