People and government
Bangladesh frees 92 Myanmar fishermen
The Bangladesh government pardoned 92 fishermen of Myanmar out of a good neighbourliness, who were caught for illegally entering into the Bangladesh territorial waters in December last year. According to the Bangladesh embassy in Yangoon, the authorities concerned in Myanmar were notified when the fishermen entered ...
Vietnam dealbook: Malaysia’s Mitra Energy, Thai Union strike M&As
Malaysia’s Southeast Asia-focused oil and gas group Mitra Energy has reached a sales and purchase agreement with Japan’s Teikoku Oil to acquire a 30 per cent interest in Vietnam’s oilfields in the Nam Con Son basin. Meanwhile, Songkla Canning, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Thai Union ...
There is ‘no room’ for the gay community, Indonesia says
Indonesia said on August 10 there was “no room” for the gay community in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, as activists blasted officials for an unprecedented series of LGBT attacks. A wave of angry rhetoric directed at homosexuals earlier this year – including a call to ...
How La Niña could affect the spread of Zika
La Niña is characterized by the cooling of ocean surface waters in the equatorial Pacific and affects many of the same regions as El Niño. Based on previous years, this means above-average rainfall and potential flooding in southern Africa, Southeast Asia, and northern South America, ...
Thai regulator backs sim card plan to track tourists
Thailand’s telecommunications regulator has approved in principle a plan to issue special sim cards to foreign tourists so they can be tracked via their mobile phones. Officials at the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission said the plan would apply to tourists only, backtracking on an earlier ...
ADB sells $1.3 billion in global green bonds to spur climate financing
The Asian Development Bank has raised $1.3 billion to help finance climate change mitigation and adaptation projects with the issue of dual-tranche 3-year and 10-year green bonds, following its inaugural green bond issue in 2015. Last year, ADB announced that it will double its annual climate ...
South-east Asian countries need to step up cooperation to fight extremist terrorism
Countries in South-east Asia need to step up cooperation to fight the threat of extremist terrorism, Minister for Home Affairs K. Shanmugam said at the International Meeting on Counter-Terrorism in Bali. “We need to establish a common understanding of the security threats facing us, the challenge ...
Cambodia standing up for migrant fishermen too late: experts
The government’s Cambodian Human Rights Committee on August 9 sent a request to its counterpart in Thailand to help push the Thai government to implement safety measures to protect Cambodian fishermen working in Thailand in often slave-like conditions, a request advocates said yesterday should have been ...
World Bank staff point to 'leadership crisis' at global lender
Staff at the World Bank delivered a broadside against its sitting president this week, saying the global lender faced a “crisis of leadership” and risked irrelevance on the world stage. The rebuke, made in an open letter from the Bank’s staff association, came as informal talks ...
Singaporean firms find room to grow in Cambodia
Singaporean firms are taking an increasingly close look at the Cambodian market, both as a low-cost offshore production base and as a destination for their goods and services. Ho Meng Kit, CEO of the Singapore Business Federation, which represents 22,500 Singaporean companies, said as Cambodia ...
