The controversial leader of much maligned North Korea, Kim Jong-un has declared that Pyongyang will discontinue ballistic missile tests and will shut down its nuclear test site.
With the Cambodian national elections coming in less than six months’ time, Cambodian opposition figure Sam Rainsy has called for a boycott. Sam Rainsy, who is currently on a self-imposed exile criticised the Hun Sen administration for not allowing the opposition to run for elections. "If they don't allow our party to participate, our supporters will not participate. Our call for a boycott is conditional.
Southeast Asia has been a significant venue for strategic competition between the United States (US) and China for a long time. The great power tussle between the two is best conceptualised in the dual hierarchy model posited by Princeton University Professor of International Affairs, Gilford John Ikenberry.
From ubiquitous palm oil and rubber estates in Malaysia to long beaches and pristine waters in Indonesia, Southeast Asia is home to a wide array of resources and locations of interest. Italy, a European giant in its own right, is observant of this matter and has realised the tremendous financial potential that the region has to offer.
Philippine President, Rodrigo Duterte recently returned from China bearing gifts. The president had signed nine business agreements when he was there. “The nine business agreements signed during my visit yielded an estimated value of 9 to 8 billion dollars in investments. These are projected to generate more than 10,000 jobs for our countrymen and women,” Duterte said in his speech upon returning from China.
Across Southeast Asia, policy makers hungry for infrastructure investment are looking beyond China.Southeast Asia’s economies will need to spend about $2.8 trillion on projects like roads, bridges, ports and railways from 2016 to 2030 in order to maintain economic growth and reduce poverty, the Asian Development Bank reckons.And while China has stepped in to fund some of those investments with its almost-$1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative, Southeast Asian governments are finding home-grown
At approximately 4 a.m. Syrian time, a unilateral US-led effort joined by the French and British, launched more than 100 missiles towards the Syrian capital of Damascus. The primary targets – two chemical weapons storage and production sites and another research facility said to be involved in the development of chemical weapons. The strikes come as a response to the alleged chemical weapons attack by the ruling regime, on civilians in the Damascus enclave of Douma.
The foreign ministers of China and Japan agreed to work closely to push North Korea to abandon its nuclear program, in the latest sign of improved cooperation between Asia’s two largest economies.
“I want to clearly tell everyone that China’s open doors will not close, but will only open wider,” China’s President, Xi Jinping proclaimed to rousing applause from attendees at the Boao Forum for Asia in China’s Hainan province last Tuesday. The Boao Forum, which also goes by the sobriquet, “The Davos of Asia” was attended by foreign heads of governments and industry movers and shakers from the world over, mostly from the Asian region.
After an investigation by Facebook last year, it was found that Russian operatives spent US$100,000 on ads with “divisive messages” during the election campaign season in the United States (US). These “divisive messages” are thought to be fake news used to influence the American electorate.
With China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) now in the works, Singapore is not to be side-lined from this grand agenda.
It is irrefutable that rice is the staple food of Southeast Asia. This love affair with the seed of the grass species, oryza sativa is not only rooted in the tangible world but has its own mystical underpinnings to it. Such a relationship is observed through the worshipping of the goddess of rice, fertility, and wealth, Dewi Sri, by communities in what is now modern-day Indonesia, prior to the advent of Islam.
