Not content with listing its Botanic Gardens as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site in 2015, the Singapore government is pushing for its ubiquitous hawker centres to be listed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) of Humanity.Its Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong announced at the National Day Rally that a committee will be formed in September to prepare and submit the hawker culture nomination to UNE

Jakarta is one of the most populous urban agglomerations on earth. Its population has grown immensely in the last century. The megacity was once home to just 115,000 people in the 1900s when it was a Dutch colony, which then grew to 1.43 million in the 1950s at the time of Indonesia’s independence. In the 2000s, its population was 8.39 million after the collapse of the New Order and in 2017 this figure has grown to almost 13.5 million.

A pack of dogs look nervously as strangers walk toward and past them, their eyes watchful for signs of danger, yet hopeful for a morsel of food. These are the stray dogs that litter the streets of Thailand. “The authorities used to shoot and poison these dogs but it did not solve the problem.

When the then Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhyono, was presented with two maps of the country’s primary forests by different government agencies at a cabinet meeting in December 2010 on ongoing REDD+ work, it became clear that the spatial data presented was conflicting.

Humanity’s enduring love affair with plastic, a love more pronounced in the Southeast Asian region, has claimed another victim. This time, the victim is so rare that it was once thought to have been extinct 65 million years ago and is known by the moniker “living fossil”. This week, pictures have surfaced of a dead Coelacanth taken by a fisherman in Indonesia in 2016 but only recently shared. Potential cause of death: Lay’s Potato Chips plastic food wrappers around its intestines.

Dog meat may not be as exotic as the fugu fish but it can be just as deadly. The risk of rabies and other communicable diseases, such as cholera and trichinellosis, has prompted the Indonesian government to put a stop to the trade in dog and cat meat.Indonesia’s directorate of veterinary public health under the Agriculture Ministry initiated a meeting with the Dog Meat-Free Indonesia (DMFI) coalition in early August to discuss the dog and cat meat trade.

The death toll from a powerful earthquake on the Indonesian island of Lombok rose above 160 on Thursday, as authorities appealed for food, clean water and medical help for some 156,000 people forced from their homes.

Jakarta is known worldwide for its never-ending macet or traffic congestion. This year, it was ranked by the traffic information and navigation service provider Tomtom as the third city in the world most affected by traffic congestion, after Mexico City and Bangkok. Jakarta has over 13 million motorcycles and 4.4 million cars on its roads. It is estimated that more than 2.12 million trips are made from the outskirts of Jakarta into the city daily.

Over the years, a number of abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing nets have found their way around the coral reefs of Tunku Abdul Rahman Park in the Malaysian state of Sabah. Concerned that this may impact their business, divers operating within the protected marine park have removed the discarded fishing gear.

The city of Hanoi is choking in air pollution and its city council hopes to reduce it by banning motorcycles from the inner city by 2030. The city aims to remove some 2.5 million old motorcycles from its streets between now and 2020.Hanoi, with an estimated population of 7.8 million people, is considered one of the most air polluted cities in Southeast Asia with its air quality consistently rated as “Moderate” to “Unhealthy” throughout 2017.