News

SARS-related viruses infect thousands in Asia every year: Study

About 66,000 people in Southeast Asia are infected each year with SARS-related coronaviruses, and nearly 500 million people live near habitats where bat hosts of those viruses are found, according to a new study. The research, published by Nature Communications on Wednesday, said viral transmission from ...

Al Jazeera

How Asia’s Rice Producers Can Help Limit Global Warming

The United States and European Union want countries from around the world to join them in slashing methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030. The recent EU-U.S. pledge recognizes that rapid reductions in methane emissions are critical to limiting global temperature rise to within 1.5 ...

Oliver Frith, Reiner Wassmann, and Bjoern Ole Sander

Bringing Clean Air to 4 Billion People in Asia

As the lives lost to COVID-19 edge closer to 5 million globally, policymakers have demonstrated sharply growing interest in how protecting biodiversity, mitigating climate change, and addressing other planetary crises can improve public health. One planetary crisis that benefited temporarily from COVID-19 lockdowns but requires ...

Kaoru Akahoshi and Eric Zusman

Finance firms plan to close coal plants in Asia

Some of the world’s biggest financial institutions are working on a plan to speed the closure of coal-fired power plants in Asia, the BBC has been told. The initiative was developed by UK insurer Prudential, is being driven by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and includes ...

Press freedom more important than ever in the Asia–Pacific

The current Covid-19 pandemic has had an alarming impact on press freedom. Over the past 18 months, governments across the Asia–Pacific have – knowingly or not – used the health crisis to restrict the flow of information, stifling the press freedom that underpins societies and ...

OLIVIA PIRIE-GRIFFITHS

Is IoT the solution to Asia’s aquaculture problems?

Rising populations mean a growing demand for food, and that’s putting more and more pressure on the agriculture sector tasked with providing it. Faced with a crisis, like many other industries, it’s turning to technology as a source of innovation. IoT sensors and systems have been utilized to ...

Joe Devanesan

Melting glaciers could destabilize Asia

Hundreds of millions of people across South and Southeast Asia depend on waters that originate in the long-frozen reaches of the Tibetan plateau. Yet, a sobering study shows that the melting of Himalayan glaciers has doubled in the last decade. The glaciers have been losing the equivalent ...

Jackson Ewing

Dozens of companies launch US$1 billion bid to end plastic pollution in Asia but environmentalists dismiss it as ‘greenwashing’ stunt

The “Alliance to End Plastic Waste” (AEPW) consortium of more than 30 companies launched last month, dedicating a combined total of US$1 billion over the next five years – aiming for US$1.5 billion if more conglomerates join – to develop better plastic recycling practices and ...

How wasps saved Asia’s forests

In our recent study, we combined field observations and satellite imagery to show how the tiny pest-killing lopezi wasp (Anagyrus lopezi) helped combat deforestation in Thailand, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Vietnam by controlling a pest that was devastating cassava crops across the region. Keep reading ...

In Asia's space-starved cities, urban planners bring 'dead' land to life

Urban planners and authorities in fast expanding Asian cities are increasingly turning to unused land underneath bridges, flyovers and viaducts to create much-needed public spaces. With rapid urbanization, a construction boom in South and Southeast Asian cities is resulting in more offices, houses and apartments, ...

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