Angela Merkel and her CDU/CSU bloc have won a landslide victory in Sunday's elections (22 September), with 42% of the vote, up from 34% in the last election in 2009. This means Merkel will be the third only German chancellor, after Konrad Adenauer and Helmut...
Some fear that Indonesia is heading for a crisis. Growth in the second quarter dropped below 6 per cent. Deficits in both the current account and trade widened markedly. The rupiah fell some 10 per cent last month to its lowest level against the US...
Rising tensions in the South China Sea have changed the tenor of recent relations between the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China from cooperation to potential conflict. Yet, there is now agreement to begin consultations on a Code of Conduct. Since his appointment, Chinese...
Japan has received more attention and generated more optimism in the first six months of 2013 than perhaps during all of the preceding six years. This has been triggered by the return of Shinzo Abe as prime minister of Japan for a second time and...
The Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) is the third-largest economy in East Asia after China and Japan — needless to say, a robust, growing ASEAN has a positive impact on Asia and the world. A sustained growth spurt would push the region’s poor out of...
Myanmar’s political opening has caught the world’s attention, and many countries are rushing to what has been called Asia’s last frontier market. Punishing sanctions by the European Union have been lifted, while Washington DC has suspended its measures. Seized by the economic potential of the...
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s recent National Day Rally speech was a bold statement of the Singapore Government’s commitment to address key concerns of its citizens while charting a path to continued success for the country as a player on the global stage. While short on...
Over the past year I’ve revisited a host of Southeast Asian countries I first began traveling in more than a decade ago. The region’s progress has been remarkable both in terms of overall economic growth and the promising opening of formerly isolated nations like Myanmar....
For generations, people around the world aspired to emulate the "American Dream". This fundamental ethos connotes freedom, equal opportunity and upward mobility. As the post-Cold War world became a geopolitical marketplace, however, others have begun to articulate their own visions for the future. Soon after the...
After the global financial crisis, Asia grew at more than 6 per cent each year, outperforming a troubled world. Not just China moreover, but also India, South-east Asia and others. While the United States and Europe floundered, the gravity-defying feat substantiated the idea of Asia’s...