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.



AP A powerful undersea earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 shook parts of southern Indonesia on Friday, but no major damage or tsunami were expected because of its depth.

nytimes.com A Hong Kong woman convicted of beating and threatening her Indonesian maid was sentenced to six years in prison on Friday, in a case that focused attention on the treatment of domestic servants.

fortune.com A day after announcing it is to stop making GM-branded cars in Indonesia, General Motors said it would cease production of its Chevrolet Sonic in Thailand by the middle of this year.



straitstimes.com Fast food giant McDonald's Restaurants was named ''Best of the Best'' employer in Singapore in global HR management and consulting firm Aon Hewitt's ranking of the best employers here for 2015.



dailymail.co.uk The US has flown its most advanced surveillance plane from a military base in the Philippines over flashpoint areas of the South China Sea, Filipino authorities said. The Philippines is in the midst of a bitter row with China over competing claims to parts of the South China Sea that are close to the Philippine coastline.



themalaysianinsider.com The medical and health charges imposed by government hospitals and clinics in Malaysia are the cheapest in the world, says Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.



fidh.org The Burmese government has not only largely ignored UN recommendations but also stalled on negotiations with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) regarding the opening of an OHCHR country office.



huffingtonpost.ca The prognosis for Vietnam continues to be very positive. Foreign investment is up, inflation is well under control, the economy is opening up, bureaucratic inertia is being beat down, corruption is being tackled, and hundreds of state owned enterprises are being restructured or put up for sale. All of this is inevitably a boost to investor confidence.



theguardian.com Cambodia's most popular tourist attraction - the complex of ancient temples that includes Angkor Wat - is suffering from a form of overexposure. At least five foreign visitors have been arrested and deported this year for taking nude photos at the sacred sites.



ft.com ''The timber mafia is winning this nasty war,'' says Tim Redford, a program director at Freeland, a Bangkok-based environmental NGO. In the same month the Thai authorities announced they had seized 30 shipping containers that contained logs cut in Thailand, sent to Laos for false labelling and then returned to Thailand for onward shipment to China.