Search results for "Philippines"

Peaking inside newsrooms, cheap narcotics and turtle conservation

Thanks for joining us on this incredible journey. This past week, we’ve covered stories from poets and newscasters, bureaucrats and garment workers. These headlines will take you to the front-lines of Southeast Asia’s ‘war on drugs’, to the farm fields of Cambodia and the lonely elders of locked-down Singapore
By Chia Chi Hsu

Regional cooperation

ASEAN’s Covid-19 response: United in name, divided in practice

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

Human rights

Amnesty International: Cambodia’s war on drugs an ‘unmitigated disaster’

In 2017 Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen announced a crackdown on narcotics in the Kingdom. Three years on, rights group Amnesty International says the campaign has been a failure, resulting in rampant rights abuses and overcrowded prisons
By Andrew Haffner

Opinion

‘Duterte’s dictatorship is complete with closure of major news network’

With the closure of the Philippines largest television network ABS-CBN this week, press freedom looks at its weakest since the Marcos era. Dr Tom Smith argues that the move has merely cemented what many suspected – Rodrigo Duterte has embraced dictatorship
By Tom Smith

Editorial

There’s something in the water

With viruses on everyone's mind, this week we turn to pharmaceuticals fast finding their way into the world's water supplies as people consume (and expel) antibiotics at unprecedented rates in human history. We also delve into the murky history of Cathay Pacific flight 700Z, which was mysteriously downed by a bomb in mid-air after taking off from Bangkok's Don Mueang airport in June 1972. The case remains unsolved to this day – did one alleged culprit, a Thai policeman no less, get away with murder?
By Andrew Haffner

Tales of the Pandemic

Hunkering down in tourist-free Siem Reap

Cambodia's Siem Reap thrives and survives on its tourist industry, with millions flocking to the ancient Angkor Wat temple each year. But as Covid-19 halts global travel, writer Jonathan Evans describes life minus the tourists in this once-again sleepy little town
By Jonathan Evans

Covid-19

‘Pandemic a chance for governments to prove themselves or stumble’

With Covid-19, errors have been made in the public health responses of many countries. Darshan Joshi of Malaysian think-tank REFSA argues that if past failures on climate change and inequality are any indication of what is to come, we might be in a lot of trouble
By Darshan Joshi

Human rights

Cambodia’s emergency powers: Combating Covid-19 or human rights?

In Cambodia, a recently passed bill has handed the government the ability to enact sweeping emergency powers during times of crisis. Is this simply a necessary move to combat the pandemic, or are fundamental human rights under threat?
By Alexi Demetriadi

Editorial

Bushmeat under the microscope

From dire International Monetary Fund economic forecasts, to Khmer New Year being moved online to respect social distancing, this is how countries across Southeast Asia are faring with the ongoing global pandemic
By Alastair McCready

Covid-19

Saving lives on the frontline, Filipino nurses still face abuse and stigma

While undertaking life-saving work for little pay, frontline healthcare workers in the Philippines say they are still suffering from physical attacks, a lack of protective equipment and are stigmatised in their communities due to virus fears
By Miriam Deprez

Freedom of the press

Cambodian journalist’s arrest part of regional crackdown on virus coverage

This week Cambodian journalist Sovann Rithy was arrested after he posted a quote taken directly from a Prime Minister Hun Sen speech. Rights groups have warned it's part of a worrying trend across Southeast Asia, as governments tighten their grip on the press in the wake of reporting on the virus
By Miriam Deprez

Singapore inequality

‘We shouldn’t need Covid-19 to see migrant workers’ humanity’

As Singapore's divide between rich and poor is amplified by the Covid-19 crisis, columnist Yong Han Poh argues that it shouldn't take a pandemic to acknowledge the humanity of those who labour, unseen and unheard, to build the city-state
By Yong Han Poh