By Simon Tay and Liyana Othman For TODAY Sustainable development requires cooperation and a balance between economic growth and environmental and social protection. Often, however, discussions end up with platitudes and vague agreements. Candid dialogue can instead reveal differences, and this is what happened when Malaysia’s Primary Industries...
By Simon Tay, Wu Huijuan and Aaron Choo For TODAY A Haze Outlook developed by the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA) has assessed that there is a real, although moderate, risk that severe haze will return in 2019. The prognosis is “amber”; on a scale of red-amber-green....
By Chen Chen Lee and Lau Xin Yi For The Jakarta Post Relations between the European Union and Malaysia and Indonesia hit an obstacle when Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and Indonesia’s Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan recently threatened to boycott EU’s products if the bloc...
By Simon Tay and Liyana Othman For Bangkok Post When complaints are made about the haze crisis and air pollution in Southeast Asia, most usually think about fires in Indonesia's provinces, which have been a recurrent problem for over two decades. However, the situation this year has been different...
By Simon Tay For Nikkei Asian Review A humanitarian crisis that has been brewing at the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh since 2016 is reaching a critical point. At Cox's Bazar, just inside Bangladesh, an estimated 740,000 displaced Muslim Rohingya from Myanmar's Rakhine State are encamped in...
By Simon Tay For South China Morning Post International talk about the Philippines often focuses on the South China Sea and disputes that the country has with China. Speculation then follows about the character of, and sometimes controversial quotations from, President Rodrigo Duterte. Less notice is given...
By Chen Chen Lee and Erin Low For The Straits Times For Big Tech, the year 2018 marks the beginning of "techlash", as it is forced to confront a public awakened to and repulsed by its multiple failures in protecting user privacy, providing value for customers and...
By Chen Chen Lee and Erin Low For Nikkei Asian Review Headlines about data breaches, anti-competitive practices and fake news have turned public goodwill toward tech companies into suspicion. This applies particularly in Asia. From the spreading of religion-based hate messages in Sri Lanka, and the role...
By Simon Tay and Wu Hui Juan For The Business Times Singapore is now one of the first countries in Asia to introduce a carbon tax to reduce fossil fuel consumption and to use market pricing to develop a low-carbon economy. The tax, in force from the start...
By Nicholas Fang and Aaron Choo For The Business Times Following the blossoming of the historic bromance between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un that took place on the idyllic resort island of Sentosa in Singapore last year, it now appears that the honeymoon period is over, and reality...