News

Scientists and experts in the region under an umbrella, Campaign for Nature, a coalition of more than 100 conservation organizations around the world including the Wyss Campaign for Nature and National Geographic Society, have called for Asean leaders to publicly throw their support to save ...

ASEAN, as a regional bloc, needs to take full ownership of the issues surrounding the Mekong River’s environmental crisis instead of relegating it to be of sub-regional importance for fear of displeasing Beijing, said researchers at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. “The Mekong River ecosystem is on ...

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) released their annual ranking of the global state of press freedom earlier this month and Countries in Southeast Asia did poorly—none of the 11 countries in the ASEAN bloc scored above RSF’s “difficult situation” designation. RSF ranks countries based on a questionnaire given to ...

The European Union has imposed sanctions on 10 of Myanmar’s military leaders, as well as two giant military conglomerates, in its toughest measures yet against the February 1 coup and the bloody crackdown on protesters demanding the return of the elected government. Announcing the sanctions on ...

After the European Union became a “strategic partner” of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc in December 2020, both blocs pledged to make climate change policy a key area of cooperation. The EU, already the largest provider of development assistance to the ASEAN region, has committed ...

In Southeast Asia, as everywhere else, Covid-19 has fundamentally disrupted business as usual. A damaging side-effect of the pandemic on companies in the region, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), is the emergence of new corruption risks – the urgent demands of emergency procurement have ...

The ambassadors of Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia have called for greater support from the U.S. and the ASEAN regional bloc to address urgent environmental threats to the Mekong River. They also emphasized the need for improved water data sharing by all countries on the river, ...

Laos has become the only country in ASEAN with zero deaths attributed to the Covid-19 coronavirus. Until last week, Cambodia and Laos had each recorded zero deaths from the Coronavirus, despite differing strategies for Covid prevention and control. Cambodia suffered its first death from Covid-19 last Thursday ...

On January 12, the United States and Vietnam co-hosted the first Friends of the Mekong Policy Dialogue under the new Mekong-U.S. Partnership.  In his remarks, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Ambassador Atul Keshap emphasized that the United States ...

South Korea and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have agreed to launch a working-level dialogue to strengthen cooperation in protecting the environment and tackling climate change, the foreign ministry said Wednesday.  The two sides have wrapped up weeks of discussions to establish the “South ...