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.



bangkokpost.com Police arrested 58 suspects Thursday for ''causing trouble for tourists'' at Bangkok's two major attractions - Sanam Luang and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. They included five unlicenced tourist guides, 13 taxi drivers who rejected passengers, 35 motorists who parked cars in prohibited areas and five people who pestered tourists by offering to take them to tourist spots in return for what they called ''broker fees,'' police said.

bbc.com A man has been jailed for six years in Thailand over an assault that left a teacher from West Yorkshire needing round-the-clock medical care. Adam Pickles, 43, spent more than a year in a coma after being attacked by Sean Tinsley in Pattaya in 2012 in an apparent case of road rage.



theconversation.com On the eve of the elections, human rights groups are imploring the UN to investigate possible acts of genocide against Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims, on which we at the International State Crime Initiative have just issued a report. One Rohingya woman we interviewed in Sittwe's sprawling camp complex begged through tears, ''If the international community can't help us, please drop a bomb on us and kill all of us.''



hrw.org As Laos prepares to take chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) for the second time in 2016, it will have the opportunity to play a greater role in promoting compliance with international human rights standards across the Asean region. However, the recent decision by the Lao civil society groups, working closely with the Lao government, to refuse to organise the annual Asean People's Forum/Asean Civil Society Conference in Vientiane in 2016 raises fundamental questions about how open or participatory Laos's Asean chairmanship will actually be.



reuters As the US and Japan tussled with China over the wording of a concluding statement at an Asian security meeting in Kuala Lumpur this week, caught in the middle was host Malaysia. Plans for a joint statement were eventually dropped by the Malaysian government because of disagreements over the disputed South China Sea. US and Japanese officials wanted to address Beijing's island-building. Chinese officials resisted.



phnompenhpost.com The Cambodian economy grew on average 7.8 percent in 2004-2014, attaining one of the fastest growth rates in the world during this period. Gross domestic product growth was driven by construction and exports, especially textiles, tourism and rice.



straitstimes.com The 4.73 percent year-on-year growth in the three months to September 30 was marginally better than the previous quarter's expansion of 4.67 percent, but missed market expectations of 4.8 percent, underscoring challenges to the Indonesian government's efforts to get the economy up and running.



asiaone.com A ''bullet-planting'' scam at Manila's airport is drawing public outrage and ridicule, and has forced the United Nations to advise its employees to take extra precautions when travelling to the Philippines.



asiaone.com The haze has persisted for almost three months. In Singapore and Malaysia, schools have had to close on particularly bad days. In Indonesia, the number of flight cancellations hit about 500 in September alone. With the effects spreading to the Philippines and Vietnam, and public frustration swelling across the region, Asean governments have at last begun addressing the matter



xinhua Chinese President Xi Jinping kicked off his first state visit to Vietnam since taking over presidency in 2013, vowing to build stronger relations as the two neighbors have seen warming ties and stabilised cooperation in the past year.



PTI Vice President Hamid Ansari left Indonesia for India after cancelling his visit to Brunei which got delayed following closure of the Bali airport due to the spewing of volcanic ash from a nearby mountain.