News
Cybercrime surges above $120-bn in Southeast Asia
THE RAPID growth of Bitcoin-related scams and other cybercrimes has prompted the United Nations to urge member countries, including Thailand, to step up their legal safeguards against potential economic losses. Cybercrime-related losses worldwide top US$600 billion (Bt19.6 trillion), said Julien Garsany, deputy regional representative of ...
Mekong Military Ties in Focus with Border Exchange
Last week, the countries of the Mekong subregion kicked off another iteration of a key friendship border exchange program in Vietnam. Though the event was just one among many developments within the management of border relations between these countries, its significance nonetheless bears noting within ...
Samlot rife with land grabs
Authorities are facing mounting pressure to safeguard the Samlot Protected Area, where villagers and wealthy land-grabbers continue to trespass to start orchards and claim ownership of the plots. The area, which straddles Battambang and Pailin provinces, is jointly protected by the Ministry of Environment and ...
Health care, mobility to take center stage in ASEAN region: experts
Southeast Asia is expected to see greater demand for health care services, for services that increase the mobility of its populations, and for entertainment, experts said Wednesday, attributing these trends to the rise of the middle class in the region and to its relatively young ...
ASEAN: Working toward resilience and sustainability
In the last regular meeting of the ASEAN Committee in Washington (ACW) with the Philippines as chair, I hosted a forum on environmental policy and public-private cooperation that would, hopefully, provide a deeper understanding of the priorities and initiatives toward sustainable and resilient development. Keep reading ...
Rohingya exodus: 132 Asean MPs seek probe
More than 130 Members of Parliament from Asean nations, including two from Singapore, have demanded that Myanmar be investigated by the International Criminal Court (ICC), the most united condemnation from the region since the violence began against the Rohingya a year ago. In a joint statement ...
Illegal migrant workers rounded up – employers fined
The government’s Department of Employment has started rounding up illegal foreign workers following last year’s amnesty. Checks on nearly 50,000 foreign workers at establishments in the past month had led to the arrest of 1,162 illegal workers and the prosecution of 204 law-breaking employers. Keep reading ...
EU firms in Asean see region as having greatest potential
A GROWING majority of European firms in South-east Asia believe further Asean economic integration will be important to their business, with many finding the current pace too slow, the fourth EU-Asean Business Sentiment Survey has found. Keep reading ...
ASEAN faces test in handling China: ex-Indonesian FM
How ASEAN handles China’s rise will be a crucial test for a block which has failed to find its voice as a community on critical issues, a former Indonesian foreign minister said earlier this week. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, has shown “perfect ...
Seizing Opportunity In Southeast Asia's Energy Market
There has been an almost never-ending stream of negative news about Southeast Asia’s energy market, once one of the globe’s most active. A decade of political unrest in Thailand, creeping nationalization in Indonesia, conflict in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, and territorial disputes in Vietnam’s offshore market ...
