News

ChatGPT, a generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by OpenAI, provides many new opportunities, yet concerns have been raised over copyright issues as it seems unclear who owns the generated content: the users, tech companies or data owners? ChatGPT generates search results based on the data ...

Human rights groups have welcomed the early release from prison of Nguy Thi Khanh, a prominent Vietnamese climate campaigner. Khanh was incarcerated for allegedly not paying tax on her winnings from the 2018 Goldman Environmental Prize in the summer of 2022, a charge human rights and climate groups have condemned. She ...

The Asia-Pacific region is witnessing a surge in climate action, with nearly all countries in the region committing to achieving net-zero emissions, albeit with varying timeframes and specifics for implementation. One of the primary driving forces behind this growing momentum for climate action is the economic benefits it ...

From 14-16 March 2023, the Sustainable Infrastructure Partnership, which aims to promote the stability, peace, prosperity, and sustainable development of the Mekong sub-region, hosted the Mekong Research Symposium in Chiang Rai, Thailand. The event brought together researchers, civil society organisations (CSOs), donors, and international non-governmental ...

As Singapore looks to establish itself as a carbon services and trading hub, jobs in the green economy to help businesses decarbonise and implement their net-zero strategies are now in hot demand. Firms looking to hire foreigners for certain roles in this sector will find it ...

Dozens of people in coup-hit Myanmar’s central region were killed in airstrikes Tuesday, according to local media reports and a witness contacted by AFP. The country has been in chaos and its economy in tatters since the military seized power in February 2021. The death toll from ...

Myanmar’s ongoing crisis was raised as a possible hindrance to regional cooperation to save the Mekong River, as other countries along the important waterway pledged on Wednesday to strengthen collaboration in efforts to conserve the water resource. At the quadrennial Mekong River Commission (MRC) Summit in ...

The 4th Mekong River Commission Summit, held in Vientiane on 4-5 April 2023, saw heads of state and ministers from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam come together to discuss the sustainable development of Southeast Asia’s greatest river. At its conclusion, the four countries signed the ‘Vientiane Declaration’, in ...

Southeast Asia needs to accelerate decarbonisation of its global value chains (GVCs) as the region could face up to a 30% loss of GDP annually by 2100 due to climate change, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB).  Speaking at a conference in Bali, ADB deputy ...

A Chinese official in a Mekong River intergovernmental body has warned against jumping to conclusions about data on the distressed waterway, saying that politics may get in the way of closer cooperation between upstream and downstream countries along the waterway. “Some parties start with preconceptions, and ...