Southeast Asia Globe is member-supported publication featuring in-depth journalism that promotes a more informed, inclusive and sustainable future. Members work with our team to shape our editorial direction and hold us accountable.
Be a part of the story. Subscribe today!
By Wanpen Pajai • Jun 30, 2020
With Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte marking four years since his inauguration, we look at the legacy of among the world's most divisive leaders. How is the strongman at once so passionately loathed by his detractors and resoundingly loved by his supporters?
By Alastair McCready • Jun 26, 2020
While China is often criticised for the negative influence it wields over Southeast Asian affairs, Japan's role in backing authoritarian regimes and promoting rights abuses in the region remains far less publicised, but arguably no less pernicious
By Jonathan Lim • Jun 24, 2020
Southeast Asia continues to explore the potential for nuclear energy to meet its power needs, but with cyber attacks a growing threat globally, some fear Asean isn't prepared to deal with the hostile actors who may seek to bring these systems down
By Andrew Haffner • Jun 22, 2020
Cambodia has enacted a sweeping new legal approach to construction since the deadly Sihanoukville building collapse that killed 28 workers and their family members. But with legislation in hand, has anything changed for the labourers building the Kingdom a year on?
With Singapore looking set to hold its general election in July, rights group ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights have said that going to the polls during a pandemic will only worsen an electoral process already skewed in favour of the ruling People's Action Party
By Lee Ying Shan • Jun 18, 2020
The importance of economic, political and security cooperation among ASEAN member states has become increasingly apparent in recent decades. But as the great powers vie for influence in the region, the cracks in this fragile unity are at risk of growing
By Thi Mong Tuyen Tran and Jun Jie Lee • Jun 17, 2020
When Thai activist Wanchalearm Satsaksit was bundled into a car in Phnom Penh on June 4, he became merely the latest in a string of forced disappearances in the region. With several authoritarian governments coexisting in close proximity, the peculiarly Mekong country issue of activist kidnapping shows no sign of abating
By Alastair McCready • Jun 11, 2020
While the Covid-19 crisis has placed life on hold in Thailand in recent months, the country's chronically tumultuous domestic political scene is rearing its head again. Researcher Sek Sophal discusses what the kingdom's post-virus political landscape could look like
By Sek Sophal • Jun 10, 2020
A UN report on June 4 called for an independent investigation into rights abuses in the Philippines as it accused President Rodrigo Duterte's infamous drug war of unleashing widespread and systematic killing with "near impunity"
By Agence France-Presse • Jun 04, 2020
Southeast Asia's booming narcotics industry has only been given a helping hand in recent months as governments turn their attention to combating Covid-19. With prices dropping and potency rising, the drug trade could be set to hit the region harder than ever
By Andrew Haffner • May 21, 2020
In the Philippines, the future of ABS-CBN remains uncertain as a decision on whether to allow it to return to air meanders through the nation's political system. But in the newsroom, one of the network's few branches still operating, news chief Ging Reyes says there is a renewed drive and energy
By Alexi Demetriadi • May 20, 2020
In keeping with ASEAN's recent history of divided responses to regionally important issues, the bloc's collective efforts to combat Covid-19 have proved far from unified. But an institution in which individual members are placed above the collective, should observers have anticipated any different?
By Alexi Demetriadi • May 15, 2020