The European Parliament adopted the Resolution on Palm Oil and Deforestation of Rainforests on 4 April 2017, whose stated aim is to reduce the negative impacts of deforestation due to unsustainable or illegal palm oil production. The Resolution has incited a great deal of controversy...
The Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA) held our 4th Singapore Dialogue on Sustainable World Resources on 6 April 2017 at the St. Regis Singapore, on the theme of “Inclusive Collaboration: Working Together for Sustainable Value Chains”. We shared some of the media coverage last...
Regional leaders inaugurated an ASEAN (Association of South-east Asian Nations) Community at the end of last year to bring their 10 countries closer — not only for economic integration, but also on security and political issues as well as social and cultural affairs. One test for...
How has Singapore fared in managing its relations with its closest neighbours, Malaysia and Indonesia? What lies ahead for these key relationships, both at the bilateral level, and at the multilateral level as part of ASEAN? We organised a public lecture on "Connecting Singapore and...
Malaysia is in the spotlight this year. Global spectators are conscious that the formation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) will happen under PM Najib’s watch. Malaysia is under pressure to perform, but her chairmanship comes at a time when Malaysia is faced with economic...
Mr Manu Bhaskaran is the founding CEO of the Centennial Group’s Singapore subsidiary, Centennial Asia Advisors, and a Council Member of the SIIA. He is also an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. We asked him for his views...
News of ISIS successfully targeting Southeast Asian professionals and women have worrying implications for the region. Earlier this month, Malaysia announced the arrest of 14 individuals suspected of links to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), including a senior assistant director at Malaysia’s...
Malaysia’s richest state Selangor is gripped with one of the most protracted leadership crises in recent memories, and the bitter feud is sure to erode public confidence in the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) coalition, which has taken the helm of Selangor since 2008 thanks to...
Two weeks after the tragic downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, international experts and observers still do not have full access to the crash site to conduct a proper investigation. This is partly due to the intensifying fighting between the Ukrainian army and the pro-Russia rebels...
It was probably wrong to expect too much too fast when Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) environment ministers met to discuss the haze, caused by fires in Indonesia. Never mind that Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, which hosted the meeting, have suffered record-high and hazardous levels...