China and Southeast Asian states will hold their first joint maritime exercises next week, officials said Friday, in a move aimed at easing tensions but which may spark United States (US) alarm.Beijing's expansive claims to the South China Sea have long been a source of friction with rival claimants in Southeast Asia, as well as Washington which has traditionally been the dominant naval power in the area.Despite disagreements over Beijing's territorial ambitions, China and Southeast

Money has been tight for the ordinary Filipino this year. Over the past few months, the Philippines has seen its inflation rate rise rapidly. The latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority reveals that the rate of inflation had reached a whopping 6.7 percent in September.

A large part of the Muslim world views Israel as an illegitimate state and the people of Palestine as victims of human rights abuses and war crimes. Indonesia is home to the largest number of these ordinary, everyday Muslims and its leader, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has been placed in an extremely uncomfortable position after Israeli media recently reported Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as saying that he would work to establish strong diplomatic ties with the archipelagic state.

European leaders sought to build support from Asia on Thursday in defence of free trade and the fight against climate change, to counter the growing protectionism of President Donald Trump's America.The 28 European Union (EU) states were joined at a summit in Brussels by more than 20 Asian leaders including Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Japan's Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is also attending, despite tensions over Moscow

When speaking of religious intolerance in ASEAN member states, it’s likely that images of marginalised Rohingya in Myanmar, the increasingly conservative stance of Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo seems to have recently taken, and clampdowns on the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transsexual (LGBT) community in Muslim majority countries like Malaysia and Brunei are among the first pictures that come to mind.

China's massive Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) building push may create debt risks but is also responding to major infrastructure gaps in Asia and could boost global trade, World Bank officials say.The relatively upbeat assessment of a sometimes-controversial programme comes despite the debt crisis now faced by Pakistan, a recipient of massive Chinese loans.China launched the ambitious plan in 2013 under President Xi Jinping, seeking to link Asia, Europe and Africa with a network of port

Rising United States (US) interest rates, tanking emerging market currencies and a bitter US-China trade spat could push the world towards its next financial crisis but there is still time to avert disaster, global finance chiefs have said.The world economy is still growing but faces an "unprecedented" combination of threats, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) cautioned at an annual meeting with the World Bank in Bali this week.Among them is growing protectionism championed by th

Anwar Ibrahim won an overwhelming mandate in a parliamentary by-election Saturday, setting the stage for his return to frontline Malaysian politics and sealing the once-jailed opposition figure's remarkable resurrection.Winning the seat was a key requirement for Anwar to succeed 93-year-old Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who jailed his former protege and heir apparent on sodomy and corruption charges in 1998 when their relationship soured.Mahathir returned to the premiership this year

Political science recognises a phenomenon known as family dictatorship in which – as its name suggests - political power passes within the dictator’s family. Although reminiscent of medieval times where kings, sultans and pharaohs based their authority on divine right, family dictatorship is not naturally required by law. In some cases, a special law might be enacted to formally nominate one particular family member of the present leader as successor.

On 10 October, also known as World Day Against the Death Penalty, Malaysia’s minister in charge of law in the Prime Minister’s Department Liew Vui Keong announced that the cabinet has agreed to abolish the death penalty. Vui Keong told the media that the government will table a bill in the next parliament sitting to abolish the death penalty. This comes as a pleasant surprise for many as Malaysia has been actively enforcing the death penalty.