Thailand has moved to make weight-loss pens prescription-only, as a glut of the GLP-1 medicines – which mimic the hormones released once someone is full – floods the black market and influencers swarm TikTok to extol the quick wins of the simple injections. The Southeast Asian nation, which is never far behind wellness or aesthetic trends and has a notorious black market in counterfeit drugs, has seen the uptake of GLP-1 medicines skyrocket, doctors say, including the market-leading Ozempic...

Property agent Raymond Heng had suspected True Fitness was struggling, but he did not expect the gym he had visited for more than a decade to disappear overnight. The closure was not entirely surprising given the region’s fiercely competitive fitness industry, but its abruptness left Heng, 47, in disbelief after paying S$8,800 (US$6,900) for a lifetime membership in 2013. “I guessed that they might not have been doing that well since branches have been closing over the years, but I did not...

As Rodrigo Duterte’s crimes-against-humanity trial looms, an international tribunal faces the challenge of managing a sprawling prosecution case around the health of an 81-year-old former president of the Philippines, on top of shielding the proceedings from a highly charged media environment. Those pressures came into focus at an International Criminal Court (ICC) status conference on Wednesday, when Presiding Judge Joanna Korner urged prosecutors to trim their witness list and evidence ahead...

For years, stablecoins have carried a simple promise: move money globally with the speed of the internet, without the cost and delays of traditional banking rails. The harder question has always been whether they can move from crypto-native circles into regulated, everyday payments. Singapore-based dtcpay is betting that the answer lies not in bypassing the […] The post SBI joins dtcpay’s US$25M round to bridge Japan, SEA stablecoin corridors appeared first on e27.

Crunchbase’s first-half 2026 numbers looked like an industry-wide win: global venture funding hit US$510 billion, smashing the previous half-year record. Look closer and the picture curdles. OpenAI and Anthropic alone absorbed 43 per cent of every venture dollar deployed on the planet in six months, with Anthropic’s US$65-billion raise alone equal to nearly a third of […] The post Ecosystem Roundup: The AI funding boom has a Southeast Asia-sized blind spot appeared first on e27.

Indonesia welcomed its first aircraft carrier on Friday, a former Italian warship that the government says will strengthen the archipelago nation’s maritime security and disaster response capabilities. The 41-year-old former ITS Giuseppe Garibaldi, with capacity for short take-off and vertical landing aircraft and helicopters, was welcomed with a military ceremony upon its arrival at a naval base in North Jakarta’s Tanjung Priok seaport. Rome in March agreed to give the carrier, which was...

A 16-year-old student shot dead at least two fellow students and then killed himself at a school in the southern Philippines on Friday, provincial officials said. Eight others were injured, with four in critical condition. All the victims – Grade 9 students at Banga National High School – were aged 14 to 17, said Albert Palencia, mayor of Banga town in South Cotabato, where the shooting took place. The incident follows two fatal gun incidents since June at schools in the Philippines, where...

A founder may want the main business argument. A marketing lead may care about campaign angles. A sales lead may look for customer objections. A busy operator may only want the practical steps. The core idea can be the same, but the way it is framed often needs to change. That was the problem we […] The post How we use AI to turn one article into audience-specific versions appeared first on e27.

The global rush to build artificial intelligence may be making the basic gateway to the internet more expensive for the people who need it most. That is the uncomfortable warning from the GSMA’s State of Mobile Internet Connectivity Report 2026, released in Hong Kong on September 18. The industry body, which represents mobile operators and […] The post GSMA says smartphone costs could deepen the coming AI divide appeared first on e27.

Heavy rains triggered flooding and landslides across northern Vietnam, killing three people and damaging thousands of homes as well as more than 22,000 hectares (54,000 acres) of crops. The northern region has experienced downpours since Monday, with some areas receiving as much as 653mm (26 inches) of rain, according to a statement on the government’s website. More than 16,000 houses have been inundated while rice and other crops have been damaged. National and provincial roads have been...