Taiwan amended three laws governing sexual harassment in a special session of the legislature after a wave of #MeToo accusations hit the island in June.

The changes approved include higher penalties and longer periods for victims to come forward and report an incident to authorities. The changes are an attempt to address the issues raised by the recent accusations of sexual violence in Taiwan.

Taiwan has three laws governing sexual harassment: one for the workplace, one for schools and one that covers spheres outside those two domains.

Under the workplace law, employers can now be fined up to 1 million New Taiwan Dollars ($31,680) if they fail to address sexual harassment complaints. Employers are also required to report cases to the local division of their labour department.

The education law, amended, explicitly makes it illegal for educators to have a romantic relationship with students under the age of 18. Further, principals and teachers who fail to report to the Ministry of Education a sexual harassment allegation within 24 hours can be fined.

Legislators also extended the penalty for sexual harassment to three years in jail under the Sexual Harassment Prevention Act and raised the heaviest fine to 600,000 New Taiwan dollars ($19,000).

A series dramatising the Lockerbie bombing has been commissioned by the BBC and Netflix nearly 35 years after the flight from London to New York exploded mid-air, the BBC announced .

The British broadcaster and international streaming giant have asked World Productions to make Lockerbie, a six-part drama series based on real events of the December 1988 bombing and the joint Scots-US investigation which followed.

Pan Am flight 103 was flying over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, en-route to JFK airport from Heathrow just days before Christmas, when a bomb exploded in its hold, killing all 259 on board and another 11 on the ground.

The tragedy remains the worst-ever terror attack to take place in the UK. Former Libyan intelligence officer, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, is the only person convicted in relation to the attack so far.

British novelist and screenwriter Jonathan Lee will be the lead writer of the series which was researched and initiated by filmmaker Adam Morane-Griffiths.

Jailed Myanmar civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been pardoned in five criminal cases, though she still faces 14 others.

The announcement was part of an amnesty of more than 7,000 prisoners to mark Buddhist Lent.

Suu Kyi, who has been in detention since she was ousted in a 2021 military coup, has been sentenced to 33 years in jail for a clutch of charges, including corruption, possession of illegal walkie talkies and flouting coronavirus restrictions.

The broadcast said she had been pardoned in five cases but faces 14 others.

Suu Kyi has only been seen once since she was held after the February 1, 2021 putsch -- in grainy state media photos from a bare courtroom in the military-built capital Naypyidaw.

The coup plunged the Southeast Asian nation into a conflict that has displaced more than one million people, according to the United Nations.

Pakistan and China  signed six key documents to help undertake the second phase of the USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects under a new model, further cementing the all-weather strategic relations between the "iron brothers".

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng witnessed the signing ceremony held to mark 10 years of the CPEC, a collection of infrastructure and other projects under construction throughout Pakistan since 2013.

The CPEC, which connects Gwadar Port in Pakistan's Balochistan with China's Xinjiang province, is opposed by India as it is being laid through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Malaysia's Deputy Minister of Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives Saraswathy Kandasami  has remarked that the Southeast Asian country was looking to increase food production by purchasing millets from Tamil Nadu and making agriculture profitable.

Brookfield Asset Management has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) to explore opportunities to manufacture renewable energy and decarbonization equipment in Australia.

The purpose of the MoU is to accelerate and de-risk Australia’s energy transition by enabling it to locally produce clean energy equipment, such as PV modules, long-duration battery storage, and components for wind energy. Under the terms of the MoU, Brookfield will work with Reliance to explore avenues of direct capital investment and development of skills, knowledge and expertise in the renewable energy sector of Australia to facilitate the nation’s transition to a net zero future.

Both companies will evaluate the establishment of advanced operations in Australia to make or assemble equipment used in the construction of renewable energy projects supplying equipment to all players in the market including Origin Energy Markets.

Coal India Limited (CIL), India’s largest coal producer, witnessed a growth of 13.4 per cent to 53.6 MTs compared to the same period last year.

The company produced 47.3 MTs of coal in July 2022. Coal India said it is very well on target to achieve annual production as it has produced 229.1 MTs until July 23.

It is up by 10.7 per cent compared to the 207 MTs produced from April to July 2022. CIL’s chase of 780 MTs production in FY 2024 began with an asking growth rate of 10.9 per cent over the 703 MTs that the company produced in FY 2023.

The miner’s total supplies peaked at 58.3 MTs on July 23 posting a strong 7.2 per cent growth over 54.4 MTs on July 22. Its total supplies during April-July 2023 to all-consuming sectors were up to 244.5 MTs clocking 5.7 per cent growth over a high base of 231.2 MTs of the same period last fiscal.

Supplies on a year-on-year basis have witnessed 13.3 MTs expansion during the first four months of the financial year in reference. The company continues to pump higher volumes of coal to the non-power sector (NPS), which at 11.7 MTs in July 2023 grew by a robust 59 per cent.

It supplied 7.4 MTs to the non-power sector in July 2022. Supplies to NPS in April-July 23 grew by a strong 40 per cent to 45.2 MTs compared to 32.2 MTs in the same period last year. The company said with supplies to the power sector stabilized and no pressure of criticality at plants the company could meet the demand of the NPS sector.

CIL supplied 201.5 MTs to the coal-fired plants of the country till July 2023 with a comparative growth of 1per cent. Providing a comfortable buffer to domestic coal-based plants, coal stocks at their end stood at 33 MTs as of July end.

Automated refund of Integrated GST (IGST) on export of pan masala, tobacco, and similar other items will be restricted from October 1, the finance ministry has said.

Exporters of such items will have to approach jurisdictional Tax officers with their refund claims and get them cleared, as per a notification dated July 31.

The changes in the notification will come into effect from October 1.

Tax experts said the move is aimed at checking tax evasion in the sector, as there might be over-valuation of goods which are being exported, thus leading to higher IGST refund outgo.

Manual checking of refunds will ensure that valuation is optimally done and taxes are paid at all stages.

The items on which automated IGST refund restriction has been imposed include pan masala, unmanufactured tobacco, hookah, gutkha, smoking mixtures for pipes and cigarettes and other items, including mentha oil.

Such items attract 28 per cent IGST, plus a cess.