The Diplomat

As Indonesia faces another year of intensifying peatland fires, longstanding regional tensions around transboundary haze continue to envelop Southeast Asia. Neighboring Malaysia is concerned about the haze’s severity this year, urging joint regional action against rising air pollution levels. Malaysia’s vocal stance on the issue raises the question: ...

Cambodia’s prime minister has stated that the country will not develop any hydropower dams on the Mekong River, reaffirming a moratorium on mainstream dam projects announced in 2020. Speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of a 150-megawatt hydropower dam in the southern province of ...

Vietnam has joined three other Southeast Asian governments in denouncing a new map published by China’s government, which depicted the country’s expansive claims in the South China Sea. The so-called “new standard” map, which was published by China’s Ministry of Natural Resources on August 28, has ...

A bold Cambodian plan to secure World Heritage status along their stretch of the Mekong, where the free-flowing river has sustained some of the world’s greatest biodiversity, could provide much-needed respite to a river in danger of dying from dams and over-exploitation, experts say. In Phnom Penh, the Environment ...

The author Tucker Elliot wrote in “The Rainy Season” about the volatile nature of the Mekong:  “No matter the border, the Mekong has been an indiscriminate giver and taker of life in Southeast Asia for thousands of years. It’s a paradox like civilization’s other great rivers – ...

Southeast Asian foreign ministers acknowledged Thursday that their efforts to bring peace to Myanmar haven’t succeeded and agreed to increase their determination to end violence in the country, where a military takeover last year set off a crisis that threatens to destabilize the region. Recent events ...

With the publication of the ASEAN Digital Masterplan 2025 (ADM 2025), member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have endeavored to promote the digitalization of the region. In this digital transformation process, data is essential because every interaction in the digital world produces and relies on ...

Since its adoption of a market economy in the last 1980s, Vietnam has become what some have referred to as a new “Asian Tiger.” Over the last 25 years, Vietnam’s economy has enjoyed an average annual growth rate of more than 6 percent. Between 1994 and 2014, ...

In recent years, the fate of Southeast Asia’s great river – the Mekong – has attracted growing international scrutiny. The Mekong faces many challenges, from the impacts of climate change and saline encroachment in its delta, to dam developments on the headwaters of the river ...

New research from Cambodia challenges the microfinance industry’s assertions that its loans help farmers to resist the impacts of climate change. In fact, the research argues, microfinance undermines the capacity of farmers to respond to unstable climate conditions. The profit from Cambodia generated by foreign-owned microfinance ...