News
China's plan to buy influence and undermine democracy
[] To enhance its economic and political clout, China has made substantial inroads across Southeast Asia on the back of multi-billion-dollar infrastructure and investment deals like the one in Cambodia. This is how China will engage with the world for the foreseeable future. At the ...
Philip Heijmans
Startups tapped to rescue disaster-prone ASEAN region
From crowdfunding platforms to drones, chatbots, and artificial intelligence, emerging startups in ASEAN are leveraging on their existing technologies and business models to solve the region’s most urgent problems through a competition called “Startups to the Resque.”[] According to the 2016 World Risk Index by the United ...
Joie Cruz
Firms act on ocean plastic from Southeast Asia
Two initiatives involving industry aim to stop ocean plastic pollution at the source.[] The project aims at the root of the problem, the partners say. They say only five countries—China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam—are responsible for 8 million metric tons of ocean plastic ...
Alexander H. Tullo
Khon Kaen flooding worsens
Flooding has spread in this northeastern province, with a village of about 150 houses and 5,000 rai of ricefields now under water. The floods came after Ubonrat Dam on Sunday began to discharge water at the rate of 46 million cubic meters per day. Keep ...
Chakraphan Nathanri
Water resource bill: death of small-scale rice farmers?
[] Last month, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE) introduced a Water Resource Bill. Although the bill seems to target large industries, the bill will also charge 0.50 baht per cubic metre of water from rice farmers with more than 50 rai (8 ...
China’s cooling economy is a warning for ASEAN
As China heads into its Party Congress next week, concerns have been surfacing over the past few months about the state of the world’s second-largest economy, which has implications not just for Beijing but also neighboring Southeast Asian states. The recent downgrading by Standard & Poor’s (S&P) ...
Luke Hunt
ASEAN to smoothen land, sea and air movements between member states
Speaking at the opening of the Asean Transport Ministers Meeting on Thursday (Oct 12), Mr Teo said that on Friday, ministers from the 10 member states will be signing an Asean Framework Agreement on the Facilitation of Cross-Border Transport of Passengers by Road Vehicles (CBTP). Keep ...
Christopher Tan
Mekong countries to seek sustainable tourism by training Cultural Heritage Specialist Guides
The ASEAN-Korea Centre (Secretary General Kim Young-sun) will organize the ‘Mekong Sub-regional Capacity Building Workshop on Cultural Heritage’ from 15 to 20 October in Luang Prabang, Lao PDR. The Workshop will gather government officials in charge of training the cultural heritage specialist guides and developing ...
Eleven Myanmar News Staff
Drug-resistant malaria is spreading, but experts clash over its global risk
In what scientists call a “sinister development,” a malaria parasite resistant to a widely used drug combination is on the march in Southeast Asia. It has rapidly made its way in an arc from western Cambodia, through northeastern Thailand, to southern Laos; now it has ...
Leslie Roberts
Belt and Road shields Myanmar from Beijing’s capital crackdown
Beijing recent crackdown on outbound investments does not affect Myanmar because of its involvement in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The sectors targeted by the restriction do not concern investment projects here, which are mostly infrastructure and energy-related. Keep reading ...
Thompson Chau