On the agenda for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) this year – as it has been for many years before – is the South China Sea dispute. Singapore, as chairman of ASEAN will go into the year with the foundations towards dispute resolution seemingly made. Last November, China and ASEAN formally announced the start of negotiations for a Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea.
The Philippine government has revoked the operating licence of leading news website Rappler, officials said Monday in a ruling denounced by President Rodrigo Duterte's critics as the latest blow to press freedom.Rappler, set up in 2012, is among a clutch of Philippine news organisations that have sparred with Duterte over their critical coverage of his brutal drugs war.But the government rejected allegations that the ruling was an attack on press freedom, with Duterte's spokesman sa
Myanmar police said Wednesday they opened fire on a crowd of ethnic Rakhine Buddhists as they tried to seize a government office, in unrest that left seven dead in a state already scored by violence and bitter divisions.The incident unfurled as around 5,000 Buddhists gathered late Tuesday for a nationalist ceremony in Mrauk U, a town that has so far remained unscathed by the military's crackdown on the region's minority Rohingya Muslim community.It was not immediately clear why the
Thais are expected to head to the polls in November this year to democratically elect a new government after being ruled by a military government since 2014. However, the ruling junta has demonstrated a pattern of delaying a vote often citing security issues.
India will be celebrating its 69th Republic Day celebrations on 26 January this year and for the first time ever, leaders of all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have been invited as chief guests.This marks a huge step in ASEAN-India relations which would also be commemorated in a summit held at the same time.
Rohingya Muslims who fled a village where Myanmar has admitted its forces helped massacre 10 people said Thursday the victims were all civilians, not fighters as asserted by the army. The Myanmar army chief's office confirmed Wednesday that security forces took part in killing "Bengali terrorists" on September 2 in the village of Inn Din in Rakhine state, using a pejorative term for Rohingya. It was the first time Myanmar had admitted abuses during an army-led
The Philippines said Thursday that some of the 14 children who died after receiving a controversial vaccine showed signs of "severe dengue", as investigators probe the drug whose use was suspended due to health concerns.More than 830,000 Filipino schoolchildren were injected with Sanofi's Dengvaxia vaccine last year in the world's first public dengue immunisation programme.But the country stopped the sale and distribution of Dengvaxia last month after Sanofi warned the vac
Myanmar was never a frontrunner when it came to press freedom in the Southeast Asian region. However, there was a glimmer of hope when the party of Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Laureate kept under house arrest for years because of her democratic activism, won historic elections in 2015. This led many to expect that more media freedom would follow.Fast forward to today, it seems that the country’s press freedom has only been shrinking.
The 21st edition of the Regional Outlook Forum (ROF) 2018 – the flagship event of Singapore based ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute – was held on Tuesday and attended by industry leaders, academics, diplomats and journalists alike.The one-day event focussed on macro trends, developments and challenges facing Southeast Asia in the immediate, short and medium-term, and expert insights from a distinguished panel of scholars and intellectuals.Here are some of the highlights from the discussions that
A sea of heaving, towel-waving humanity swarmed a black statue of a cross-bearing Jesus Christ in the Philippine capital Tuesday as the Catholic faithful joined one of the nation's largest religious festivals.In a frenzied display of religious fervour, men, women and children climbed over heads and shoulders and flung themselves at the centuries-old Black Nazarene that they say performs miracles.Devotees pulled on stout ropes to move the carriage forward as the procession drew more than
The arrival of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) requires more investments in nurturing students in the Southeast Asian region today. This being said, education policies in the region need to be revamped to produce a future workforce that is fully prepared to take on a number of challenges. These challenges include inequalities, increasing economic interdependency, technological development such as automation, rapidly changing labour markets, and shifting geopolitics amongst others.
A high-level South Korean delegation left Tuesday for rare talks with North Korea after months of tensions over the North’s nuclear weapons programme, with Seoul's chief delegate vowing to work towards improving long-strained ties.The talks come after the North's leader Kim Jong-Un indicated in his New Year's speech that Pyongyang was willing to send a delegation to the Winter Olympics in the South.Seoul responded with an offer of a high-level dialogue, and last week the hotlin
