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.

nytimes.com The US has been briefing its allies in Asia on plans to conduct ''freedom of navigation'' naval patrols near artificial islands built by China in the disputed South China Sea, a move that could escalate tensions with Beijing after President Xi Jinping's recent visit to Washington, US and Asian officials have said.



bangkokpost.com Charges will be brought against people who rioted outside the Thalang district police station in Phuket, set fire to many vehicles and damaged government property on Saturday night, national police chief Chakthip Chaichinda said. Police knew the names of the instigators.



reuters Singapore unveiled its public transport future on Monday, and it was a vision of passengers commuting in driverless buses along roads and freeways populated by platoons of autonomous trucks following a single driver. The city state's plans to streamline its transport future have begun with two self-driving vehicles going through their paces in a Singapore estate.



bbc.com Flights cancelled, agricultural land destroyed and hundreds of thousands of people around the region suffering from respiratory illnesses. This is something that has happened pretty much every year - for the past 18 years.



huffingtonpost.com.uk Details from the reported discovery of plane wreckage on a remote island in the Philippines have stirred suspicions it could be linked to the doomed Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Aircraft debris said to contain human bones was allegedly stumbled upon by birdwatchers in thick jungle on the coastline of Sugbay Island in the province of Tawi Tawi, Malaysian daily The Star writes. The claims have yet to be verified.



independent.co.uk Authorities in the Philippines have rejected claims that possible wreckage from MH370 has been sighted on a remote island.



washingtonpost.com The World Health Organisation reported that an eight-year-old boy in Laos became paralysed from the polio virus in early September and died five days later. The case is believed to be the first infection in the country since 1993 and is part of an alarming reemergence of polio around the world in recent months.



dpa Proposed restrictions to Vietnam's relatively lax abortion laws have sparked an outcry from the public and health officials, who say the new conditions would be insensitive to rape victims and unworkable.



thediplomat.com As Prime Minister Hun Sen continues a streak of crackdowns and power plays aimed at weakening Cambodia's main opposition party, the country's precarious ''culture of dialogue'' seems to be in danger of devolving into a stern lecture under the longtime autocrat a little over a year after an initial bipartisan truce was struck.



bdnews24.com Myanmar, after pussyfooting around for more than a decade, agreed to start taking back 2,415 of its ''verified'' nationals only in September last year at the foreign secretary level meeting. But the process did not progress. Thousands of Rohingya refugees took shelter in Bangladesh fleeing sectarian violence in Rakhine state over the decades.



themarketmogul.com More than five years of negotiations for one of the biggest and historic trade deals. Even if these countries represent a bit more than 10 percent of the global population, the deal encompasses countries that account for 40 percent of the global economy. Twelve countries including Brunei are participating in the agreement.