Today Around Southeast Asia
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.
Philippines
telegraph.co.uk Billed as the ''fight of the century'' Manny Pacquiao's world championship bout on Saturday [10am Sunday in Thailand] has brought his poverty-stricken homeland of the Philippines to a standstill. Known by his countrymen as ''The National Fist'' and touted as a possible future president, the happy-go-lucky southpaw from a small southern fishing town is widely adored.
Vietnam
huffingtonpost.com From corporate investments to tourism, from military engagements to products, from social media to entertainment media, from the Vietnamese-American expats who return in droves to invest heavily in their homeland to a horde of Vietnamese foreign students coming to the US for a much coveted American education, Vietnam is falling quickly back into America's orbit.
Indonesia
skynews.com.au A source has revealed to Sky News that former Bali Nine lawyer Muhammad Rifan has been arrested in Indonesia. On Monday Mr Rifan went public with explosive allegations against the presiding judges, accusing them of asking for a 1 billion rupiah bribe for a sentence of less than 20 years for convicted drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.
theage.com.au The execution of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran was illegal under international law according to high-level advice provided to Julie Bishop, but Australia's request that Indonesia submit to the judgment of the International Court of Justice on the matter was ignored.
Malaysia
cnn.com It seems big is no longer best for disaster-hit Malaysia Airlines - it's said to be offloading all six of its A380 superjumbos. Malaysia has struggled financially in the wake of twin tragedies in 2014, including the disappearance of flight MH370 and the shooting down of MH17 over Ukraine.
Laos
rfa.org Lao police are investigating a local businessmen thought to be behind the country's illegal ivory trade after Thai authorities seized a US $6 million tusk shipment from Kenya en route to the Southeast Asian nation last month, a Lao police officer involved in the investigation said.
Burma
asiancorrespondent.com At every stage in the trade there exists a facilitating mechanism that keeps Rohingya crossing the ocean. In western Burma, the government and local Rakhine community makes their lives simply untenable, so they flee, thus making the Burmese government a key player in the supply end of the [human trafficking] chain.
Cambodia
phnompenhpost.com May Day marks a perfect time for the Cambodian government to embark on a new chapter on labor rights in the garment sector. Officials can show the world in very concrete ways that their commitment to transparency and accountability is real and here to stay.
Singapore
straitstimes.com Fast food chain Wendy's has closed all its outlets in Singapore, according to its regular customers. Fans of the fast food joint have left messages on its Facebook page, expressing their disappointment and sadness that their favourite burgers, fried chicken and fries were not going to be within reach any more.
Yesterday while riding a bicycle Nortth of Phuket, in Phang Nga, at Baan KhukKhak, on a paved road through the jungles along the seashore, 50cm from me feet I have noticed someone reminding a small Breton lobster, running to cross a roadway at the same place as me. Only then I realized that lobsters do not run.. The Giant Black Scorpion , Heterometrus spinifer , was indeed huge - like 15cm, and very large claws. I didn't know their bites are not fatal, so I hesitated to stop and to take a pic or a video. Also, I was skeptical about my assessment of its size - until I later read that these are the largest scoropios in the world, 10-20cm long. Before, scorpions that I have seen, also in Thailand, were of much smaller size.
I am curious, has anyone met a Giant Black Scorpion in Phuket recently?
Posted by Sue on May 2, 2015 06:41