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.



ibtimes.co.uk A 19-year-old British backpacker has been gang raped in Thailand, according to local media reports. The woman was allegedly kidnapped and attacked by a motorcycle gang as she walked to a shop in the early hours of Tuesday (26 May) morning in the Kanchanaburi district, 76 miles west of Bangkok.

bbc.com A regional conference is due to get under way in the Thai capital Bangkok to discuss possible solutions to the South-East Asia migrant crisis. The talks will include member states from the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) as well as representatives from the US and the UN.

theguardian.com First-hand accounts indicate that trafficking syndicates trading in vulnerable migrants have responded to a recent crackdown by authorities in Thailand andMalaysia by holding their victims in large vessels close to international waters, where they are ransomed for their freedom in return for money from relatives.

news.videonews.us On the eve of a regional meet on the Southeast Asian boat people crisis, the chief of the leading inter-governmental organisation in migration has pleaded for those involved to take a positive view of those who have sacrificed their lives struggling to get to Malaysian shores. William Lacy Swing avoided directly criticising Myanmar, from where the many Muslim Rohingya on board boats currently stuck at sea, are thought to have fled, and Thailand, which has refused to open temporary shelters on its soil.

bangkokpost.com IOM director William Lacy said Southeast Asian migrant issues were different from those in the Mediterranean due to the mixed driving factors, but the most urgent action needed was to bring the estimated 3800 boatpeople to shore.

state.gov Anne C. Richard, Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration will lead the U.S. delegation to the regional migration meeting hosted by the Government of Thailand in Bangkok on May 29. She will then travel to Kuala Lumpur and Alor Setar, Malaysia, from May 30 to June 1, and to Jakarta and Aceh, Indonesia, from June 1-3. In both Malaysia and Indonesia, she will meet with government officials, representatives of international organizations, and rescued migrants and asylum seekers.

bangkokpost.com No registered organisations in Bangkok are representing Rohingya migrants, Provincial Administration Department director-general Kritsada Phuangraj said. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha earlier expressed concern there were organisations that might have been colluding in the trafficking of Rohingya from Myanmar (Burma) to Thailand.



freemalaysiatoday.com Two boats believed to be carrying more than 40 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar evaded Malaysian rescue forces Thursday, officials said as the international community prepared to step up efforts to save boat people in Southeast Asian waters. The two boats, carrying more than 20 people each, were spotted by a Malaysian patrol near the resort island of Langkawi early Thursday but were in Thai territorial waters, said a senior Malaysian naval official.

theborneopost.com The transit camps uncovered by the Malaysian authorities in the Wang Kelian area in Perlis are believed to have been used to hold human trafficking victims who had been 'bought' by the main agent called 'Yassin'. This was revealed by Kedah Rohingya Society in Malaysia (RSM) deputy chairman, Yusof Ali to Bernama, adding that Yassin was a Rohingya who was known to be one of the main agents of the human trafficking syndicate.

euronews.com Malaysia's deputy home minister says 139 uncovered graves, which are believed to contain the corpses of trafficked migrants, appear to hold one body each. Officials had expected to find mass graves on the site in Wang Kelian, at the Malaysia-Thai border.

channelnewsasia.com Nine skeletal remains have been removed from a burial site in Perlis, bringing the total number of bodies recovered to 13 from abandoned jungle camps believe to part of a people-smuggling crisis, Malaysian police said on Thursday.



afp Gas-rich Qatar pledged $50 million to help Indonesia shelter Muslim Rohingya migrants from Myanmar, the official QNA news agency reported. Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have all prevented vessels overloaded with starving migrants from Bangladesh and from Myanmar's ethnic Rohingya minority from landing on their shores.

AP A dump truck carrying children of plantation workers to school Thursday morning plunged into a ditch in western Indonesia, killing 17 of them, police said.



independent.co.uk The Dalai Lama has urged Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to do more to help Burma's persecuted Muslim Rohingya. The Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader has said he has already appealed to her twice in person since 2012 and that she needs to do more on their behalf amid the migration crisis.



bbc.com Growth in the Philippine economy slowed in the first quarter of the year to its weakest annual pace since 2011, official figures showed.



thenational.ae A Qantas flight from Dubai to Melbourne was diverted to Singapore on Thursday due to a medical emergency. The plane, an Airbus A380, was flying south of the island of South Sumatra in Indonesia before being diverted.



thediplomat.com Did Cambodia just scam Australia? Something doesn't look right with a refugee deal between the two countries.