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.



smh.com.au Indonesian authorities have foiled an alleged plot by Islamic State supporters to bomb a police station and churches in Surakarta, Central Java on Monday, Indonesia's Independence Day. According to Agus Rianto, the national police spokesman, the plot was directed from Syria by an unnamed Indonesian who had joined Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. Five men have been arrested.

AP An Indonesian court has overturned convictions against Canadian teacher Neil Bantleman, 46, and an Indonesian teaching assistant who were serving 10 years in prison for sexually abusing three young children at a prestigious international school in Jakarta, their lawyer said.



ft.com The Malaysian ringgit suffered its steepest one-day fall since the Asian financial crisis on Friday, as the effects of China's new currency regime continued to ripple across the region.

channelnewsasia.com Malaysia's High Court dismissed a bid by The Edge Media Group to lift a three-month publishing ban imposed by the government in response to its investigative reports on alleged financial irregularities linked to the prime minister.

todayonline.com Only a major change in the country's leadership can stop the ringgit's slide and prevent Malaysia from political and economic disaster, Selangor chief minister Mohamed Azmin Ali said.

cbsnews.com Malaysia said that most of the debris found in Maldives were not from a plane and were unrelated to the missing Malaysian jet.



reuters Myanmar has gagged media linked to parliamentary speaker Shwe Mann after he and his allies were purged from the ruling party leadership by President Thein Sein months ahead of a historic general election.

bnionline.net The British Embassy has expressed concern regarding recent events which saw USDP Secretary-General Maung Maung Thein and USDP President Thura U Shwe Mann removed from their positions as party General Secretary and Party Chairman respectively.



news.vice.com Seven hundred bears have died this year on bear bile farms in Vietnam,due to starvation or infection, according to Animals Asia. And Jill Robinson, founder of the organization, estimates that more than 12,000 bears are kept on bear bile farms in China and Vietnam.

afp Police in Vietnam have seized more than 700 kilograms of rhino horns and elephant tusks believed to have originated from Mozambique, state media said.



straitstimes.com Singapore logistics firm YCH Group evacuated its warehouse near the deadly blast site in Tianjin after many of the building's windows were shattered or blown out, and part of its ceiling collapsed.



liverpoolecho.co.uk Briton Phillip Shimmin, 26, had 20 stitches applied to his head after being struck twice with an axe in a random attack in Phnom Penh last week: ''I have been told by Axa insurance I am being sent to Bangkok.'' Doeb Ngol, 21, admitted attacking Mr Shimmin and using an axe to hit him in the head twice.



AP The Philippines will go ahead with a plan to open military camps at Subic Bay facing the disputed South China Sea even if a proposed American military presence doesn't happen, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said.

afp Cebu Pacific saw its half-year net profit soar 63 per cent as low fuel costs helped it take full advantage of higher passenger and cargo traffic, the Philippines' largest airline said.



cambodiadaily.com Police in Laos arrested a Cambodian soldier who was on the run after shooting his wife in the neck with an AK-47 at their home in Stung Treng province's Siem Pang district.



economist.com With petrodollars scarcer than before, Brunei's economy has contracted for two years in a row and will shrink in 2015, when the government will run a budget deficit of 16 percent of GDP. Brunei's increasingly strict Islamic penal code may soon allow for stonings and amputations. Some think the new penal code aims to give Brunei's royals more ways to quash dissent. Another, simpler theory is that the sultan, who led a wild youth, has grown more religious.