Cambodia and Thailand – Our favorite soft authoritarian, Cambodian PM Hun Sen is back at it. Just when you thought they were on the road to peace, Hun Sen has ordered Cambodian troops and police to fire on anyone crossing “illegally” into the area around the Preah Vihear Temple. This was Hun Sen’s response to […]
Myanmar – There seems to be a lot in the news lately concerning the “hermit kingdom” of the south. On Monday, the Burmese PM met with U.S. Senator Jim Webb, chairman of the Senate subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific. Webb, in a continuation of the new pragmatic Obama foreign policy for SE Asia, […]
Philippines – As many as 140 people are believed dead and, approximately 300,000 more are displaced in the Greater Manila region in the wake of Typhoon Ketsana. The area is home to 12 million people, and an amazing 80% of the capital has been flooded. Various international aid agencies and the U.S. Navy are helping […]
Asia Times Online has several great articles out this week on Southeast Asia: – Vietnam could be facing another currency crisis. The Vietnamese Dong may crash due to the governments unsustainable trade and spending deficits. Apparently, things got out of hand as early as late 2007, when Vietnam started printing Dong based off of the […]
The Arroyo Administration and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) have signed an agreement to form an “International Contact Group” to help negotiate a peace agreement between the two sides in the predominately Muslim island of Mindanao. Got all that? The agreement was signed in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday. For more background go here. – […]
–UPDATE (9-20-2009) – DNA test results confirm Top’s death. Indonesian authorities have officially declared Noordin Muhammed Top, suspected terror mastermind of the July Jakarta Hotel Bombings, dead. He was killed in last month’s Indonesian police raid of a house in the central Java town of Solo. The identification was based on fingerprints stored on the […]
Shawn W Crispin has an interesting article in Asian Times concerning the Vietnamese government’s latest freedom of speech crackdown that has specifically targeted bloggers who had publicly expressed anti-Chinese sentiment. Hanoi fears it cannot control the more than two million Vietnamese based blogs, a common source of uncensored news. While a general fear of the […]
An update on the recent Malaysian – Indonesian quarrel: The situation between the two nations has deteriorated to the point that the Malaysian government has asked the Indonesian government to protect its nationals in Indonesia. Further, Malaysia’s PM, Najib Tun Razak instructed Anifah Aman, his Minister of Foreign Affairs to meet with his counterpart in […]
– The Philippines will begin a type of visa waiver program to attract Chinese nationals, enabling them to obtain visa’s upon arrival at the airport. These rules were adopted on the recommendation of the Filipino Tourism Department to increase revenue. The visas will allow Chinese nationals on vacation or business to stay in the Philippines for up […]
Indonesia’s military has been busy lately, and not just perusing terror suspects, but in activities one might consider a serious misallocation of resources. The Indonesian Navy has deployed Marines to the barren island of Jemur, one of nine islands in the Riau (Arwah) Archipelago, in response to both the Travel Journal and Osvaja.net listing it as part of the Malaysian […]
– Malaysia is often sited as an example for the wider Muslim world of how a moderate pluralistic democracy can be compatible with Islam. An article in Forbes explores how moderate Malaysia actually is. First, the article recants the common outsiders view of Malaysia: …the Southeast Asian nation boasted the world’s tallest building, the iconic […]
In an update to Friday’s post on the Myanmar-Chinese border conflict, it appears the Burmese military has successfully routed the Kokang Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) in Kokang, a predominately ethnic Chinese militia in the Kokang region of the Shan State. This attack by central government forces was a violation of the 20 year […]
– Strong 2nd Quarter economic growth was shown in the economies of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Singapore did especially well, recovering from the worst recession in its history. The rebound in these states is attributed to government stimulus, financial reforms, and strong industrial fundamentals. However, exports still drag, largely due to weak […]
– Asia Times has an article on how the Filipino economy has stayed afloat due to the prodigious amount of remittance it receives. In a sense, Filipinos are to parts of East Asia and the Middle East what Mexican and Central Americans are to the United States or to a lesser extent, Former Soviets […]
Today, the head of the Indonesian police, Chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri, stated that there was no assassination plot against Obama, contradicting August 20th statements by Indonesian Center for Intelligence and National Security analyst Dynno Chressbon. Other analyst have been critical of Chressbon’s contention that Jihadis had planned to assassinate Obama at the National Airport, because […]