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 A Malaysian court on Tuesday unanimously upheld a sodomy conviction and a five-year prison sentence for Anwar Ibrahim, the leader of the country's opposition, in the culmination of a protracted legal battle entwined with a high-stakes struggle for political supremacy.

hrw.org The conviction of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim after seven years of politically motivated proceedings under an abusive and archaic law is a major setback for human rights in Malaysia: ''Using an archaic and discriminatory law in order to score political points shows Prime Minister Najib's encouragement of intolerance under his rule.''
http://www.hrw.org/news/2015/02/10/malaysia-anwar-s-conviction-sets-back-rights



trefis.com The country has benefited from lower wages than other Asean members, and its demographics have been more promising with relatively high literacy rates - producing a workforce with the drive and skills for factory labor.



ibtimes.co.uk The Indonesian city of Jember is introducing compulsory virginity tests for female high school students so they can be barred from receiving diplomas if found to have had sex outside of wedlock. The decision was put forward by the town's municipal government with lawyers claiming that girls ''have sex several times and with different partners,'' the Jakarta Globe reported.

smh.com.au A man police suspect was a mastermind of the Bali Nine drug importation is living a life of luxury in Sydney while two junior members of his syndicate, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, await the firing squad in Bali. The man's lavish lifestyle is funded by a multimillion-dollar lottery pay out, which he won about the time the two young Australians, who acted as the local leaders of the syndicate in Bali, were being sentenced to death.

theguardian.com.au More than 100 Australian federal politicians have written to the Indonesian ambassador to plead for the lives of two Australian drug traffickers on death row in Bali. The MPs and senators ask that death sentences passed on Sukumaran and Chan be commuted to an appropriate term of imprisonment or they be deported back to Australia.

accuweather.com Widespread flooding inundated Jakarta, Indonesia, Sunday night through Monday night, and more storms this week threaten to worsen the situation.



cambodiadaily.com US journalist Elizabeth Becker recounted dramatic stories at the Khmer Rouge tribunal of meeting Pol Pot in 1978 on a trip to Cambodia and later being awoken by gunshots as an academic in her traveling party was murdered: ''We walked into an audience hall and sitting there in the large chair was Pol Pot himself.''
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/journalist-tells-of-trip-to-pol-pots-phnom-penh-77652/



irrawaddy.org Fighting that first erupted between an ethnic Kokang armed rebel group and government troops on Monday morning continued in the northern Shan State town of Laukkai on Tuesday.



channelnewsasia.com Ministers from Singapore and North Korea on Tuesday discussed bilateral cooperation and exchanged views on regional and international developments.



AP The Philippines has protested Chinese land reclamation at a disputed reef in the South China Sea, saying it violates Manila's exclusive economic zone.