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.



bbc.com African footballers as young as 14 are being trafficked to Asia and forced to sign contracts, the BBC has learnt. Six minors are still with top Laos side Champasak United, after it imported 23 under-age players from West Africa to an unregistered football academy in February, a BBC investigation found.



themalaysianinsider.com Transparency International-Malaysia (TI-M)'s latest Malaysian Corruption Barometer (MCB) 2014 survey found that 45 percent of Malaysian respondents ranked political parties as the most corrupt among six key institutions in Malaysia. The police scored a close second (42 percent), followed by public officials/civil servants (31 percent), judiciary (24 percent), parliament/legislature (23 percent) and business/private sector (23 percent), according to the findings of the MCB.

thestar.com.my Foreigners have no right to meddle in Malaysia, said Pertubuhan Minda dan Sosial Prihatin president Ramesh Rao Krishnan. He had been asked about his decision to lodge a police report against the founder of Sarawak Report, Clare Rewcastle-Brown.

freemalaysiatoday.com The decision by the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to block access to the Sarawak Report (SR) website on the grounds of national security and public order is both laughable and tragic, said lawyer and human rights activist Art Harun.



reuters A top judge at a UN-backed war crimes tribunal in Cambodia criticised Thailand and Vietnam for refusing to provide evidence in the trials of Khmer Rouge leaders accused of atrocities during the 1970s ''killing fields'' era.



theguardian.com Since 2013, my colleagues and I at Fortify Rights have interviewed hundreds of survivors and more than a dozen traffickers. We documented how traffickers tagged their human cargo with red, white, and yellow bracelets. A mid-level broker of Rohingya descent operating in Malaysia told us without pause that the bracelets were used ''as a kind of confirmation'' of who owned whom.

occrp.org The British newspaper The Guardian has published an investigation revealing that persecuted Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar (Burma) are being used as slaves by crime gangs controlling part of Thailand's export-focused sea-food industry.



telegraph.co.uk A report in the Washington Post has revealed that while then-Lieutenant Commander John McCain was suffering from disease, malnourishment, and a number of gruesome wounds in a bleak Vietnamese prison, Donald Trump was living a glamorous life at an Ivy League University and later in exclusive Manhattan nightclubs. Trump sparked a firestorm of criticism and anger when he said that McCain was ''not a war hero.''



usni.org The Philippines government has begun efforts to reinforce the tiny outpost of BRP Sierra Madre, a dilapidated World War II-era landing ship deliberately beached on Second Thomas Shoal in 1999. Due in no small part to extensive media coverage, the vessel is a well-known symbol of the ongoing territorial dispute over the mineral- and resource-rich Spratleys Island group.

reuters The Philippines is proposing to spend a record P25 billion ($552 million) in 2016 to purchase frigates, surveillance planes, and radar equipment to improve surveillance and detection in the disputed West Philippine Sea, officials said.



washingtonpost.com Given the angry response to 'The Act of Killing' and the threats against Joseph Oppenheimer, it may come as a surprise that he was able to make another documentary that focuses on the same anti-Communist killings. Oppenheimer is keen to explain that the new film isn't a sequel but a companion piece. While the first film showed the impunity of the killers, the second film, 'The Look of Silence,' shows the aftermath of the killings from a different angle: the silence of the victims.



theguardian.com A Cambodian TV star who was filmed being dragged to the ground and punched and kicked in the head says she refuses to be daunted by the wealth of her assailant. CCTV footage of the violent assault by real estate tycoon Sok Bun on Ek Socheata, better known as Sasa, has shocked the country of 15 million.



channelnewsasia.com To create an ''even more vibrant economic future,'' Singapore must adjust its economic strategies said Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean on Monday (Jul 20). Speaking at the Economic Development Board (EDB) Scholarship Award ceremony, Mr Teo said Singapore's proximity in the region puts it in the ''centre of an ocean of opportunities,'' and it must seize these opportunities by ''moving up the value chain''.



malaysia-chroncile.com With most clothing stores in Brunei expecting to see a decline in their sales come April when a more conservative dress code is set to be enforced, Lili Yong of Lili Lingerie is projecting the opposite. Yong's projection is that women may turn their focus on under garments from outerwear, and she said that next month may see her business ''really take off''.