CIA's 'harsh interrogations' exceeded legal authority

A classified U.S. Senate report found that the CIA's legal justification for the use of harsh interrogation techniques that critics say amount to torture was based on faulty legal reasoning, McClatchy news service reported on Thursday.
Link

Japan opposition fears Abe 'destabilizing' region

Japan's main opposition leader chided Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for conservative statements on war history and voiced fear he could be a "destabilizing" factor in East Asia.
Link

CIA misled on interrogation program, Senate report says

A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee concludes that the CIA misled the government and the public about aspects of its brutal interrogation program for years — concealing details about the severity of its methods, overstating the significance of plots and prisoners, and taking credit for critical pieces of intelligence that detainees had in fact surrendered before they were subjected to harsh techniques.
Link

Neville Maxwell interview: the full transcript

In his first interview after a Snowden-style disclosure of the contentious secret report on the 1962 China-India war, Neville Maxwell tells Debasish Roy Chowdhury of the South China Morning Post what the 50-year-old document means for the future of China-India relations.

Neville Maxwell discloses document revealing that India provoked China into 1962 border war

Journalist’s Snowden-like revelations about 1962 war boost China’s claims of ‘peaceful rise’

China seizes $14.5 billion assets from family, associates of ex-security chief - sources

Link

Legendary "Kin Kin Chilli Pan Mee" Opens in Singapore

Link

NSA infiltrates servers of China telecom giant Huawei

The U.S. National Security Agency has infiltrated servers in the headquarters of Chinese telecommunications and internet giant Huawei Technologies Co, obtaining sensitive information and monitoring the communications of top executives, the New York Times reported on Saturday.
Link

Russia won’t take an unreliable West at its word

The revival of East-West tension over Ukraine looks thoroughly geopolitical. But the context is bad economics. In the last century, Russia was damaged by flawed ideologies which originated in the West. And today it is damaged by Western economic policy.

‘No link’ between pilot’s politics and loss of Flight 370

Reports linking the pilot’s political affiliation to the plane’s disappearance were dismissed as wild, groundless allegations by the Malaysian opposition People’s Justice Party, of which the captain is a life member.

Police too soft on foreign workers in area: Shopkeepers

A group of shopkeepers in Little India who witnessed the violence unfold on Dec 8 told the Committee of Inquiry (COI) yesterday that the police have been too soft on foreign workers who congregate in the area.

Donnino Rossetti, Italian restaurant owner jailed for attacking cabby in Singapore

Shanghai men attracted to plump women

A survey by a matchmaking website has confirmed a long-held suspicion — that Shanghai men prefer chubby, well-rounded women compared to their brethren elsewhere in China.

Poorest doc jailed for big money transfers to lover

How China's official bank card is used to smuggle money

Growing numbers of Chinese are using the country's state-backed bankcards to illegally spirit billions of dollars abroad, a Reuters examination has found.
Link

10 Stunning Spas You Won’t Believe Exist in Singapore

Link

Japanese historians slam sex-slave apology review

A group of Japanese historians on Friday stood behind their government's 1993 apology over wartime sex slavery, slamming Tokyo's possible move to revise it as "unforgivable".
Link

The golden fields of Luoping

 

Link

The international law basis behind China’s claims

Many have called on China to base its claims in the South China Sea on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos). In fact, Unclos might not be the proper forum for China’s claims. Customary international law, which recognises historical claims of the kind China is putting forth, might be a more apt avenue.

Former NUS law don Tey Tsun Hang acquitted of corruption charges on appeal

Former National University of Singapore law professor Tey Tsun Hang, who was previously convicted in a sex-for-grades scandal, was on Friday morning acquitted of all his charges in Singapore’s High Court on appeal.
Link