People and government

Community and conservation groups in Myanmar have branded a planned highway linking a port project to Thailand an “ecological and social disaster”, saying it would uproot indigenous people from their homes and farms. Critics said an environmental and social impact assessment for the road project, ...

An investigator has called on the international body that polices trade in wildlife to crack down on the illegal trafficking of young elephants across borders in south-east Asia. Secretive agents in Laos are sending dozens of animals each year across the country’s land border with China and fly others to the Middle East, earning up ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Save the Mekong, a coalition of non-governmental organizations, community-based groups and concerned citizens within the Mekong region, issued a statement on Friday announcing their intention to boycott the Mekong River Commission’s (MRC’s) Prior Consultation for the proposed Pak Lay dam. Pak Lay is the fourth dam planned ...

Over the past year, Chinese officials reportedly have been surprised by how quickly the Trump administration has undermined U.S. influence in East Asia, creating a leadership void that could potentially be filled—by China. But even before Trump alienated many Asian partners with a mix of ...