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 The Tourism Authority of Thailand launched a ''buy one, get one free'' room promotion at 32 hotels in Bangkok and Phuket until October to attract visitors. TAT deputy governor Juthaporn Rerngronasa said that the promotional campaign would run September 22 to October 31 and was available at 15 hotels in Bangkok and 17 in Phuket.



nytimes.com The embattled prime minister of Malaysia, facing mounting political turmoil and a parade of inquiries at home and abroad into a sovereign wealth fund that he oversees, is now coming under the scrutiny of American investigators as well. A federal grand jury is examining allegations of corruption involving Najib Razak, and people close to him, according to two people with knowledge of the investigation.



AP Ello Ed Mundsel Bello, 28, a Filipino nurse working in Singapore, was sentenced to four months in jail for describing Singaporeans as losers on his Facebook, and subsequently providing false information to police investigators.



abc.net.au The head of Indonesia's national counter-terrorism agency has warned of the imminent deployment of foreign terrorist fighters from Malaysia. Saud Usman Nasution said it was unclear where the Islamic State (IS) sympathisers will be sent.



dailymail.co.uk A British paedophile jailed in Cambodia for sexually abusing children has had his prison sentence reduced after arguing he only touched the girls in a ''fatherly way''. Michael Glyn Jones, 55, from Wales, originally jailed for eight years in April after being found guilty of sexually assaulting four girls aged between six and 11, has had his sentence reduced to five years.



thetimes.co.uk President Thein Sein, a former general, boasted in a video message of his personal part in banning the Rohingya and in shaping new, discriminatory, laws to protect ''race and religion''. ''There's a mobilisation of bias and hatred against the Rohingya across Burmese society and the government is jumping on this,'' said Phil Robertson, deputy director of the Asia division at Human Rights Watch. Myanmar, human rights activists fear, is sliding towards apartheid.



rfa.org Vietnam has freed prominent blogger and activist Ta Phong Tan, who flew to the US after her release from prison over the weekend and vowed to continue her fight for freedom of expression in the authoritarian Southeast Asian nation from abroad.



reuters Two Filipino politicians wanted for murder in the Philippines have been arrested in southern Thailand. Former Palawan Gov. Joel Reyes, 63, and former Coron Mayor Mario Reyes, 54, were arrested over the weekend in Phuket province in southern Thailand.