The COVID-19 pandemic that first emerged in the city of Wuhan in Hubei province, China, has severely affected local industries and livelihoods across the world. Some of the worst hit sectors include tourism and aviation as an estimated three billion people worldwide are under virus lockdowns.

A few weeks ago, a video of a large crowd of monkeys going berserk in a street in Thailand went viral on social media. The footage showed the monkeys scrambling and brawling over food. Thailand, a famous tourist destination in Southeast Asia has seen a drastic drop in the number of tourists since the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus.

A Myanmar journalist faces up to life in prison for publishing an interview with a rebel group operating in the country's restive Rakhine state a week after the insurgents were classified as a terrorist organisation.The western region has long been a tinderbox of conflict between the Myanmar military and Arakan Army (AA), a group demanding greater autonomy for the state's ethnic Rakhine people.Clashes have left scores of civilians killed, hundreds injured and about 150,000 displaced

ASEAN countries have collectively achieved remarkable economic growth, however, when it comes to fertility rates, the region has been drifting. The total fertility rate (TFR) of Southeast Asia has dropped from 5.5 in 1970 down to 2.11 in 2017. At the Future of Work Conference in Singapore in April 2019, Singapore’s Minister for Manpower, Josephine Teo stated that more than half of the world’s population live in countries with a TFR that is below the replacement level of 2.1.

Earlier this year, a Kosovo-born football player, Liridon Krasniqi who plays for Malaysian football club Johor Darul Ta'zim (JDT) was naturalised and given a Malaysian citizenship. Many observers criticised the decision for granting a fast-tracked citizenship to the popular sportsman as thousands of other stateless people in Malaysia are still undocumented.

Yesterday, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) released the 'Asia and the Pacific SDG Progress Report 2020'.

A Buddhist monk scrawls a prayer on an orange face mask beseeching "an end to the suffering" caused by the deadly coronavirus - a finishing touch to the facial covering weaved out of recycled plastic at one Thai temple.The country has one of the highest numbers of confirmed cases in Southeast Asia, and over the weekend infections doubled to 721 in a pandemic that has killed more than 15,000 globally.As borders close and public spaces shut down, a group of innovative monks near Bangk

The world greeted 2020 with sadness and fear as the deadly COVID-19 pandemic which emerged late last year continues to kill people worldwide. While nations across the globe are trying to contain the deadly new virus which has already killed 16,000 people, another disease that appeared a long time ago is continuing to infect people daily.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) believes China's battle with the coronavirus offers a beacon of hope, but others question whether Beijing's strategy can be followed by other countries – particularly Western democracies.China has reported only one new local infection over the past four days, a seemingly remarkable turnaround given the chaos that surrounded the initial outbreak in the city of Wuhan.While some experts caution against accepting Beijing's figures at