PHUKETWAN recognises the importance of Asean with the Economic Community approaching and marks what's happening around the region with a column, Asean Today, that will cease when Phuketwan closes on December 31.



stuff.co.nz New Zealander Nicole Harding, 22, is one of several contestants to pull out of a Philippines Miss Pancontinental pageant because of disorganisation and safety concerns: ''We met with the Cagayan governor and he said it was not safe to be here, this place is more unsafe than Afghanistan. He told us, where we were, they kidnap people and use them as sex slaves, it's the number one place for human trafficking and we needed to get these girls out of here.''



theguardian.com Aung San Suu Kyi's party won 77 percent of seats in Myanmar's landmark polls this month, according to final results released by the election commission. The military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party won only 117 or 10 percent of the seats and the army reserves a quarter of all seats in parliament.



bangkokpost.com Former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra hopes to share her view of Thai politics with the European Parliament, that is if the junta lets her go. German parliament members Elmar Brok and Werner Langen sent Ms Yingluck an invitation letter on October 7.



tuoitrenews.co.vn Tourism authorities of 12 provinces in northwestern Vietnam gathered at a conference to showcase their potential in a bid to seek cooperation and investment from their counterparts in Ho Chi Minh City.



channelnewsasia.com City Hall and the adjoining former Supreme Court, two of Singapore's most historic buildings, will open to the public from today, reborn as the National Gallery Singapore.



AP The deep sea hunt for a missing Malaysian airliner has shifted to a remote part of the Indian Ocean where a British pilot has calculated that the Boeing 777 made a controlled ditching last year with 239 people aboard, officials said.



wsj.com Hundreds of Indonesians have gone to Syria to support Islamic State, government security officials have said, and authorities have been trying to anticipate the effect of returnees as well as other Islamic State supporters traveling to Southeast Asia.



un.org Expressing deep concern about the breakdown in the dialogue between Cambodia's main political parties, a United Nations expert warned that any intensification of the current events could bring the country to a ''dangerous tipping point,'' especially for human rights of the Cambodian people. UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, Rhona Smith, made her comment in a news release.



theguardian.com Rival claims to strategic reefs and atolls in the disputed waters of the South China Sea are to go before an international tribunal in The Hague. The hearing on Tuesday comes as China steps up its divisive program of building airstrips and defences in the Spratly Islands. As well as the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei all dispute sovereignty over the mid-ocean outcrops.



traveldailymedia.com Laos is preparing to submit an application to UNESCO for the Plain of Jars to be inscribed on the World Heritage list. If the nomination is accepted, the Plain of Jars would become Laos's third UNESCO World Heritage site, following the town of Luang Prabang and the cultural site of Vat Phou, Champasak province.