Southeast Asia Globe

The Mekong is one of the world’s great rivers. At the centre of this system is the flood pulse – a seasonal cycling of water that sees flow in the Mekong swell in response to the monsoon transporting water, nutrients and sediments from the headwaters ...

Cracked riverbeds, empty fishing nets and, snaking its way through the parched landscape, a beautifully clear, blue-tinted river. This was the view of the mighty Mekong River earlier this year, when record-low water levels revealed a striking vulnerability to the main artery of Southeast Asia, a ...

Cambodian garment workers have had their jobs suspended by the thousands as global markets clench and governments enact drastic measures to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Now, as the US and European economies grind to a halt, local industry insiders warned on ...

A glossy photobook sits on the coffee table of the Deep C Industrial Zone offices, surrounded by walls the colour of sunshine and an abundance of indoor foliage.  “Compared with other big cities such as Hanoi and [Ho Chi Minh City], Hai Phong is still the ...

There is little wonder why ancient humans gave prophetic qualities to the animal kingdom. Long before the days of computerised climate models and long term weather forecasting, animals were the nearest thing they had to an early warning system of seasonal arrivals, impending disasters, and ...

That was the basic translation of the JapanCorp company slogan, and while Chantrea thought it was a bit cheesy, she had to admit it seemed accurate enough. Chantrea had been an industrial engineer for more than a decade now, managing the systems that kept Cambodia’s manufacturing ...

A river can be timeless, but on no two days will its flowing course ever truly be the same. So it goes on the mighty Mekong. For thousands of years, this river has wound its way through much of Asia, shaping the land and lives of ...

The year is 2040 and the time is coming up to midday. Lunch at her office desk is the sole option for Sopheap Jing, one of the many people in Cambodia and elsewhere whose careers have become something of a paradox.  Under-employed and over-qualified, Sopheap is ...

Growing up in a rough neighbourhood rife with gambling and prostitution, peer pressure drove 31-year-old Oun* into using drugs while he was a teenager.  Addiction soon followed, leading to him quit school during his third year of junior high. Later, as his strained relations with his ...

Going by the sometimes breathless reports about how well Vietnam has done out of the US-China tariff joust, a reader would be forgiven for thinking that an authoritarian single-party state where farmers make up 40% of the workforce has been transformed into a kind of ...