The Gold Trap: How COVID-19 is pushing Filipino children into hazardous work
By Marielle Lucenio
The Philippines had been making slow progress in its long fight against child labour, but the pandemic reversed the gains that had...
A culture of silence blunts the impact of a new Vietnamese law against sexual...
By Trang Vu
Vietnam’s new labor law requires employers to put in place mechanisms to prevent and penalize sexual harassment in the workplace. But Vietnamese...
Who Peels Your Garlic: Inside Manila’s Informal Economy
By Geela Garcia
The garlic peeling industry in Baseco, Manila renders Filipino women among the least visible, worst paid, and most dispensable part of...
Can Singapore’s home cleaning scheme reduce maid abuse?
By Rachel Genevieve Chia
Photos Zachary Tang
Demand for part-time home cleaning is up amid Covid-triggered shortages of full-time household help. A newly-formalised scheme gives Singapore’s...
5 things you must know to kick off World Ozone Day this year
Today is World Ozone Day! In 1994, the UN General Assembly proclaimed 16 September the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer,...
Fighting a war: Afghanistan’s Army of Midwives
In Afghanistan, a woman dies every 27 minutes from pregnancy-related complications. At 6.5 percent (6,500 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births), the maternal mortality...
The Road to Independence: Burma (1945 – 1962)
From the 1962 Democracy Protests, through the 1974 U Thant Crisis, the 1988 Uprising, and the 2007 Saffron Revolution, to the 2021 Spring Revolution, Myanmar has fought against the whims of its military leaders and suffered at the hands of the army. To make sense of the tumultuous events of the past six decades, we must understand the complex politics and power struggles that have dominated this country once known as Burma.
Sea Change in the Strait
By Sarah Chew
It is August 1965. Less than two years after a merger, Singapore’s reluctant departure from the Federation of Malaysia throws her into...
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The Pyramid of Gunung Padang
Megalithic site in Indonesia could be the oldest in the world
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PeruGunung Padang is once again making headlines as the first pyramid in Southeast Asia and the oldest megalithic site in the world.Recent discoveries as deep as 90 feet found the hill-pyramid to contain...
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
(Photo: Graphicaartis/Corbis)
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon has captured the imagination of historians worldwide for centuries. Yet, its existence remains a debate as years of digging have turned up nothing about the lost Gardens.First described in a book called Babyloniaca by a Chaldean priest named Berossus in 280 BC, the...
Island Nations of Asia
What is an Island Nation?
An island country is a nation that is made up of one or more islands or land that is surrounded completely by water. Around one-fifth of Asia is made up of island nations, and while island countries are typically small with low populations, some, like...