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INTRODUCTION The objective of the review was to study the impact of tobacco taxes or prices on affordability and/or consumption of tobacco products in WHO South- East Asia Region (SEAR) countries, overall and by socioeconomic status; and change in consumption of one tobacco product for a given change in price/tax on another tobacco product. METHODS The searches were made in five databases (Medline, Embase, Cinahl, EconLit, Tobacconomics) using keywords such as 'tobacco', 'tax', 'price', 'impact' with their synonyms. Additionally, the first 100 articles through google search and e-reports from targeted sources were also reviewed. Studies illustrating the impact of prices/taxes on consumption/affordability of tobacco products in SEAR, in English and with no limitation on year, were included in the review. After two steps of screening, data from 28 studies were extracted using a structured and pre-tested data extraction form. RESULTS Of the 28 studies, 12 studies reported an inverse association between price and consumption/affordability, while 11 studies reported no or positive association between price and consumption/affordability of tobacco products. Five studies had unclear interpretations. The majority of studies estimated that the less affluent group were more price responsive compared to the more affluent group. Some studies indicated increased consumption of one product in response to price rise of another product, although, the findings were inconsistent. CONCLUSIONS The findings of our review support the use of tobacco tax and price measures as effective tools to address the tobacco epidemic. Our findings, however, also emphasize the importance of increasing tobacco product taxes and prices sufficiently to outweigh the effects of income growth, in order for the measures to be effective in reducing the affordability and consumption of tobacco products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which serves as the linchpin of regionalism in East Asia, is facing a new challenge of great power politics. This article explores ASEAN's position in and strategy for taking cooperative regional initiatives by referring to the management of confrontational politics between rival states. It explains ASEAN's handling of great power politics theoretically by impartial enmeshment for managing great powers' material interests and moral legitimacy in developing specific ideational frameworks. This article argues that ASEAN managed great powers' rivalry by enmeshing them into its regional initiatives impartially and maintaining organisational legitimacy by developing systems of socio-cultural norms. It also contends that ASEAN needs, in envisioning the future of Indo-Pacific regionalism, to extend its strategic reach through alignments with other parties and enhance moral legitimacy by deepening and broadening normative frameworks for advancing collective interests for the Indo-Pacific region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Herein, we present a comprehensive list of fishes in the Red River basin. • We verify the use of two fish fauna analyses to identify characteristic taxa. • The TFFA and VFFP methods were compared; the TFFA reflected the main fish taxa. • The VFFP results indicated the taxa representative of the Red River basin. • Data from fish fauna analyses should be used as indicators to plan fish preserves. The composition of fish fauna in the Red River basin was analyzed based on 288 fish species belonging to 138 genera, 53 families (subfamilies), and 14 orders, using the Traditional Fish Fauna Analysis (TFFA) and the Value of Fish Fauna Presence (VFFP) methods. The TFFA and VFFP methods allow for a ranking of the taxa according to commonality and uniqueness of the taxa to the river basin; however, both methods provide different, complimentary results. Based on the results from the TFFA method, 15 families (subfamilies), including 85 genera and 219 species, were identified as the main fish taxa in the Red River basin. Based on the results of the VFFP method, 17 families (subfamilies), including 89 species and 52 genera, were highlighted as representative families (subfamilies) and genera in the Red River basin. Overall, Cypriniformes was the most abundant order, followed by Siluriformes and Gobiiformes. Although the Red River basin is geographically situated in Southeast Asia, it had obvious characteristics of East Asian fish fauna rather than Southeast Asian fish fauna. Therefore, the Red River fish fauna can be considered the boundary between the fish fauna of Southeast Asia and East Asia. This paper further detailed the indexes and calculations of the TFFA and VFFP methods. The authors proposed using the results of the TFFA and VFFP methods as indicators for planning fish preserves as well as discussed the specific methods related to using these indicators to plan and establish fish preserves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although 30 years have passed since the ASEAN-Korea dialogue partnership began, the two sides' political and security relations remain irregular and limited. Although such limits have been widely recognized, they have rarely been examined comprehensively. This study aims to address this gap by focusing on Korean executive leadership as key diplomatic actors who are shaping an inconsistent and distant partnership with ASEAN. The findings show that the executives' changing conceptualizations of the regions and the approaches to regional security with limited agency independence in the bureaucracy have been major obstacles to finding a reliable common ground for institutionalizing cooperation with ASEAN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors searched for economic determinants of bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) in 15 East and Southeast Asian economies between 1990 and 2005. Estimation results from a gravity model using market access, comparative advantage and policy-driven incentives as variables suggest that multinational companies inside and outside the region had dissimilar FDI incentives and concerns regarding relative factor costs, import duties, geographic distance, and language. In addition, the results suggest a positive relationship between increased regional trade and FDI in East and Southeast Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the impact of recent economic and political change on collective and individual labor rights in East Asia. Deploying a new index for measuring de jure and de facto labor rights, the article presents new comparative data on labor rights in the region. Democratization has produced stronger collective labor rights in much of the region, but labor laws in most countries still fall far short of international labor standards. East Asia's labor laws offer similar levels of protection for individual labor rights to the rest of the world when firing costs are taken into account, and low regional averages are primarily an effect of Singapore's extremely weak individual labor rights. Few countries have revised their labor laws in the direction of greater labor market flexibility. However, the distance between law and practice is wide, so improvements in laws are not necessarily reflected on the ground. Flexibility enters through the back door of ineffective labor law enforcement, which in turn has affected the organizing efforts of unions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious disease of cloven-hoofed animals with serious economic consequences. FMD is endemic in Southeast Asia (SEA) and East Asia (EA) with the circulation of multiple serotypes, posing a threat to Australia and other FMD-free countries. Although vaccination is one of the most important control measures to prevent FMD outbreaks, the available vaccines may not be able to provide enough cross-protection against the FMD viruses (FMDVs) circulating in these countries due to the incursion of new lineages and sub-lineages as experienced in South Korea during 2010, a FMD-free country, when a new lineage of serotype O FMDV (Mya-98) spread to the country, resulting in devastating economic consequences. In this study, a total of 62 serotype O (2013–2018) viruses selected from SEA and EA countries were antigenically characterized by virus neutralization tests using three existing (O/HKN/6/83, O/IND/R2/75 and O/PanAsia-2) and one putative (O/MYA/2009) vaccine strains and full capsid sequencing. The Capsid sequence analysis revealed three topotypes, Cathay, SEA and Middle East-South Asia (ME-SA) of FMDVs circulating in the region. The vaccines used in this study showed a good match with the SEA and ME-SA viruses. However, none of the recently circulating Cathay topotype viruses were protected by any of the vaccine strains, including the existing Cathay topotype vaccine (O/HKN/6/83), indicating an antigenic drift and, also the urgency to monitor this topotype in the region and develop a new vaccine strain if necessary, although currently the presence of this topotype is mainly restricted to China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Vietnam. Further, the capsid sequences of these viruses were analyzed that identified several capsid amino acid substitutions involving neutralizing antigenic sites 1, 2 and 5, which either individually or together could underpin the observed antigenic drift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]