Amidst the increasingly heated presidential election campaign in Indonesia, one of the most carefully watched issues today will be the greater political role played by ethnic Chinese in the 2014 elections. This issue is personified by Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, popularly known as ‘Ahok’, incumbent (Acting)...
Currently, clashes in Iraq between government forces and Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants is in the north of the country, away from the most productive oil fields in the south. Iraqi oil exports, and global oil prices, have thus remained relatively unaffected....
Singapore has prospered over the past 50 years, based on policies intended to prioritise high economic growth and promote social stability. But is it time for some of those policies and directions to change? Many decisions made by the government have become “sacred cows”, with...
The latest episode in Thailand’s military coup saga is the exodus of undocumented Cambodian migrant workers from the country. These workers have largely fled in fear of government persecution due to their legal status in the country. Reports accusing the Thai military junta of killing...
With its 2015 deadline approaching, just how much ground has been covered towards building an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Community? Blueprints for the three pillars of economic integration, political and security cooperation, and socio-cultural cohesion have already been drawn up for implementation by...
Singapore was besieged by haze measuring PSI 400 about a year ago. The fact that we are enjoying clear skies right now is no guarantee that another severe haze episode will not happen anytime soon. The fact remains that hotspots are a common occurrence in Indonesia....
The recent climate talks in Bonn gave a renewed sense of hope for a global, legally binding agreement to be brokered by the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris. This optimism is bolstered by recent indications by the United States and China of a willingness...
Ahmad Tarmini Maliki, a 26-year-old Malaysian factory worker from Selangor, allegedly blew up 25 elite Iraqi soldiers at Iraq’s SWAT headquarters in al-Anbard on 26 May. He is believed to be Malaysia’s first suicide bomber and is linked to militants of the group called the...
Recent warnings of a potential three-month prolonged haze crisis comparable to the severe episodes in 1997 and last year are worrying. Earlier in the year, large numbers of hot spots were already noted in Sumatra. There is also a high possibility of the region entering into...
The first India-China meeting since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took power in New Delhi last month has hogged headlines for its significance of thawing bilateral relations between the two Asian giants. Mr Modi’s top foreign policy objectives of using economic diplomacy to fulfill India’s national...