• OPINION

  Indonesia refuses to be railroaded into China deal

  News, Adam Minter, Published on 10/09/2015

  » It was a deal that a developing nation such as Indonesia wasn't supposed to refuse. In return for a $5.5 billion (199 billion baht) Chinese loan to be repaid over 50 years, Indonesia would receive its first high-speed rail line, a 150-kilometre high-tech bauble to run from the capital, Jakarta, to the country's third-largest city, Bandung. But late last week, President Joko Widodo's government did the unexpected and refused it -- and a less-attractive Japanese proposal -- in favour of soliciting bids to build a slower train that will cost about 40% less. According to Bloomberg News, the high-speed line was not considered "commercially viable".

• THAILAND

  Putting traditional Chinese medicine to the test

  News, Adam Minter, Published on 17/09/2015

  » Toad skins and turtle shells aren't the cures most westerners turn to when they learn they've developed cancer. But in China, the market for traditional remedies like these grew 35% last year, twice as fast as the overall anti-cancer market. Though the effectiveness of these treatments is unproven, Western doctors, elite medical institutions and pharmaceutical companies are starting to put them to the scientific test.

• OPINION

  Behind the Great Firewall, China poisons the internet

  News, Adam Minter, Published on 13/10/2015

  » For years now, China's elaborate efforts to censor and control the internet -- collectively known as the Great Firewall -- have restricted what the world's biggest population of netizens can see and how fast they can download. Until now, that hasn't been much of a problem for anyone besides locals and companies such as Facebook and Google hoping to sell to them.

• OPINION

  India, China key to ending region's haze

  News, Adam Minter, Published on 19/10/2015

  » The thick haze that's blanketed much of Southeast Asia for the last month carries the ashy remains of Indonesian forests and peatlands -- burnt in many cases to clear land for producing palm oil, the world's most popular edible oil.

• OPINION

  Introduction of two-child policy is too little, too late

  News, Adam Minter, Published on 27/10/2015

  » When Chinese leaders convene this week for a four-day meeting on the future of the country's economy, the biggest news might have to do with babies. According to reports in Chinese media, the government may be ready to relax the notorious "one-child" policy, in existence since the late 1970s, and allow Chinese parents to have two kids.

• OPINION

  Plans for big science face big hurdles

  News, Adam Minter, Published on 10/11/2015

  » As in so many other things, China's seeking to play a leading role in 21st century science. And it's using a familiar weapon: money.

• THAILAND

  Consequences of overfishing in the South China Sea

  News, Adam Minter, Published on 18/11/2015

  » President Obama's visit to the Philippines this week will train a spotlight on the fiercely contested South China Sea. Both he and his hosts will likely call on China and other claimants to maintain the status quo in the region until their various differences can be resolved. Yet while that may be the best one can hope for geopolitically, it could be a disaster environmentally.

• OPINION

  China is key to preventing an antibiotic apocalypse

  News, Adam Minter, Published on 24/11/2015

  » Last week scientists announced they'd discovered a gene spreading among bacteria in China that renders them resistant to some of the world's most powerful, "last resort" antibiotics. If such invulnerable bugs spread, doctors may soon lack the tools needed to combat infections, whether contracted through chemotherapy, surgery or even simple cuts. Indeed, the post-antibiotic "apocalypse", as this scenario has been known for a decade, may already be upon us: There's evidence that the resistant genes have made their way to Laos and Malaysia.

• OPINION

  What's good for China isn't always good for Alibaba

  News, Adam Minter, Published on 16/12/2015

  » Late on Friday night, Alibaba's Jack Ma joined Amazon's Jeff Bezos as the latest tech billionaire to acquire his own newspaper, by purchasing Hong Kong's South China Morning Post (SCMP) for US$266 million (9.6 billion baht).

• OPINION

  How to fight Asian slavery, one supplier at a time

  News, Adam Minter, Published on 23/12/2015

  » As you dig into your shrimp cocktail this holiday season, spare a thought for the men and women who peeled those tiny crustaceans. According to a six-month Associated Press investigation, there's a chance the workers were modern-day slaves in Thailand, exploited by shadowy suppliers who have been linked to some of the biggest US supermarket and restaurant chains, from Wal-Mart to the Capital Grille.

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