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.



straitstimes.com Barred from the streets by military rule, Thai protesters took to their computers this week to overload government websites by constantly refreshing their screens. The denial-of-service attack was triggered by activists who urged people to register their objection to the junta's plans for a single Internet gateway.



reuters Muslim rights activists have filed a lawsuit in the US against Myanmar President Thein Sein, accusing him and several ministers of human rights abuses against minority Rohingya just a few weeks before an historic general election. The complaint filed in Manhattan federal court accused Thein Sein and top officials of planning and instigating ''hate crimes and discrimination amounting to genocide.''



nationalpost.com Having promised to extinguish forest fires in Riau in western Indonesia by early October, President Joko Widodo jetted into Sumatra island last week for a progress check. The smoke was so thick his plane couldn't land, forcing him back to the capital.

bbc.com A search is under way for an Indonesian passenger plane carrying 10 people that lost contact with air traffic control over Sulawesi island. The Twin Otter aircraft, owned by the Indonesian domestic airline Aviastar, lost contact soon after taking off from the Masamba airport, officials said.



ewn.co.za A Johannesburg man convicted of smuggling drugs into Malaysia has lost his appeal to have his death sentence overturned. Deon Cornelius, 25, was sentenced in January after being found in possession of methamphetamine when he landed at the Penang International Airport in 2013.

news24.com The family of a South African man sentenced to death for drug trafficking in Malaysia expressed their anguish on Friday at not being able to visit him.



channelnewsasia.com Indonesia has enough resources to fight the forest fires that are causing the haze in the region, and does not need the assistance offered by Singapore at this time, Indonesian officials told a Singapore delegation in Jakarta.



rfa.org A Cambodian court unexpectedly adjourned the trial on Friday of jailed opposition senator Hong Sok Hour, postponing the proceedings for five days and refusing his request to be released on bail due to ill health. Authorities had previously barred doctors from the human rights group Licadho from visiting the lawmaker at Prey Sar Prison in the capital Phnom Penh, where he has been held since August after challenging Cambodia's ruling party on its handling of a border dispute with neighboring Vietnam.



thediplomat.com Vietnam's political log jam suddenly burst with the simultaneous launch of a website dedicated to preparations for the twelfth national party congress and the release of the draft Political Report and Socio-Economic Plan for 2016-2020.



rappler.com Filipino activists, experts, and government officials welcomed the ''ambitious'' contribution of the Philippine government to the global campaign to fight and prepare for climate change. Called the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), the pledge was submitted by the Philippine government to the United Nations.



thediplomat.com Human rights violations are again an issue in Laos - and a thorn in the side of a government more concerned with centrally-planned economic policies - following the death 61-year-old Tiang Kwentianthong. Tiang was originally arrested for praying for a sick woman without government approval. Reports say he was denied medicine for diabetes.