President Xi Jinping told African leaders Monday that China's investments on the continent have "no political strings attached", pledging US$60 billion in new development financing, even as Beijing is increasingly criticised over its debt-heavy projects abroad.Xi offered the funding at the start of a two-day China-Africa summit that focused on his cherished Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Vietnam must be feeling high-speed-rail (HSR) envy as its neighbours move ahead with their respective HSR projects, propelled by China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The irony is, Vietnam had already planned for HSR ahead of everyone else, back in 2007. Having shelved the initial project in 2010, the government there is now looking into reviving it.

Indonesia unveiled surprise plans to bid for the 2032 Olympics on Saturday as it rides high from its successful staging of the 2018 Asian Games.President Joko Widodo revealed Indonesia's intentions after talks with Olympics chief Thomas Bach and Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, head of the Olympic Council of Asia.The announcement came on the penultimate day of the two-week, 40-sport Asian Games, the biggest sporting event in Indonesia's history."Indonesia has planned to immediat

President Donald Trump will skip two major summits in Asia in November, a move that could stoke concerns in the region about the United States’ (US) reliability as a counterweight to China.The White House said Friday that Vice President Mike Pence would travel to Singapore for an 18-nation summit hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), before heading to Papua New Guinea for an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gathering.

Social media is big in the Philippines. According to United Kingdom (UK)-based consultancy We Are Social’s Digital 2018 report (which compiles data from various third-party sources), the Philippines topped the world for the third year in a row in terms of social media usage as the average Filipino spends about four hours a day on social media.

As calls grow in the United States (US) and Europe to pressure China to halt alleged human-rights abuses against its Muslim minority, Beijing has so far escaped any serious criticism from governments across the Islamic world.Almost three weeks after a United Nations (UN) official cited “credible reports” that the country was holding as many as one million Turkic-speaking Uyghurs in “re-education” camps, governments in Muslim-majority countries have issued no notable statements on the issue.

Every time Malaysia’s national oil and gas company PETRONAS declares a profit, the nation’s four oil-producing states will clamour for a bigger slice of the pie than the current five percent royalty they are receiving. The subject rose again following the unexpected victory of the Alliance of Hope (Pakatan Harapan) in the country’s May 2018 general election, ending the 61-year continuous rule of the National Front (Barisan Nasional).

Just when its relationship with China seems to have gone sour, the Philippine government has announced that new deals with Beijing are in the works. Ever since the Philippines elected Rodrigo Duterte into power in 2016, the country has enjoyed warmer relations with China. However, last week, Duterte lashed out twice at his nation’s largest trading partner, urging China to “rethink” and to “temper its behaviour” in the disputed South China Sea.

After a watershed general election in May, Malaysia’s newly elected government – with many fresh faces – is eagerly at work, buoyed along by strong public support and sky-high approval ratings. However, an unchecked democracy runs the risk of having a government that rests on its laurels – or worse – regresses in its performance. Opposition to power is just as important as the power to govern itself.

For the first time, the United Nations (UN) have officially called for top Myanmar military officials to “be investigated and prosecuted” for genocide of the Rohingya people in the northern Rakhine state as well as for crimes against humanity and war crimes under international law.