Malaysia’s 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal reached a crescendo in July. The US Attorney General claimed that more than US$3.5 billion belonging to 1MDB was ‘allegedly misappropriated by high-level officials of 1MDB and their associates’ […]
Analyses of state responses to the South China Sea arbitral award by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) often frame the issue as a binary choice between a rules-based or power-based approach to international relations. […]
Clouded by controversy even before it began, the recently concluded 49th Asean Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AMM) in Vientiane, Lao PDR was conspicuous for two things: who was and was not present; and, perhaps more importantly, […]
Since his inauguration on June 30, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has been true to his campaign pledge of cracking down on drugs. He has ignored objections from within the Philippines and abroad about extrajudicial killings […]
Once again Indonesia President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo has reshuffled his cabinet. One pleasant surprise is the return of Ms Mulyani Indrawati, who until recently was managing director and chief operating officer of the World Bank. […]
Vietnam has announced a bold new higher education reform agenda. The government of Vietnam will offer up to 10,000 government scholarships for overseas doctoral study between 2014 and 2020 (or 1,300–1,500 per year) to tertiary […]
Last month the US Department of Justice (US-DoJ) announced that it was taking action to seek ‘the forfeiture and recovery of more than US$1 billion in assets’ related to 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). This action […]
The 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal in Malaysia which has recently become the subject of a high-profile lawsuit by the United States Department of Justice’s asset recovery initiative highlights the problems with state-ownership in the […]
Myanmar is on track to be a major player in Asia’s energy security. It has an abundance of untapped resources, a geographic location strategically sandwiched between two economic giants (China and India) and has recently […]
Almost 30 years to the day that a young, Harvard-trained American lawyer won a famous judgment at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against the United States, Paul S Reichler pulled off another momentous victory […]
In just 25 years Vietnam has transformed from one of the world’s poorest countries to a lower middle income economy. This is primarily due to key structural reforms which were implemented in 1986 in areas […]
After some months of uncertainty, a representative from Thailand’s Democrat Party last week declared in a televised seminar that the party would not support the proposed draft constitution in the August 7 referendum. This follows […]