Showing 1 - 7 of 7
Year of Turbulence
Asia focus, Published on 27/12/2021
» Pandemic drags on recovery: In the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, many Asian countries had enviable success, avoiding large-scale outbreaks and mass deaths. But the arrival of the more transmissible Delta variant this year and sluggish vaccine rollouts compounded by low availability sent cases surging. Combined with poor monitoring and easy movement among countries, often unofficially, Southeast Asia became a virus hotspot. The ballooning health crisis collided with churning political discontent in the case of Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia. Economically, the new wave of infections, and attendant restrictions imposed to curb the spread, stalled recoveries. After nearly two years of strict border controls, many countries started to loosen up and live with Covid. But the rise of the Omicron variant now threatens to scuttle those tentative reopening plans and usher in a third year of economic anxiety.
Myanmar moves step closer to new bids on China-backed belt and road project
Published on 09/09/2020
» Myanmar is a step closer to allowing companies to challenge a bid from China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) to build the behemoth New Yangon City project, after hiring German consulting firm Roland Berger to oversee the tendering process.
Be careful of the turning tide
Business, Piyasak Manason, Published on 09/09/2020
» As we expected, the global and Thai economies have reached low points not seen in decades and have begun to recover gradually in recent weeks. But in terms of investing, we are beginning to see a significant shift in the theme.
Don't call AI bigoted
Life, James Hein, Published on 06/11/2019
» Despite what some claim, Artificial Intelligence is not racist. Google built a system to detect hate speech or speech that exhibited questionable content. Following the rules given, it picked out a range of people with what some try to claim was a bias toward black people. Wrong. The AI simply followed the rules and a larger number of black people and some other minorities, as defined in the US, were found to be breaking those rules. It didn't matter to the machines that when one group says it, it isn't defined as hate speech by some; it simply followed the rules. People can ignore or pretend not to see rules, but machines don't work that way. What the exercise actually found was that speech by some groups is ignored while the same thing said by others isn't. As the saying goes, don't ask the question if you're not prepared to hear the answer.
Year of turbulence
Asia focus, Published on 31/12/2018
» Two unpredictable men with weird haircuts and access to nuclear weapons had a friendly chat in Singapore -- and that was just one of the many noteworthy stories of 2018. Elsewhere in Asia, we witnessed some surprising political developments (Malaysia) and not-so-surprising ones (Cambodia), along with what seemed to be a disturbingly high number of natural disasters. Many see the latter as a manifestation of the growing impact of climate change, and it's a debate that is bound to intensify in the year ahead. Below, Asia Focus looks back on the eventful year now ending.
'I am confident about 2017'
Business, Chatrudee Theparat, Published on 09/01/2017
» The military government brought in Somkid Jatusripitak to lead the regime's economic team in 2015, as the country was struggling with internal politics and global economic downturn.
Is your phone spying on you?
Life, James Hein, Published on 01/05/2013
» I've long been a fan of Firefox, but I somehow missed the announcement of its new OS coming out for mobile phones. Geeksphone, a Spanish start-up, sold out of the first devices with the new OS within a matter of hours and had to shut down its online store as demand unexpectedly exceeded supply. The new units were meant for developers only because the new Firefox OS is still in a very early stage of its evolution. Application development for the new OS is based on HTML5, JavaScript and Open Web standards. The official OS launch will be some time later this year and Google is working with ZTE in China on the project. The first commercial units will be manufactured in Brazil so this is a truly international effort and may be one to watch in the future.