Late in March, a Malaysian non-governmental organisation called Malaysians Against Pornography (MAP) made a startling discovery regarding pornography consumption among children in Malaysia. While pornography is typically meant for those aged 18 and above, MAP’s survey found that in 2018, 80 percent of Malaysian children aged 10 to 17 years have watched pornography intentionally.

From grubby packaging engulfing small Southeast Asian communities to waste piling up in plants from the United States (US) to Australia, China's ban on accepting the world's used plastic has plunged global recycling into turmoil.For many years, China received the bulk of scrap plastic from around the world, processing much of it into a higher quality material that could be used by manufacturers.But at the start of 2018, it closed its doors to almost all foreign plastic waste, as wel

Philippine rescuers raced Tuesday to reach some two-dozen people still feared buried under a building near Manila that collapsed a day earlier in a deadly earthquake, as a powerful second tremor hit the nation.The United States (US) Geological Survey put the second quake – on the central island of Samar – at 6.4 magnitude, stronger than the one that wrought significant damage Monday near the capital in the north.The latest quake sent terrified locals fleeing into the streets, with the authori

Thousands of people in northern Myanmar took to the streets on Monday to protest against the proposed reinstatement of a Chinese-backed mega-dam they say will cause huge environmental damage and bring little benefit to the country.The protest came just days ahead of a trip by civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi to Beijing for a summit on China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).Myanmar's former military junta signed a 2009 deal with Beijing to construct the Myitsone dam in Kachin state.B

As the world celebrates Earth Day today, the theme for this year – protecting threatened and endangered species – remains as important as ever.The world’s largest environmental movement, the annual Earth Day works with more than 75,000 partners in nearly 192 countries to educate the public about environmental issues.Apart from climate change and the fight to end plastic pollution, the protection of endangered species ranks as one of the most pressing environmental concerns of our time.What is

A man was nailed to a cross with up to 10 more to follow while barefoot men beat themselves with flails on Good Friday, in a blood-soaked display of religious fervour in the Philippines.Frowned upon by the Church, the ritual crucifixions and self-flagellation in the north of the country are extreme affirmations of faith performed every Easter in Asia's Catholic outpost.Wilfredo Salvador stared at the sky and appeared to mumble a prayer after the slight 62-year-old with wild grey hair and

From cooking oil to soap, from sunblock to biofuel, it’s little wonder that Europe imports as much as about 1.9 million tons of palm oil a year. Of late, however, the European Union (EU) has been heavily campaigning against the commodity.The argument is based on the belief that palm oil is not a “green fuel”, meaning it is not environmentally sustainable, and should not be promoted as it causes deforestation.

In football, the yellow card is a warning for a player to behave himself as he may get sent off the pitch if he receives a second one – and a subsequent red card. It seems this system works just as well when it comes to combatting illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.The European Union (EU) is the world's largest import market for fisheries products and it has estimated the global value of IUU fishing to be around US$11- to US$22 billion per year.

While malnutrition is a global plague, it is a more acute problem in Asia. According to a report by the World Health Organisation (WHO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and World Bank Group published last year, more than half of all stunted children, almost half of all overweight children and more than two-thirds of all wasted children live in the region.Zooming into Southeast Asia, the results are, unfortunately, not too surprising. The report titled ‘Level

Between June 2017 and April 2018, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Humanitarian Health carried out a study on almost 400 migrant women from Myanmar between the ages of 15 and 55, who were married to Chinese men and experienced childbearing in the five years they were in China.The study, supported by the Kachin Women’s Association Thailand (KWAT), found that almost 40 percent of them were victims of forced marriages.