Indonesia Indonesia Aims to Relocate Capital Out of Jakarta Over 5-10 Years (30 Apr) The cabinet of President Joko Widodo “Jokowi” announced that it intends to begin moving the government out of Jakarta on 30 April, Tuesday. The shift, motivated by increasing traffic congestion in Jakarta and...
Tech Business Grab Adds New Services to App Ecosystem; Takes Strategic Stake in Ninja Van (23, 26 Apr) Grab has added hotel reservation services Agoda and Booking.com; entertainment ticketing platform BookMyShow; and on-demand video streaming service HOOQ to its app ecosystem in Singapore. It also invested in...
Indonesia Absenteeism Fears Unfounded Amid Record Election Turnout (17 Apr) Over 154 million registered voters were estimated to have voted in the election on 17 April, putting turnout at roughly 80%. This is much higher than the turnout of 70.6% in 2014. There had been fears in...
Indonesia Fourth Presidential Debate Excites as Election Nears (30 Mar) The fourth presidential debate between incumbent Joko Widodo “Jokowi” and Prabowo Subianto occurred on 30 March, Saturday, and covered ideology, governance, security and foreign affairs. The two candidates sparred over issues such as Indonesia’s defence budget, which...
March 2019 | As a number of you have asked, I thought to share some observations about the upcoming election in Thailand, our region’s second largest economy. This is especially after the dramatic development when Princess Ubolratana briefly offered to serve as Prime Minister and...
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...
Indonesia Jokowi Mulls Creating New Ministries for Investments, Exports (12 Mar) President Joko Widodo (“Jokowi”) said on 12 March that he was considering forming new ministries to tackle declining investment and export growth figures. The Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) had reported an 30% decline in foreign investment...
Indonesia Fake News Still a Concern in Lead-Up to Election (27 Feb, 12 Mar) Indonesia’s National Police is closely monitoring online activity in the lead-up to the April election, with the aim of preventing provocative fake news from triggering violence in public. Much of the fake news...
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...