Category: Featured
Featured articles from FORSEA contributors.
The Trouble of the Palm Oil Business in Southeast Asia
With name-calling and scapegoating over the polluted haze, governments of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore engage in a rhetorical exercise. In reality, all parties are skating around the real issues.
Plan to Drop Charges Against Najib Stepson Stokes Outrage in Malaysia
The controversy over Riza comes amidst great political uncertainty in Malaysia, with anybody’s guess how long the current prime minister Muhyiddin will remain in power.
Why Thais are Losing Faith in the Monarchy
In his article in the The Washington Post, Pavin Chachavalpongpun, FORSEA’s director of multimedia, explains how the eroding power of Thailand's monarchy is growing ever more evident.
Indonesia: The Fires Next Time
It’s surprising that while demand hits have caused factory closures, falling coal consumption and less auto traffic, leading to blue skies the world over, the palm oil industry continues its environmentally damaging practices unabatedly.
Southeast Asian Regimes Attack Democracy on the pretext of COVID-19
While COVID-19 continues to attack the population of this region, they also become targets of the state, as they demand transparency of information on the pandemic.
The Royalists Marketplace: The Supply and Demand for Dissent in Thailand
The Royalists Marketplace elevates political criticism, bringing it from underground to a screen, from gossip and rumour to open debate.
On Court Poetry During the Marcos Dictatorship and A Note on Duterte’s Anti-Poetry
Duterte’s aggressive anti-poetry in broken English, Tagalog and Visayan is the truth of today’s politics. And it is also the unmasked truth of the poetry of all of Marcos’ court poets. In other words, Duterte’s anti-poetry is the truth of the poetry of De Vega, Mella and Hufana.
The Pasaway and Duterte’s Pandemic Blame Game
The Duterte government will never be able to correctly deal with the pandemic unless it recognizes what, not who, the real enemy is. The enemy is not the pasaway, the poor or the rebels.
Dams Development & Disaster on the Mekong
Given the Mekong’s critical state arising from 11 Chinese dams and the recent Xayaburi dam in Lao, a moratorium on all hydropower construction on the Mekong as part of a “New Deal to Save our Mekong” is needed now before it's too late.
Coups, Courts, and John Austin’s Theory of Law
If one day Thai society decides to prosecute a junta for their crime against the state, the set of people to stand trial, as partners to that crime, will need to include more individuals than the coup-makers.