A US federal judge who was disciplined after an investigation found that she had sex with a police officer in her chambers and then lied about it wrote a letter to a former law clerk apologising for her “harmful, offensive, and unprofessional behaviour”. An investigation initiated last year by the chief judge of the 11th Judicial Circuit found that US District Judge Eleanor Ross had sex in the courthouse with a high-ranking uniformed police officer within earshot of staff, attended a partisan...

Dan Rae Hugo has never heard of the Asean Petroleum Security Agreement. All he knows is that his diesel costs have doubled, his profit margins have evaporated and the rice on his neighbours’ tables now costs 20 per cent more than it did before the Iran war. The 43-year-old has been farming the fields of Iloilo, the Philippines, for 18 years. He has never worked harder for less. “It’s all the inputs: the diesel, the labour for operating the machines, the transportation when we harvest … It’s the...

Sushila Devi sat sobbing on the floor of her house in Deoria, northern India after authorities told her that her husband was one of three sailors killed in a US attack on a ship off Oman. “If he had told us about the dangers, I would have called him back,” she cried out as women from the family gathered around to console ‌her. “The government should not allow people to go there.” India on Friday took the rare step of lodging a second protest with the US over the strike that took place more than...

Japan’s transport ministry on Friday reprimanded Japan Airlines and urged it to compile preventive measures by July 17 after an incident in which two cabin attendants drank the day before a flight in May, delaying a scheduled flight for about 40 minutes. The female JAL employees had falsely reported in an internal investigation that they had not consumed alcohol in violation of company regulations, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. The ministry determined...

In an era of naval warfare defined by air superiority, precision missiles and autonomous drones, China’s navy appears to be bringing back the “big guns”. A new naval gun system is said to be in development which takes 155mm, or 6.1-inch, artillery shells. That would make it the largest of its kind in the world today. The naval gun has recently been spotted undergoing sea-based performance testing from an experimental warship, which suggests it is moving closer to being deployed by the People’s...

The Philippines’ confrontational approach to maritime territorial disputes, such as its championing of the 2016 South China Sea arbitration ruling, has not only failed to resolve regional tensions, it also risks undermining Asean centrality. In May, addressing Japan’s National Diet, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr announced that Manila would mark the ruling’s 10th anniversary in July, an occasion he said “embodies our determination to resolve disputes through peaceful means”. That is...

Inside a sprawling broadcast hub in Dallas, thousands of devices supplied by Lenovo are helping Fifa manage and distribute content from stadiums across the United States, Canada and Mexico, forming part of the technological backbone of the largest World Cup ever staged. The central role played by the Chinese-founded technology company highlights a reality often obscured by geopolitical tensions between Washington and Beijing: while US policymakers have increasingly scrutinised Chinese technology...