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.



abc.net.au While Indonesia's new president has been seemingly dismissive of international concerns about his use of the death penalty, a recent run on the country's share market is a clear signal of international storms that he will not be able to avoid.

wsj.com Indonesia announced it will stop sending new maids to 21 countries in the Middle East, saying working conditions in those countries are prone to violations of legal and human rights, and that salaries are low. The 1.4 million maids already in those countries can continue and renew contracts.



channelnewsasia.com Yang Kaiheng, one of the editors of socio-political blog The Real Singapore (TRS), had an application to leave Singapore for Australia approved, subject to conditions. District Judge Eddy Tham heard that the 26-year-old's father recently suffered a stroke in Australia and was ''seriously ill''.

sg.news.yahoo.com The editors behind TRS, 26-year-old Singaporean Yang Kaiheng, and his 22-year-old Australian girlfriend, Ai Takagi, were charged in April with seven counts of sedition and one of failing to produce documents to a police officer.

todayonline.com A day after the authorities ordered the shutdown of socio-political site The Real Singapore, a group of bloggers known collectively as the Free My Internet movement criticised the move as ''blatant censorship''.



straitstimes.com It's the sort of girl power that Malaysia can do without. There are 1300 female triad leaders in the country, says a crime prevention body. Apparently, these leaders are recruiting more schoolgirls to join their female gangs.

reuters Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak faces a test of his popularity this week in two by-elections that come hard on the heels of calls by the country's former long-time leader, Mahathir Mohamad, for him to step down.



nypost.com The Philippines' most wanted Islamist militant, whose death over the weekend could boost peace efforts in the country's south, was killed by his own bodyguards in pursuit of a bounty offered by the US, the head of the military said. Abdul Basit Usman, a militant with strong al-Qaeda links who was blamed for numerous bomb attacks in the southern Philippines, had been hunted by security forces since 2002.



bignewsnetwork.com 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.



xinhua Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia and the Chinese ambassador to the country Bu Jianguo jointly broke ground for the construction of a 182-km national road No. 55, which stretches from Pursat province's central part to the Thai border.



timesofisrael.com The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum staff believes that conditions are ripe for genocide in Myanmar, also known as Burma, following a trip there in March.



nonprofitquarterly.org Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. was denounced in the mainstream press such as the New York Timesand the Washington Post for forgetting his place, for linking the civil rights movement to the opposition against the Vietnam War.