PHUKETWAN recognises the importance of Asean with the Economic Community approaching and marks what's happening around the region with a new column, Asean Today.

THAILAND will launch its first special economic zone located in the country's north this year to help boost trade and attract investors keen to set up logistics and supply chain networks, the country's deputy transport minister told Reuters.



voanews.com Brazil and the Netherlands have recalled their ambassadors to Indonesia after the Southeast Asian country ignored their pleas for clemency and executed six people, including five foreigners, for drug trafficking. The attorney general's office says five foreigners and one Indonesian were executed by firing squad just after midnight Sunday morning in Central Java province.

news.com.au Australia has never convinced a regional government to abandon plans to execute a drug runner and faces a bleak battle trying to persuade Joko Widodo to spare the lives of Bali Nine members Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan.



abc.net.au Australia's refugee deal with Cambodia looks set to take a vital step forward with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) signalling it is willing to assist in the transfer of refugees from Nauru.

reuters Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen took a swipe at the country's opposition and threatened its lawmakers with jail, accusing it of breaching terms of a political truce that now looks increasingly precarious. The Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) renewed threats of an another parliamentary boycott after Hun Sen urged the judiciary to expedite trials of 19 CNRP members charged with insurrection, among them seven lawmakers.

nationmultimedia.com Thailand will return to Cambodia more than a dozen artefacts seized from the disgraced former crime-buster Lt-General Pongpat Chayaphan, the foreign ministry said.



bloomberg By embracing a strict variant of Islam, the government of Brunei increasingly represents the region's deepest anxieties about its own future. In the 12th century, Islam arrived in Southeast Asia and today is the dominant faith, with roughly 240 million followers amounting to around 42 percent of the region's population (and 25 percent of the total world Muslim population).
http://www.vnews.com/news/15264623-95/column-brunei-tries-strict-sharia-law



ft.com Malaysian police are monitoring religious schools for signs they may have become ''breeding grounds'' for Islamist extremists, in a sign that a clampdown in Europe in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo murders has prompted a state of heightened alert in the moderate Muslim nation.

themalaysianinsider.com The entry of another group of Malay intellectuals and former civil servants in the public debate on the role of Islamic law in Malaysia is a sign that Putrajaya cannot ignore the issue any longer, say academics, pointing to the numerous cases where religious laws have conflicted with civil law and rights of non-Muslims.



hrw.org The government of Laos should use the United Nations Human Rights Council review of its record to pledge concrete measures to address its pervasive human rights problems.



channelnewsasia.com The Singapore dollar has depreciated against the US dollar in recent months and appreciated against the Euro, but this is not expected to have a significant impact on Singapore's economy, Minister for Trade and Industry Lim Hng Kiang said in Parliament.

straitstimes.com A ban on consuming alcohol in public places from 10.30pm to 7am is the major change proposed in a new Liquor Control Bill tabled in Parliament.



thanhniennews.com A court in the northern province of Hoa Binh sentenced eight people to death and handed down life sentences to five others at the conclusion of a mass trial. Of the convicts who got the death penalty, seven men and one woman were found guilty of being part of a ring that smuggled around 180 kilograms of heroin across Vietnam's northern mountainous provinces.

bbc.com Police in China have shot dead two Uighurs who were among a group trying to illegally cross into Vietnam, state media say.



nydailynews.com Three flavors of ice cream were served onboard Pope Francis's plane as he traveled home to Rome after a five-day visit to the Philippines. Carmen's Best Ice Cream, a beloved Philippines treat brand, supplied the papal flight with cartons of pistachio, malted milk and brown butter almond brittle,reported the Rappler, a Philippines news site.