The Joe Biden administration has unveiled its Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, but it doesn’t look like a traditional trade deal and could end up falling short of its ambitions.
From left to right, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, U.S. President Joe Biden, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attend the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) launch event in Tokyo in May 2022. Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
In late May, the Joe Biden administration launched its first major trade initiative: the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF). The IPEF is billed as an effort to expand U.S. economic leadership in the Indo-Pacific region. This was also the objective of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade deal that was negotiated during the Barack Obama administration. But President Donald Trump withdrew from the TPP in 2017, and the Biden administration has made clear that it does not intend to reenter that trade pact, which is now renamed the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP.
The annual meeting of the World Health Assembly (WHA) concluded on May 28. At the gathering, member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) made many decisions, some of which stood out as potential turning points for global health. The WHA did not ignore COVID-19, but member states primarily grappled with challenges that the pandemic created and that must be addressed beyond COVID-19. However, member states demonstrated as much caution as resolution in some of the most prominent decisions taken. This wariness creates uncertainty about the importance of these decisions as the WHO labors to put global health governance on more solid post-pandemic footing.
A scene in historical animation Nữ Tướng Mê Linh (The Heroines). Photo courtesy of the Việt Nam Cartoon Company
By Lương Thu Hương
Though 2021 posed a year of challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the nation’s animation industry went from strength to strength, receiving an abundance of awards and millions of hits on YouTube.
Việt Nam Cartoon Studio (the Việt Nam Cartoon Joint Stock Company) last year completed its production plan, having 16 films approved by the Cinema Department under the culture ministry for distribution.
The films produced by the company were diverse, rich in forms of expression and contained many unique features.
If there was one common challenge to unite the Asia Pacific region, it would be corruption. From campaign pledges to media coverage to civil society forums, corruption dominates discussion. Yet despite all this talk, there’s little sign of action. Between Australia’s slipping scores and North Korea’s predictably disastrous performance, the 2015 index shows no significant improvement. Has Asia Pacific stalled in its efforts to fight corruption?
This year’s poor results demand that leaders revisit the genuineness of their efforts and propel the region beyond stagnation.
The public desire for change is huge. In India, Sri Lanka and elsewhere, we’ve seen a host of governments coming to power on anti-corruption platforms. As corruption continues to dominate media coverage across and beyond the region, increasing interest in the issue has sparked a raft of new research into both public and private sector corruption.
The bad
So why this picture of zero progress? Despite boastful efforts on petty corruption, Malaysia’s 1MBD scandal brought the crux of the challenge into sharp focus: is political leadership genuinely committed to fighting corruption throughout society? The Malaysian prime minister’s inability to answer questions on the US$700 million that made its way into his personal bank account is only the tip of the iceberg.
In India and Sri Lanka leaders are falling short of their bold promises, while governments in Bangladesh and Cambodia are exacerbating corruption by clamping down on civil society. In Afghanistan and Pakistan a failure to tackle corruption is feeding ongoing vicious conflicts, while China’s prosecutorial approach isn’t bringing sustainable remedy to the menace. This inability to tackle root causes holds true across the region – witness, for example, Australia’s dwindling score in recent years.
Malaysia’s 1MBD scandal brought the challenge into sharp focus: is political leadership genuinely committed to fighting corruption throughout society?
Reversing corruption is clearly not solely down to governments, but they’re the ones with the largest role and the power to create enabling environments for others. This year’s poor results demand that leaders revisit the genuineness of their efforts and propel the region beyond stagnation. They must fulfil promises, and ensure efforts aren’t undermined in practice. Anti-corruption commissions are a prime example here: while their creation across the region is commendable, ongoing political interference and inadequate resources has meant many are unable to fulfil their mandate. This has to be addressed.
Across Asia, the use of personal connections to get ahead is a common practice.
In addition to paying bribes for the services they need, people use their family or social contacts to skip the line or gain quicker and better access to schools and hospitals, and “speed up” government paperwork such as driver’s licenses or birth certificates..
How much you can increase the speed and quality of your service often depends on how much you can pay or who you know.
In the Global Corruption Barometer — Asia, we asked people about how and why they paid bribes or used personal connections when accessing public services across Asia.
Hannah J. Dawson, Senior Researcher, Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, University of the Witwatersrand
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Technological innovation can indeed be beneficial for the working class. Photo by JNS/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
Narrative frames are fundamental to unifying ideologies. They frame what is possible and impossible, which ideas can be accepted and which must be rejected. In her book, Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics, storyteller and political analyst Nanjala Nyabola examines the framing of the Fourth Industrial Revolution narrative in this light.
In the wake of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the international community is scrambling to deter President Vladimir Putin and his cronies – and to help end the military aggression as soon as possible.
Among other measures, European Union member countries, Canada, United Kingdom and the United States have all announced targeted sanctions against Kremlin-linked individuals and businesses – many of whom are suspected of large-scale corruption.
In a kleptocratic system such as today’s Russia, going after the elites can be meaningful. The vast wealth that Russian kleptocrats have amassed – and continue to enjoy – has helped President Putin tighten his grip on power, exert illicit influence over the affairs of other nations and embolden his geopolitical ambitions.
nikkei – Nearly 50 years after Ferdinand Marcos Sr. declared brutal martial law, the Philippines is poised to elect his son. Has history been forgotten?
Nikkei staff writersMay 7, 2022 03:26 JST
NEW YORK — Welcome to Nikkei Asia’s podcast: Asia Stream.
Every week, Asia Stream tracks and analyzes the Indo-Pacific with a mix of expert interviews and original reporting by our correspondents from across the globe.
This week, we focus on one of Asia’s most dynamic but flawed democracies: the Philippines. With the election just days away, we get under the hood of the electoral system and investigate the powerful role that dynasties play in the country, with a special focus on Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the front-runner on the cusp of taking power. We then take into account that other essential, if dangerous, tenet of modern Philippine democracy: disinformation, and how it is being used to gain support among the country’s most vulnerable populations.
A worker fogs a housing estate for mosquitoes in Singapore on August 27, 2020.
(CNN)Singapore says it is facing a dengue “emergency” as it grapples with an outbreak of the seasonal disease that has come unusually early this year.
The Southeast Asian city-state has already exceeded 11,000 cases — far beyond the 5,258 it reported throughout 2021 — and that was before June 1, when its peak dengue season traditionally begins.
Experts are warning that it’s a grim figure not only for Singapore — whose tropical climate is a natural breeding ground for the Aedes mosquitoes that carry the virus — but also for the rest of the world. That’s because changes in the global climate mean such outbreaks are likely to become more common and widespread in the coming years.
Rising prices are hurting wallets across the world. The crisis is particularly bad in Sri Lanka and Turkey, and in Japan, people are facing inflation for the first time in decades.
Nikkei staff writersMay 20, 2022 07:38 JST
NEW YORK — Welcome to Nikkei Asia’s podcast: Asia Stream.
Every episode, Asia Stream tracks and analyzes the Indo-Pacific with a mix of expert interviews and original reporting by our correspondents from across the globe.
A century ago, the colonial government was active in inoculating Vietnamese citizens against a variety of diseases.
While Vietnam’s recent massive COVID-19 vaccine efforts have proven a great success in reducing deaths and returning the country to some semblance of normalcy, it is hardly the first time a government here has stepped in to inoculate the population against dangerous contagions. About 100 years ago, the French managed a vigorous campaign to inoculate indigenous Vietnamese against a variety of diseases such as smallpox, cholera and tuberculosis as part of larger health and sanitation initiatives.
Kachin State’s Chipwi Township in northernmost Myanmar is known for its pristine forests and crystal-clear water.
But 10 years ago, local residents started noticing the patches of land that had been cleared on the lush mountains surrounding their town, which borders China’s Yunnan province. It started with one patch of land, where all the trees were cut down. Then others followed.
Soon locals saw heavy machinery being moved through their town, heading to those barren plots of land. Then workers started flooding in. They excavated the ground and left open pits, many filled with chemically-laced water, in areas once rich in woodland. The water near those sites was no longer clean.
It became obvious at that stage that the newcomers were looking for something underneath the ground – rare earth, which contains elements widely used in high-tech products like smartphones, computer components, electric vehicles and solar cells.
Ban Chấp hành Trung ương quyết định khai trừ Đảng với Bộ trưởng Y tế Nguyễn Thanh Long và Chủ tịch UBND TP Hà Nội Chu Ngọc Anh.
Tại cuộc họp bất thường chiều 6/6, Trung ương cũng yêu cầu các cơ quan chức năng “khẩn trương xem xét, xử lý kỷ luật về hành chính theo đúng quy định đối với cá nhân đã bị kỷ luật đảng”.
Bộ trưởng Y tế Nguyễn Thanh Long tại phiên họp tổ ở Quốc hội, ngày 26/5. Ảnh: Hoàng Phong
Hôm 4/6, Bộ Chính trị đề nghị Ban chấp hành Trung ương xem xét, kỷ luật ông Nguyễn Thanh Long (Ủy viên Trung ương Đảng, Bí thư Ban cán sự đảng, Bộ trưởng Y tế) và ông Chu Ngọc Anh (Ủy viên Trung ương Đảng, Phó bí thư Thành ủy, Bí thư Ban cán sự đảng, Chủ tịch UBND TP Hà Nội, nguyên Bí thư Ban cán sự đảng, nguyên Bộ trưởng Khoa học và Công nghệ), sau kiến nghị của Ủy ban Kiểm tra Trung ương 18 ngày trước.
“The 2022 heat wave in India and Pakistan is an extreme weather event which has resulted in the hottest March in India since 1901. The hot season arrived unusually early in the year and extended into April, affecting a large part of India’s northwest and Pakistan”. Wikipedia
Since the beginning of March, India and Pakistan and large parts of South Asia experienced prolonged heat, that at the time of writing, May 2022, still hasn’t subsided.
March was the hottest in India since records began 122 years ago and in Pakistan, the highest worldwide positive temperature anomaly during March was recorded and many individual weather stations recorded monthly all-time highs through March. At the same time, March was extremely dry, with 62 percent less than normal rainfall reported over Pakistan and 71 percent below normal over India, making the conditions favourable for local heating from the land surface. The heatwave continued over the month of April and reached its preliminary peak towards the end of the month. By the 29th of April, 70 percent of India was affected by the heatwave.
While heatwaves are not uncommon in the season preceding the monsoon, the very high temperatures so early in the year coupled with much less than average rain have led to extreme heat conditions with devastating consequences for public health and agriculture. The full health and economic fallout, and cascading effects from the current heat wave will however take months to determine, including the number of excess deaths, hospitalisations, lost wages, missed school days, and diminished working hours. Early reports indicate 90 deaths in India and Pakistan, and an estimated 10-35 percent reduction in crop yields in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Punjab due to the heatwave.
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