Reporting ASEAN

The sound of rubber sandals crunching on dry bamboo leaves is the only noise in the fading light of Sumur Bendung, a natural spring that is a lifeline for the residents of this mountainous community, located at the top of a hill at the westernmost tip of Indonesia's Java island.

Hussein waits for passengers who want to go on tour of sorts in the artificial lake around the dry Karian Dam here in Somang village, which is located less than 90 kilometres southeast of Gunung Baru community, also in Indonesia's Banten province.

Indonesia is burning again. The recurrence of severe fires during the 2026 El Niño should force a reassessment of how the country defines successful peatland restoration and fire management. Zero-burning policies and partial rewetting are not enough. What Indonesia needs is a strategy designed for extreme drought, unmanaged land and a changing climate. Indonesia has spent the past decade trying to ensure that the fire catastrophe of 2015 would not happen again.

"Why are nearly 8 billion people on the planet Earth, their whole future, is in the hands of a few people with vested interests in control of things?" asked climate scientist Benjamin Horton, dean of the School of Energy and the Environment at the City University of Hong Kong. He was referring to the petroleum industry, saying that oil is a "stranded asset" that has had its day.

(Insights on climate reporting and a world in disorder at the 'Telling the Climate Story' workshop, August 2026. Updated after the event.) Let me start with a confession. I had some mixed feelings about holding this workshop, although we really wanted a face-to-face event - and it's really different to connect with everyone for real. That's because, I thought, we're adding more carbon into the air from your flights.

Days after the flood disaster in Nepal, many news reports and interviews have been saying that the link between this and the larger climate crisis is 'unclear' or still being figured out. This can be jarring to hear at a time of extreme events, such as fires in Europe, unusual snowfall around the Andes in South America and extreme heat in Japan, Korea and Hong Kong this year. What exactly does a 'connection to the climate' mean?

The idea of installing solar panels on the roof of his home in Cavite province, Philippines had long been percolating in NJ Villafuerte's mind. But it was the closure of the Strait of Hormuz after the US-Israel attacks on Iran in February that pushed him into executing what had been just a neat idea - in a matter of days. In early March, a team of workers arrived and installed a 12-kilowatt peak hybrid solar system, along with a pair of battery storage at his property.

Trust in news weakened across most of Southeast Asia this year as audiences in the region were more likely than their global peers to rely on social media, video networks, messaging apps and content creators for news. The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2026, released in mid-June, also shows a region grappling with persistent misinformation concerns, waning interest in news and reluctance to pay for online content.

Trust in news in the Philippines plummeted by 10 points in 2026, the steepest decline among all 48 markets covered by this year's Reuters Institute Digital News Report. This comes amid deep political divisions, sustained attacks on the media and a continued shift toward social media, video platforms, creators and AI tools. Only 28% of adult Filipino respondents said they trusted most news most of the time, down from 38% in 2025.

In friendlier times, Cambodia's Hun Sen had agreed to host the fourth meeting of ASEAN's informal advisory group for Myanmar, headed by Thailand's Thaksin Shinawatra. This was announced by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, whose country is this year's ASEAN chair, at the ASEAN leaders' summit in May. But, how now?