The story started nearly a year ago. On October 13 in 2016, a News & Views article entitled ‘‘Precision medicine: what challenges are we facing?”, written by a group of 21 bioinformaticians in China, who are actively involved in the relevant research, was released online in Genomics Proteomics Bioinformatics [1]. A month later,an invitation arrived from a Thai colleague to one of the authors, P...

During the past five decades developing countries in Asia have provided the most persuasive and credible story as to how poor countries can progress and bring about prosperity for their downtrodden people. Beginning with Japan, followed by NICs particularly Korea, ASEAN countries and now China, these countries have not only doubled or quadrupled per capita incomes in a record time but also sign...

EAST Asian economic integration appears on the brink of becoming de jure, not de facto. From the 1980s, East Asia developed high levels of intraregional trade in response to market forces, not preferential trade agreements (PTAs). One reason was rising incomes in Japan and the newly industrialised economies (NIEs) of Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, creating an incentive for these econom...

This paper examines the impact of economic factors on bilateral trade flows between Malaysia and the GCC through estimations of panel data using a gravity model. In particular, the paper compares the determinants of bilateral trade and trade potentials between Malaysia and two regions, the non-traditional Gulf alliance and the traditional ASEAN counterpart, to provide insights for leveraging op...

High and volatile fossil fuel prices, growing concerns over energy security and the risk of climate change have all contributed to revived interest in nuclear power around the world. This is particularly the case in fast developing ASEAN countries. However, there is still considerable uncertainty about the prospects of nuclear power in terms of its economic viability and associated risks given ...

Objective: Smoking is a prevalent problem globally but more so among most ASEAN countries. Worldwide, six million lives are lost annually and this number is expected to grow. In light of this, the World Health Organization recognises the 31 of May to be World No Tobacco Day. For 2013, the theme is “Ban Tobacco Advertising, Promotion and Sponsorship”. This article aims to increase awareness amon...