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.



bbc.com Malaysian police have said they will ask former PM Mohamad Mahathir to give a statement on allegations he made at a recent anti-government protest. Dr Mahathir's accusations of ruling party leaders accepting bribes ''warrant police action,'' a spokesperson said.

ft.com The targeting of people associated with the demonstration, which Mr Mahathir attended, comes as his successor, Mr Najib Razak, fights allegations of corruption over mysterious payments of more than $675m into bank accounts in his name.



ibtimes.co.uk Self-driving golf carts have been introduced in Singapore to transport tourists as part of a six-day trial to test the technology. The experiment was conducted by members of the Singapore MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) as part of the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.



irishtimes.com Sweden has the most trees per square kilometre at 69,161, with Brunei second at 62,333. Ireland has 10,088 trees per square kilometre. If measured as trees per head of population, Sweden has 3200, Brunei 856 and Ireland 154. It is therefore frightening that humans are clearing off a net 10 billion trees a year.



channelnewsasia.com Indonesia will pledge to increase its commitments on cutting greenhouse gas emissions growth by 29 percent by 2030, the environment and forestry minister said, but giving few details on how this would be done.

smh.com.au A plan to scrap the $US35 visa Australian visitors must obtain on arrival in Indonesia is in doubt because Australia does not have a reciprocal arrangement. The Indonesian government announced that Australia would be among 47 countries exempted from tourist visa requirements.



thestatesman.com While the number of visitors from India coming to Laos has been increasing gradually over recent years, tourism specialists expect numbers to climb significantly with more flights and economic development lifting living standards.



ft.com Under President Benigno Aquino, in office since 2010, unemployment has fallen. The latest figures show the rate at 6.4 percent in the second quarter of this year, down from 7 percent a year earlier. But progress has been uneven and the Philippines still has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the Asean region.



bbc.com The Australian government has said a $55.5m deal to resettle refugees in Cambodia is on track, despite media reports to the contrary. Under an agreement signed in September last year, Australia is paying Cambodia to take in refugees rejected from its detention centre on Nauru island. But so far only four people in Nauru have volunteered to go.



abc.net.au I couldn't help but wonder how General Giap would feel when learning that the city that he fought for has now been taken over by a low-ranking colonel from the deep south of America, Colonel Sanders: one of the many symbols of the mixed economy, of the fact that this is now, like much of China, a blend of the free market and centralised control.



asiancorrespondent.com After holding out for more than quarter of a century, the UK's Guardian newspaper announced that it would no longer be using 'Burma' to refer to the Southeast Asian nation, switching instead to its official name, 'Myanmar'.

theguardian.com.au We will from today be using the name Myanmar, partly because it has become almost universal and partly because colonial names should be part of the past, along with the empires that gave rise to them. True, with Burma, that argument is a blurred one.

hrw.com Burma's government should publicly condemn grossly discriminatory remarks by a regional official about gay men and transgender women, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to senior Burmese officials. The Burmese government is obligated under international law to protect all people in the country regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.