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.



reuters Thailand's military suspended a three-star general on Monday after police ordered his arrest on suspicion of human trafficking as pressure mounts on Bangkok to block the illicit trade.

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aap Scores of asylum-seekers have come ashore in eastern Indonesia after their boat was intercepted by the Australian navy and pushed into Indonesian waters as they headed for New Zealand, police say.

abc.net.au Indonesian police say a boat carrying 65 asylum seekers has crashed onto a reef after being turned back by Australian authorities. There were four women and three toddlers on board.

themalaysianinsider.com Australia's conservative government introduced tough immigration policies in 2013 to stop an influx of would-be refugees. Asylum-seekers arriving on vessels are sent to Pacific camps and vessels are turned back when it is safe to do so, or taken back to their country of origin.



channelnewsasia.com US Assistant Secretary for Population, Migration and Refugees, Anne Richard, said Malaysia should open its doors to the UNHCR to speed up the processing of the migrants currently held in the northern state of Malaysia. The Southeast Asian country is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on Refugees.

ft.com Lossmaking Malaysia Airlines, reeling from two disasters last year, is aiming to reach break-even by 2018 through a restructuring involving 6000 job losses, the flag carrier's new chief executive said. Christoph Mueller used his first press conference since becoming Malaysia Airlines' top manager in May to say the company was ''technically bankrupt'' and needed a ''hard reset''.



cbsnews.com ''The answer to the issue is peace and stability and citizenship for the Rohingyas in Rakhine state, and that is the solution,'' Richard said at the end of a three-day visit to Malaysia.

AP Burma's navy has briefly detained journalists who tried to reach a remote island where more than 700 migrants were being held after their ship was found drifting off the country's southwestern coast.



abc.net.au An Australian man will face a Philippines court today to enter a plea on pedophilia charges described by authorities there as "depraved". Peter Scully allegedly ran an international paedophile ring from Mindanao in the Southern Philippines that raped, tortured and murdered children.



ctvnews.ca The family of a Canadian man who died under mysterious circumstances while on vacation in Southeast Asia is calling on Ottawa to help them get answers. In January, Laos officials ruled that Nara Pech, 28, stabbed himself to death with broken glass in the Wattay International Airport in the capital of Vientiane. His family believe he was murdered.



bloomberg.com A Vietnamese military band performed a rousing Star Spangled Banner as US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter arrived Monday for talks at the defense ministry in Hanoi. Once inconceivable, such amicable displays between the former wartime adversaries are increasingly common as Vietnam frets over its Communist neighbor China.



hrw.org The Cambodian government should withdraw a proposed law that would severely limit the rights of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Cambodia, Human Rights Watch and 10 other international human rights groups said in a May 29, 2015, letter to 44 foreign governments and the European Union.



afp Two Singaporeans arrested after a deadly encounter with police outside a hotel where Pentagon Chief Ashton Carter was staying were alleged heroin traffickers, officials said.