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 President Benigno S. Aquino III of the Philippines endorsed his interior secretary, Mar Roxas, as the presidential candidate most likely to carry on his anticorruption efforts, which have been credited for half a decade of high economic growth.



theguardian.com Malaysia Airlines has confirmed that a piece of wreckage found on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion is from a Boeing 777 and that investigators are ''moving close to solving the mystery of MH370,'' the Malaysian government says.

cnn.com A preliminary report could come as early as next week, a source close to the French investigation told CNN. The report won't give ''an exact sequence of events,'' the source said, but will at least eliminate some scenarios.

nytimes.com After one year on the State Department's list of countries that are failing to combat modern-day slavery, Malaysia has been upgraded to a higher category. That judgment, part of an annual evaluation of how 188 countries deal with human trafficking, strains credulity, given how little Malaysia has done to address the problem.

allgov.com The Malaysian government wants in on the TPP, but that couldn't happen unless the US upgraded its rating on the country's human rights record. So the State Department under President Barack Obama, who really wants the TPP to happen before he leaves office, changed Malaysia's ranking as a human trafficking violator from Tier 3 to Tier 2.

AP A senior State Department official says top diplomat John Kerry will push Malaysia to redouble efforts against human trafficking on an upcoming visit for regional security talks.



aa.com.tr President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told media during a three-day trip to Indonesia that he wanted Turkey to join his host country as a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Speaking at a joint press conference in the capital with Indonesian counterpart Joko Widodo, Erdogansaid that as G20 members both Indonesia and Turkey needed to mutually benefit from such memberships.

upi Kim Jong Un has been recognised as a ''global statesman'' in Indonesia, an award previously given to Mahatma Gandhi and Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi. The award from the Bali-based Sukarno Center is usually given to world leaders working toward peace and development, the Jakarta Globe reported.



cambodiadaily.com Military, government and ruling party officials distanced themselves from deputy military commander Chea Dara's comments this week that the ''army belongs to the Cambodian People's Party,'' insisting that the military remains neutral.



japantimes.co.jp Fifty years on from the Vietnam War, both the US and Australia have switched 180 degrees. Both seek a close relationship with Hanoi in the hope that Vietnam will help block yet another feared southward Chinese advance, this time into the South China Sea.



reuters Trade ministers from the 12 nations negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would stretch from Japan to Chile and cover 40 percent of the world economy, delayed until 4pm local time a news conference originally scheduled for 1.30pm on the Hawaiian island of Maui.



bnionline.net The United Nation's special envoy Angelina Jolie's visit to Arakan State (also known as Rakhine State) has been postponed due to heavy rain and storms in western Burma (Myanmar). Jolie had planned to visit Arakan State on Thursday during her four-day visit to Myanmar that started on Wednesday.