For fishermen like Joey Marabe in the Philippine province of Zambales, the geopolitical contest playing out in the South China Sea can be measured in dwindling catches and shrinking incomes, as the presence of Chinese vessels around a contested shoal increasingly limits where they can work. “It’s a huge drop. Before, a lot of us who could go out to Scarborough Shoal used to bring home around 15,000 pesos (US$238) a week, a comfortable amount for our families,” said Marabe, a resident of Masinloc...

The first generation of ASEAN’s unicorn founders is moving on. Some have stepped back from operational roles. Some have moved into investing. A few have taken government appointments and, more recently, moved back out of them. The question I keep coming back to, fifteen years into a risk career that has run alongside this generation’s […] The post The founder-to-minister pivot isn’t the problem, ASEAN’s missing governance infrastructure is appeared first on e27.

Poland’s delivery of Black Hawk helicopters to the Philippines has given Warsaw a foothold in Manila’s defence market as it seeks to expand exports from its growing defence industry, with analysts saying drones, air defence and potentially co-production could pave the way for a broader partnership. Polish deputy foreign minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski said on Tuesday that Warsaw was keen to pursue further defence partnerships with the Philippines, as Poland has poured US$50 billion into...

A Malaysian woman has died while scuba diving after she was caught in strong currents in Bali, Indonesia. According to local media portal Bali News, the victim, Siti Nuraini Rusidi, 40, was on a diving trip with a divemaster, boat captain and several other divers when the incident occurred at 11.10am local time on Wednesday. The trip’s divemaster, Eugenius Franciso Ray, 33, had reportedly raised concerns over her health when he noticed her coughing when the group was at the first dive site at...

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has issued a withering rebuke to foreigners behaving badly in Thailand following a wave of scandals involving illegal businesses and landholdings including a cemetery, saying the cases have “gone too far” by breaching Thai law and hospitality. Facing mounting public backlash against illegal foreign ownership of swathes of the country enabled by endemic corruption, Anutin’s government has halved the visa-free entry period to 30 days for most countries and...

India and Vietnam could turn their competition for “China plus one” investments into a complementary partnership, analysts say, combining New Delhi’s scale and technology capabilities with Hanoi’s manufacturing agility and links to East Asian supply chains. Such a shift could deepen both nations’ roles in global production networks across high-value industries – from electronics and pharmaceuticals to renewable energy – while giving companies reliable alternatives as they diversify supply chains...

When Cindi suffered her first severe psychotic episode a decade ago, she could no longer tell where reality ended and her imagination began. “My reality and fantasy [were] all distorted. I had no idea what was real, what was not,” the 38-year-old, who asked to be identified only by her first name, told This Week in Asia. “It was so severe to the point that I couldn’t even recognise my own family members. My mother was there, my brother was there, but they didn’t feel like my mother or my...

Indonesia’s latest ferry disaster has exposed persistent weaknesses in maritime safety oversight, experts have said, with poor enforcement and inadequate supervision continuing to leave passengers vulnerable across the sprawling archipelago. The capsizing of the Virgo Transport 8 in the Java Sea on Sunday has intensified scrutiny of a system that analysts say too often comes under pressure only after deadly accidents, rather than preventing them. Six people have been confirmed dead and 129...

A customer in Jakarta spends 20 minutes explaining a billing dispute to a chatbot, gets bounced to a human agent, and has to start the story over from scratch. Multiply that across the millions of AI-mediated conversations happening daily across the region, and you get a sense of the trust deficit quietly building beneath Asia […] The post “AI amnesia” is quietly costing Southeast Asian brands their customers appeared first on e27.

A diagnosed paedophile who sexually abused 11 girls over 33 years, with the acts ranging from molestation to rape, was sentenced by a Singapore court on Thursday to 21 years’ jail. The victims were as young as five, and included his daughter, granddaughters, nieces and students at an enrichment centre he ran with his wife. The judge noted that the jail term should not be crushing or amount to a life sentence for the 71-year-old man, who suffers from a rare blood cancer called myelofibrosis. At...