Health & Environment
China banned the import of waste materials and an entire ‘do-gooder’ ecosystem collapsed as a result, exposing the West as having no sustainable solution to a problem of its own creation.
Four deaths, an increase in patients suffering depression, and police seeking counselling: experts say weeks of stressful protests have left the city facing a mental health crisis – and everybody is vulnerable.
Jakarta is home to 10 million people but that swells to 30 million on weekdays with commuters from nearby cities. It chokes on pollution from traffic, industry and coal plants, which grows even more intense during the dry season.
this week in asia
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Rain or shine, villagers in the wet region of Mokhada constantly face water woes, as its water supply is diverted to industrial areas and other cities – a problem that has worsened as a severe drought grips India.
Bayarjargal Agvaantseren roused local communities and politicians to prevent mines destroying the magnificent mountain cat’s habitat – home to a population of snow leopards that is the world’s second largest after China.
this week in asia
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The haze that hit Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia in 2015 has since largely been avoided – but this has much to do with luck, and only governments can make the fundamental changes needed, writes Chandran Nair.
Climbers who have paid up to US$45,000 to summit Everest are often determined to succeed or die trying. When they fail, it can cost even more to retrieve their bodies
Recycling bins around the city are a great idea, but people don’t know what they can put in them … or are they just too lazy to go downstairs and do it?
Singaporeans, who threw away 763,000 tonnes of food last year, are starting to get an appetite for reducing edible waste
Nguyen Thi Thuy and Le Thi Hoa are part of Vietnam’s first all-female landmine clearing team. Thuy was so dedicated that she even worked while pregnant.
More than 40 years after the Vietnam war ended, unexploded ordnance still litters Quang Tri province – providing a source of income for those willing to risk life and limb to look for it.
The market for low-cost painkillers is ballooning as poverty-stricken victims of the US military’s toxic herbicide search for relief.
More than 40 years on from the Vietnam war, infants are being born with birth defects linked to Agent Orange, but US courts remain unsatisfied with evidence indicating a connection.
Environment minister Yeo Bee Yin says the Southeast Asian country ‘won’t continue to be a dumping ground for developed nations’. The 10 shipping containers of refuse to be sent back contain plastic packaging and e-waste.
As the trade war threatens to put Chinese rare earth minerals out of America’s grasp, Washington turns to alternative sources to fill the gap. In Malaysia, few are willing to tolerate the environmental damage that would entail.
For more than a month, the northern Thai city and its neighbouring provinces have been shrouded in smog, which has discouraged tourists and hurt hotel occupancy rates.
In many Asian societies, menstruation is a taboo topic that is rarely discussed – causing major gaps in knowledge about reproductive health. But thanks to new products and approaches, a change in perspective is under way.
Just as it takes a village to raise a child, the city state hopes the whole community – and not just the government – can chip in to help take care of patients and their stressed carers
Labourers in the Lion City are paid about US$15 a day, leaving them little choice but to turn to low cost caterers for their meals. Unfortunately, that means food that is nutritionally questionable – and often downright rotten