The biggest recipient of Chinese foreign direct investments in the Philippines these days is the online or offshore gambling industry.

WHEN PROVIDING Official Development Assistance or ODA, Western donors typically require the recipient states to adhere to international political norms, such as the ratification of human rights, fiscal austerity, bank secrecy laws, and environmental standards.

THE YEAR 2019 marks the second decade of Indonesian media’s reform era. Although strongman Soeharto stepped down as president of Indonesia in 1998, it was only in 1999 that reforms began in the country’s media industry, with the passage of the landmark Press Law (Law No. 40 of 1999) on 23 September that year.

TIMOR LESTE’S ranking in the latest press-freedom index of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) leaped by 11 places from the previous year, but those on the ground do not feel any improvement in the country’s media conditions.