As of a few weeks ago, no one would have disputed that the most relevant and evident trend in the global politics of our times is “go national.” Unilateralism and “zero-sum game” logic seemed to be the new normal: “For me to win, I need you to lose” and “Me first.” These phrases seemed to be the unequivocal and almost uncontested trademark of this century.
While ASEAN member countries race to seize market share amidst the renewable energy boom in the region, Indonesia - as the biggest energy user - does not seem to realise what its missing. Vietnam reached 5.5 gigawatt (GW) installed solar PV capacity in 2019 from only 134 megawatt (MW) in 2018. Thailand held the record both, for wind and solar capacity growth in 2018 before it was overtaken by Vietnam.
Of all the challenges that humans have faced over millennia, disease has always been a particularly brutal and resourceful enemy.The impact of disease has shaped history. Amerindians were ravaged by illnesses that the Spanish conquistadors brought to Mexico and South America; the “stout Cortez” of John Keats’s poem was accompanied by killer diseases like smallpox, measles, influenza, and typhus.
The conclusion of text-based negotiations for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in November 2019 paves the way for the economies of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to strengthen their economic integration with five of its dialogue partners, namely Australia, the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of Korea, Japan, and New Zealand.
The new COVID-19 coronavirus has spread to more than 100 countries – bringing social disruption, economic damage, sickness, and death – largely because authorities in China, where it emerged, initially suppressed information about it.
Despite the low rate of confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in Vietnam since 10 March 2020, Vietnamese schools remain shut and the country is feeling the pinch on its socio and economic development.
“One Vision, One Identity, One Community.” That’s the motto of the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a regional intergovernmental organisation made up of 10 countries: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The goal of regional cooperation is to facilitate common interests, unifying the region through mutual cooperation while simultaneously recognising each country’s cultural, social and economic identity.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that around 100 new coronavirus cases were being reported outside of China each day with large outbreaks in Southeast Asia, Italy and the Middle East. This week, that figure shot up to 300 cases per day.
The centrality of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is often mentioned and emphasised by government officials and scholars in the Asia-Pacific region.
For the last several months, “omnibus law” has become a popular mantra all over Indonesia. Indonesia’s president, Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s administration is currently trying to take a big leap in creating jobs by proposing an omnibus bill on jobs and taxation. An omnibus law combines several pieces of legislation into one. An omnibus law is a law that is created for a specific issue that might affect by changing or repealing a certain law to make it more simplified.
I was recently walking along East 29th Street in Manhattan, after visiting a friend at Bellevue Hospital, when I was roused from my thoughts by a middle-aged white male screaming at an old Chinese man, “Get the f**k out of my country, you piece of Chinese s**t!” The old man was stunned. So was I, before I bellowed back (deploying the full range of my native Australian vocabulary), “F**k off and leave him alone, you white racist piece of s**t!” The pedestrian traffic stopped.
Relations between the EU and some ASEAN member states have been tense in recent years because of the seafood trade, stemming from the European Commission’s (EC) sanctions related to the illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
