Many may think that addressing sustainability – whether plastic use or climate change – can come after economic recovery from COVID-19. But they are not separate issues at all.

Southeast Asian countries’ targets and wish lists toward carbon neutrality are like individual recipes, using different ingredients in various ways, to produce the same dish (hopefully).

The ‘S Files’ looks at varied facets of our ongoing conversation around sustainability.

More public awareness of the link between wildlife and pandemics has given conservation groups a wider entry point to step up campaigns against their use. But COVID-19 restrictions have also led wildlife traffickers and sellers to turn to social platforms to push their trade.

Myanmar’s pandemic-hit communities are trying to fend for themselves as the country’s health system, already crippled after the Feb 1 coup, crumbles under a third outbreak of COVID-19. But the country needs a much stronger response, not to mention a functioning government.

The pandemic in Myanmar is an emergency that is unfolding swiftly, and is much, much worse than what we know at the moment. Reporting ASEAN speaks to Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) to get a better picture of the situation.

A 21-year-old university student shares his story of trauma, loss, anger and frustration, from experiencing what it means to have a health system that is flailing amid COVID-19. The Philippines has reported 17,800 deaths and has fully vaccinated just 0.23% of its over 110 million people, as of 6 May.

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.

COVID-19 may have forced Singapore and Malaysia to address the appalling living conditions of migrant workers they host. But larger and wider problems such as the lack of social protection, as well as discrimination that has become worse during the pandemic, persist.

Thailand, whose pandemic management has earned praises, looks to do mass vaccination from June and produce vaccines for local use and for export.

20 MARCH 2021 | REPORTING ASEAN In English | Burmese | Indonesian Độ “tào lao” của thông tin cho rằng chế độ ăn thực phẩm chứa alkaline cao (giàu kiềm) có thể chống dịch Covid-19 đến nay đã được xác định khẳng định trên khắp thế giới. Tuy nhiên, thông tin sai lệch này cũng […]

“I don’t consume wildlife stuff, so how can eating meat relate to the pandemic?’ If you have asked this before, you will want to dig into this Q&A with ADB environmental specialist Francesco Riccardi.

Meet the Vietnam Anti-Fake News Center, the newest kid on the fact-checking block in Southeast Asia. It doesn’t work like fact-checkers work elsewhere, but the COVID-19 infodemic has created new spaces for such initiatives within the limits of the media scene.

The renewed hostility that we have seen toward migrant workers in COVID-19 raises the question: Has the decades-long advocacy around a better understanding of their lives and roles made any difference?

အယ်လ်ကာလိုင်းပါတဲ့ အစားအစာတွေဟာ ကိုဗစ်-၁၉ ကနေ သင့်ကို ကာကွယ်ပေးပါတယ်ဆိုတဲ့ မဟုတ်မဟတ် ရေးထားတာကို မှတ်မိပါသလား။ အလျင်အမြန် ပျံ့နှံ့သွားခဲ့တဲ့ အဲဒီသတင်းကို အခု ဆောင်းပါးပါ ‘ခြေရာခံလိုက်ထား’ ပုံကိုကြည့်ရင် အချက်အလက်စစ်ဆေးရတဲ့ အလုပ်ဟာ အခက်အခဲတွေများပြားသလောက် တစ်ဖက်ကလည်း ဆက်လက်လုပ်ဆောင်နေရမယ်ဆိုတာ သိနိုင်ပါတယ်။

Remember the hoax claiming that alkaline foods can protect you from COVID-19? The ‘contact tracing’ of its viral trail, in this story, shows that as challenging as fact checking is, the work must continue.

Masih ingatkah dengan hoax yang mengklaim bahwa makanan beralkali dapat melindungi anda dari COVID-19? Di artikel ini, ‘penelusuran kontak’ atas jejaknya yang viral menunjukkan bahwa meskipun upaya cek fakta masih menghadapi banyak tantangan, upaya ini harus terus berlanjut.

A year after #COVID19 came to Southeast Asia, the infodemic around it is going strong in Myanmar – and adapting to new issues such as vaccines. Also in Burmese and Vietnamese.

Thailand’s management of COVID-19 has earned praises. But as the pandemic persists, the country’s pre-existing challenges in development are starting to show – and cause worries.