The synthetic drug trade is booming in East and Southeast Asia, where the 5 lower Mekong countries account for just over 70% of  methamphetamine seizures in 2020. Resilient syndicates are diversifying production and distribution, while methamphetamine prices are going down and helping push up demand in the region.

Resignation, frustration mix as Southeast Asians find that their countries are back in lockdowns. But vaccination is underway, covering larger proportions of people in Singapore and Indonesia, than in the Philippines and Thailand.

The COVID-19 era has pressed the fast-forward button in the media’s shift to online journalism – and the digital mindset. This book offers trainers, news managers and journalists tools and tips for this new normal. By Reporting ASEAN founder Johanna Son for the Fojo Media Institute.

Click to download the report on the results of Reporting ASEAN’s survey among editors in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam, The gems in this in formation-gathering exercise lie in the editors’ evaluations of how familiar their organizations and journalists are with ASEAN issues, what news priority they give to ASEAN- related coverage, their assessments of the strengths, weaknesses and needs of their journalists, as well as what they identify as the toughest reporting challenges in covering ASEAN’s role, relevance and impact.

In recent years, Cambodia has been criticised for not investing enough in ASEAN. But this analysis by Chheang Vannarith makes the case for Cambodia viewing ASEAN as the catalyst of regional economic integration and economic diversification, a shield to protect its sovereignty and independence, and a platform to promote its national identity and prestige.

In this commentary for Reporting ASEAN, Kavi Chongkittavorn makes a case for why the acronym ‘CLMV’, which sets Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam apart, is increasingly out of place some two decades after they became full members of ASEAN.

Talk of media freedom in Southeast Asia these days has to include media accountability. It is time for the different users of the information sphere – journalists, media houses, media monitoring groups, journalism professors and researchers, consumers – to protect the space for free media to operate, Johanna Son writes in this analysis for World Press Freedom Day.

Laos has been more diplomatically adept than Cambodia at balancing ties with China with those of other countries. But while both are undoubtedly dancing with China, the social, economic and developmental cost of this dance remains to be seen in the coming years, says Johanna Son of Reporting ASEAN in this analysis.

As ASEAN takes stock of its record on its 50th anniversary, it would do well to adapt and change its non-interference policy, which prevents the association from being a genuine, effective ASEAN Community. In this Q&A, ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights’ Charles Santiago talks to Reporting ASEAN’s Johanna Son about ASEAN’s shortfalls in human rights.

PHNOM PENH, Dec 13 2012 (IPS) – For a brief moment last month, mainstream international media turned the spotlight on Cambodia, one of the world’s 48 least developed countries (LDCs), as a high-level visit from U.S. President Barack Obama and the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) gave this country of 14.3 million people a glamorous edge.

PHNOM PENH, Nov 15 – A group of 62 human rights and other organisations say the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration, expected to be adopted at the ASEAN summit later this month in Cambodia, is “not worthy of its name” and issued a statement roundly rejecting it if the document is indeed issued in its current form.

Nov 6 (ISEAS Perspective) – Cambodia will host the 21st ASEAN Summit and related summits in Phnom Penh from 18-20 November 2012. This Perspective article reviews what to expect from the 21st ASEAN Summit.

BANGKOK, Nov 14 (Bangkok Post) – Cambodia will fulfil its last major obligation as this year’s Asean chair on Nov 18-20, when it hosts the annual Asean Summit and seventh East Asia Summit (EAS).

In this Sep.26 open letter, human rights activists argue that “serious flaws” in the draft ASEAN Human Rights Declaration, set to be adopted by ASEAN later in the year, must be addressed. If not, they say, the declaration would “not bode well for the reputation and credibility” of the ASEAN human rights mechanism.

JAKARTA, Aug 25 (Jakarta Post) – Despite the absence of a joint communiqué from the 45th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM), foreign ministers of the regional grouping have agreed to release its “key elements” to public as part of consultations before the adoption of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD) at the 21st ASEAN Summit in November in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

KAMPOT/PHNOM PENH/KAMPONG CHAM, Aug 28 – Cambodia’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are busily preparing for the ASEAN Economic Community’s (AEC) free flow of goods in 2015. They are probably not that different from the other 10 ASEAN member states’ own SMEs.

Photo: Truong Van Vi/Imaging Our Mekong-IPS Asia-Pacific