The largest democracy in Southeast Asia is gearing up for its upcoming elections season. Indonesians will go to the polls twice, once this year and once again in the following year. The country’s local elections will be held first and is slated for 27 June, this year. These elections are being held to elect 17 governors, 39 mayors and 115 regents across Indonesia. Meanwhile, the Presidential elections will be held on 17 April, 2019.

Elon Musk famously compared the dangers of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to that posed by nuclear; an indication, he said, of the urgent need for regulation of the field. At present, the difficulty of regulating AI as a whole may largely rest in the lack of any one single definition of what artificial intelligence is, which encompasses a wide range of technologies and hence, applications.

Bitcoin started the week badly, as prices for the popular cryptocurrency fell 7% to dip below US$8,000. The sudden sell-off follows from Twitter’s decision to ban advertising for cryptocurrencies. Twitter is joined by Facebook and Google who have both banned advertisements for initial coin offerings and token sales on their respective platforms.

In tandem with a renewable energy policy, energy efficiency will be key to building a reliable and sustainable energy system for the future of Southeast Asia. Energy efficiency refers to the reduced rate of energy consumption in order to produce the same amount of output.

Last year, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump were hurling kindergarten insults at each other – “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission,” said Trump of Kim; “mentally deranged US dotard,” Kim retorted – while threatening to reduce East Asia to a post-atomic wasteland. Now, in a stunning and dramatic development, the two are to meet by May.

The concept of a technology park first emerged in the 1950s in the United States, when such parks were first built to accommodate high technology industry occurring at the time.

In a Utopian world, an obvious solution to the South China Sea dispute would be for the nations involved to align their interests together and jointly pursue maritime exploration of the area. In fact, the idea was once mooted by former Secretary General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the late Surin Pitsuwan who advocated a two-pronged approach to conflict resolution.

The term Indo Pacific gained a lot of traction after the President of the United States (US), Donald Trump, used it repeatedly to highlight his country’s foreign policy posture in this region as opposed to the regularly used term, Asia Pacific.

Lowering its carbon footprint has always been a priority for the Singapore government, which recently passed its Carbon Pricing Bill to reduce carbon emissions intensity by 36% between 2005 and 2036. A carbon footprint refers to the full quantity of greenhouse gases, or CO2 emissions that can be attributed to an individual, a plant, a company, a product or a whole economy, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The European Union (EU) has been a strong partner of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for many years now. Of the 28 members within the EU, Germany has and is still playing a crucial role in this region to region partnership. ASEAN-Germany ties don’t get much attention but it is important given that many citizens of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations have grown to rely on German goods, services and investments.