The ‘blue economy’ concept — a model of sustainable development concerned with the use of the coastal and marine ecosystem — gained prominence in Indonesia as one of the main components of President Joko (Jokowi) […]
Forest fires sweeping across Sumatra and Kalimantan in recent months prompted six Indonesian provinces to declare a state of emergency. Yet the scale of resources devoted to fighting and preventing forest fires remains far short of […]
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Ministerial Statement on November 11, 2017 in Vietnam was a big relief for the remaining 11 members of the TPP, especially for Japan and Australia, who have spearheaded the new agreement after the […]
Malaysia’s fourteenth general elections are looming. This time, almost unprecedentedly, they will see the two great Malay political parties — the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and the Malaysian Islamic Party (Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS)) — […]
2017 was a horrible year for Singapore’s government — and for Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in particular, which began with an open and vocal stoush with China. Late in 2016 the Chinese government confiscated millions of […]
In 2017 economists Carl Frey and Michael Osborne concluded that 47 per cent of jobs in the United States were at high risk of workplace automation. A range of replications and extensions have made similar claims. […]
Singapore’s new President, Halimah Yacob, is a widely liked and respected former speaker of parliament, as well as the first female ever and first Malay in five decades to become the largely ceremonial head of […]
On 16 September, police broke up an academic discussion at the offices of renowned activist NGO the Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation (LBH). The topic was the killings of alleged leftists in 1965 and 1966 in […]
The Thai junta is unhappy with Thailand’s current economic paradigm and is attempting to shift the fundamental base of the country’s economy. Various branches of the Thai state are attempting to create what is vaguely […]
After 25 years of rhetoric about state-owned enterprise (SOE) reform in Vietnam it appears that there is finally some real progress. PetroVietnam, Vietnam Airlines, Vinatex (the textile conglomerate), and Saigon and Hanoi Alcohol Beer and […]
The Philippines is on the front line of China’s entry into a strategic theatre in Asia that has been dominated by the United States since World War II. Its experience of China’s rise is a […]
As Asean turns 50 how much closer is it towards achieving economic integration? And can it do a better job of hastening reforms and binding Asean member states to their commitments at a time of […]