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.



wsj.com Nearly a week after a bomb killed 20 people in the Thai capital, the country's police said the main suspect in the blast might have fled the country already.



straitstimes.com Malaysian authorities have found mass graves containing the remains of more than 20 people believed to be human-trafficking victims near the border with Thailand.

ft.com Attempts by Najib Razak, Malaysia's embattled prime minister, to contain a financial scandal have taken a knock after Swiss authorities said they had opened criminal proceedings related to the state development fund at the centre of the affair.

straitstimes.com Malaysia's state governments have been told to immediately name and gazette uninhabited islands as well as coral and rocky reefs, atolls and shelves under their jurisdiction. Malaysia's move comes in the wake of fears that China is increasingly laying claim to most of the South China Sea.



afpSingapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong defended his immigration policies and unveiled a set of economic goodies for families ahead of general elections expected to be held in September. Lee, 63, addressed one of the most sensitive issues in Singapore - an influx of foreign workers and immigrants which has seen the population surge from 4.17 million in 2004 when he came to power to 5.47 million last year.

PTI Closing the doors to foreign workers would tank Singapore's economy, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong cautioned today as he sought to allay concerns of the countrymen on the ''tough issue'' of foreigners and immigration.



thejakartapost.com The Tourism Ministry is aiming to attract up to 5000 yachts to visit Indonesia in 2019. ''We have set a target of attracting 1500 yacht visits in 2015; 4000 in 2018; and 5000 in 2019,'' said Tourism Minister Arief Yahya during the 2015 Indonesia Yacht Forum in Jakarta as quoted by kompas.com.



independent.co.uk A young British man has been arrested for the rape and assault of a female tourist - also British - at a guesthouse in Cambodia. Local media reported the 22-year-old victim was left with injuries and bruises all over her body, including a fractured wrist, after the attack.



commentarymagazine.com Alas, Burma's openness has not lasted. Indeed, had the Obama administration waited to see the success of its formula in Burma, it might have been less enthusiastic to lift sanctions and rush blindly into engagement absent leverage with both Iran and Cuba. Both Burma's rulers and Suu Kyi remained silent in the face of whole-scale persecution and even massacres of Burma's minority Rohingya Muslims.



nationalinterest.org Worst Idea Ever: Dropping Nuclear Bombs During the Vietnam War: According to Seymour Deitchman, who served with the Institute for Defense Analysis, '' . . . there had been not infrequent talk among some of the military people involved in planning the war effort, with whom I had contact, that 'a few nukes' dropped on strategic locations, such as the Mu Gia pass through the mountainous barrier along the North Vietnamese-Laotian border, would close that pass (and others) for good.''



AP Typhoon Goni blew out of the northern Philippines after leaving at least 15 people dead and several others missing, including a dozen miners whose work camps were buried by a huge mudslide in a mountain village, officials said.

channelnewsasia.com According to the NBI, human trafficking that feeds into the global cyber-sex tourism industry is prevalent in Philippine cities with high poverty levels and there's a huge demand for the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation estimates some 750,000 child sex predators are online at any given time.



vietnamnet.vn Vietnamese Minister of Transport Dinh La Thang and Lao Minister of Public Works and Transport Bounchanh Sinthavong reviewed transport cooperation between the two countries in recent time and defined tasks in the next period.



straitstimes.com Letter: I went to a store in a [Singapore] shopping mall once to purchase some dessert but the cashier rejected my Brunei dollars, telling me that it is troublesome to deal with Brunei currency as its bank's cash deposit machine will not accept it.