China's new European trade hub: An Irish town of 18,000 - Christian Science Monitor
The Athlone Institute of Technology hosts more than 200 Chinese students – one of the links that helped bring the trade hub to the town, says Prof. Ciaran Ó Catháin, the president of the school and one of the players in the project negotiations. Professor Ó Catháin would not disclose ...
Vietnam’s Problems, Promises - Asia Sentinel/RTÉ World Report
“We tend to lose around 20% of our staff every year after Tet” (the Vietnamese New Year), said Kim Jung Hee, manager of a factory in Binh Duong province, an hour's drive from Saigon's centre. Her Korean company NB Blue employs a thousand workers, in a clean and well-lit factory ...
Thailand sentences American to prison for insulting king - Los Angeles Times
"In Thailand they put people in jail without proof," Lerpong said Thursday, his arms and legs shackled, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit. "I was born in Thailand, but this does not mean I am Thai. I am proud to be an American citizen."
DMZ: Road trip to the world's most heavily armed border - CNNGo
SEOUL - As the tour bus moves from central Seoul to the city outskirts, the seamless transition from one of the world's biggest and most vibrant cities to the world's most heavily armed border is as surreal as it is functional, with roadside bus-stops giving way to military watchtowers even ...
Potent mix for Timor-Leste - Asia Times
DILI - Land, corruption and poverty are all on the table as Timor-Leste gets into political mode ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for 2012, with one controversial figure already throwing his hat into the ring.
If Samuel Beckett met Pol Pot - Asia Sentinel/Irish Examiner
TIK PANHAO, CAMBODIA - In some of Cambodia’s thousands of killing fields, the bones of the dead can sometimes be seen, rising to the surface after storms or rain, like grisly emblems of an unburied past. Perhaps 16,000 died at the s-21 Detention Camp in Phnom Penh, or at Choeung ...
Voting ends in southern Sudan referendum - Sunday Tribune
Kyeli, Blue Nile State, Sudan - “Soon after we married, my husband was killed during the war”, says Hawa Abdul-Gadr. Her eyes show a suppressed grief, but her demeanour is purposeful. That said, there is a perceptible sadness - long-kept under wraps but perhaps closer to the surface than she ...
An unbreakable bond? – Asia Times
JERUSALEM – In 'The Great Divorce' C.S. Lewis attempted to allegorise about a reality which he admitted he could not know, but tentatively hoped to suggest. The US-Israeli relationship, to most, seems like an unbreakable bond, and any potential divorce might be regarded as unimaginable. But when Israeli Prime Minister ...
Narcotic use, drought rob babies of food – The Washington Times
DIRE DAWA, Ethiopia | When drought and food shortages hit, it is the very young who suffer first, and most. Weighing only 10 pounds, Ayaan is among nearly 100,000 Ethiopian children whose lives are at risk. Just four days before her first birthday, she is lighter than an average 3-month-old ...
Corruption trumps tribalism – New York Times (IHT)
Kenyans were cynical about their political establishment long before the latest election violence. One wisecrack doing the rounds since last year says "there is more chance of a Luo becoming president of the United States than president of this country" - referring to Barack Obama, whose father hails from the ...
Ireland to Burma, voodoo politics – The Irrawaddy
December 30th, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=20438
Bleak midwinter at Dublin Airport's new Terminal 2 (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
DUBLIN — While doing research on folk beliefs in Ireland in the early 20th century, an American anthropologist asked an elderly woman if she believed in fairies. “No, I do not, sir,” came the decisive reply, which she diluted with the following cryptic qualifier: “However, they are there anyway.”
This well-known anecdote might be apocryphal, and the supernatural is long gone from Irish popular culture, but there are elements of the mystical about the country’s recent economic boom-to-bust saga.
From the mid-1990s to 2007, Ireland’s economic boom changed a nation of emigrants into one where around 10 percent of the population were recently arrived immigrants, many from Eastern Europe. Growth ranged from 5-10 percent over a 15-year period and Ireland acquired the “Celtic Tiger” moniker, after a Morgan Stanley economist compared the transformation of the North Atlantic island with the Asian Tiger economies of South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.
Since 2008, however, Ireland’s GDP has contracted by 14 percent and its unemployment rate is now around the same percentage.
One Asian country that was never close to joining the Tiger ranks was Burma (more…)
Vietnam: a development success story? – The Guardian
December 23rd, 2010
Vietnam has made huge economic advances over the past 10 years. But sustaining growth and ensuring everyone benefits from this progress will be challenging.
Hanoi traffic during daytime (Photo: Simon Roughneen )
It’s 8am in Hanoi and already thousands of motorbikes, mopeds and scooters flow through the streets. Some sway with the weight of two or three passengers, boxes of merchandise, sacks of rice, or tied-down pieces of furniture that look heavier than vehicle and driver combined.
For the first-time pedestrian, crossing the road is a daunting experience, but, amid all the apparent chaos, the “system” works. The trick is to just walk when you can, and let the torrent of bikes flow around you. Don’t look left, don’t look right. Just walk. (more…)
Vietnam Pushes Facebook Clone – PBS Mediashift
December 22nd, 2010
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/12/vietnam-pushes-facebook-clone-to-control-online-speech355.html
HANOI, VIETNAM – Inside one of Hanoi’s more than 3,000 online gaming houses, gamers clad in coats and scarves pass the hours shooting at each other on their screens, oblivious to the wintry gray and 10 celsius evening outside. This is southeast Asia, but the French colonial architecture and the proliferation of tourist-market socialist kitsch — all covered by a wet blanket autumn gloom — give the place a slightly European feel.
2010 marks the 1,000 year anniversary of the founding of Hanoi. These kids rehearse for a pageant to close the year out (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
With the Vietnamese economy growing at an average of seven percent per year over the past decade, and companies such as Microsoft and Intel announcing major investments, there is a limit to how European the ambiance is. There’s no downturn or recession here. Although average per capita incomes are little over $1,100 per year, Vietnam is moving up the international economic ranks. (more…)
A Vietnam Syndrome for Burma? – The Irrawaddy
December 21st, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/highlight.php?art_id=20355
HANOI—One thousand years old this year, Hanoi’s streets remain decorated with thousands of the gold-starred red flags of the resistance. Nominally a socialist republic, the country’s economy has in fact adapted the post-Deng economic model of China, applied with a Vietnamese touch.
Looking across the Red River, Hanoi. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Now a focus for Western investors such as Intel, Boeing, Microsoft, Apple and many more, Vietnam has seen spectacular economic growth since the Đổi Mới system was introduced, and particularly since the normalization of relations with the US in 1995. Membership of the World Trade Organization came in 2007, another boost for the latest addition to Asian Tiger ranks and adding to the growing incentives for foreign multinationals to invest.
According to economist Suiwah Leung, “During the last two decades, the country has had an average FDI/GDP ratio of 5.9 percent; the highest among many Asean countries during their respective periods of rapid growth from the mid-1970s to mid-1990s.”
In his August 2009 meeting with Burma Prime Minister Thein Sein, US Sen. Jim Webb, who fought in the Vietnam War and has worked on America’s relations with Asian countries for many years, said that the Vietnam experience was one that Burma could look to. (more…)
Misplaced US optimism on Burma – Asia Sentinel
December 17th, 2010
http://asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2883&Itemid=168
BANGKOK – Diplomatic cables by the U.S. Embassy in Rangoon show that American officials were optimistic about dialogue with Burma’s military government, as Democrat Senator Jim Webb visited ruler Senior-General Than Shwe in August 2009.
“It is certain Than Shwe believes he has unclenched its fist”, said a cable released by Wikileaks overnight. The note opined that the Burmese ruler regarded the Webb-Shwe meeting and the release of American prisoner John Yettaw as a major concession, thereby requiring an American counter-offer. “We should allow Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win to visit the Embassy in Washington following UNGA” (United Nations General Assembly), the cable author wrote.
The meeting between Webb and Than Shwe “was decidedly more upbeat than expected”, with the reclusive Burmese ruler said to have “greeted Senator Webb and Charge ( Larry Dinger, U.S. Charge d’Affairs in Rangoon) warmly”. Than Shwe repeatedly spoke of “friendship” throughout the conversation, which Sen. Webb oiled by swiftly changing the subject when Aung San Suu Kyi was mentioned. (more…)
Talking to dead people – The Irrawaddy
December 15th, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=20323
US Embassy cables released by Wikileaks show that Singapore’s Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew scorned Burma’s “stupid” junta, as China claims it sought political prisoner release and advised the US to talk directly to “easy-going” dictator Than Shwe
Former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew told US officials that the Burmese military rulers are “dense” and “stupid,” saying that talking to the regime was akin to “talking to dead people,” according to documents released by WikiLeaks this week.
Ridiculing the junta generals’ mismanagement of what he termed Burma’s resource-laden economy, Lee said that the US should approach Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to act as an interlocutor with the Burmese junta, or failing that, sound out Vietnam as a possible mediator. Dismissing his own suitability for the job, Lee said that he was perceived as too close to the US for the junta’s liking.
Lee’s comments were made to then US Ambassador to Singapore Patricia Herbold in Oct. 2007 as the Burmese dictatorship crushed the monk-led “Saffron Revolution” protests taking place in cities across the country. A confidential briefing on a 2007 conversation between Lee and US officials was released by WikiLeaks this week.
Earlier in 2007, China facilitated talks between the US and the Burmese government, with Beijing’s diplomats suggesting that the US deal directly with junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe, according to the documents released by WikiLeaks. (more…)
Online Freedom of Expression Under Siege in Thailand – PBS Mediashift
December 11th, 2010
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/12/online-freedom-of-expression-under-siege-in-thailand344.html
BANGKOK — “Today I have to go all the way to Khon Kaen to report to the police,” said Chiranuch Premchaipoen, the editor of Thailand’s well-known online news site Prachatai during a recent conversation in Bangkok.
The town is 450 km from Bangkok, and Chiranuch has to travel there once a month just to check in with police. This arrangement is the result of her detention at the Bangkok airport on September 24. That came in response to a complaint made about comments posted by a third party on the Prachatai web-board. (Irony of ironies, Chiranuch was returning home from attending an Internet freedom seminar in Geneva.)
She was charged with lese-majeste, or insulting the monarchy, which under Thailand’s legal code can be filed by any citizen against another. Until the charges, which also incorporate an alleged breach of Thailand’s Computer Crimes Act, are dropped, or the case goes to court, Chiranuch must make the 450 kilometer journey north once a month. She could receive a 32-year jail term if convicted of one of two lese-majeste charges she faces. The first goes to trial in February 2011, while the latest will be reviewed by a police panel that will decide whether a court case is warranted. (more…)
China’s dim(ish) view of the Myanmar junta – Asia Times
December 10th, 2010
China wanted Myanmar’s junta to enter into dialogue with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and ethnic minority groups in the months after the 2007 “Saffron” revolution protests, newly released US diplomatic cables show. Yet Beijing also warned US officials that even if talks made progress, the generals’ inept handling of the economy could throw the country into turmoil.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/LL11Ae01.html
BANGKOK – Newly released United States diplomatic cables show that in the months after the August-September 2007 “Saffron” revolution protests in Myanmar, China was concerned about the country’s stability and preferred that the military regime enter into dialogue with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and ethnic minority groups.
“The Chinese ambassador no longer tried to defend the regime, and acknowledged that the generals had made a bad situation worse. The Chinese have used their access to the generals to push for change, without much observable result, but remain interested in working with us to promote change,” according to an account of a January 17, 2008 meeting between US charged’affairs Shari Villaraos and China’s ambassador to Myanmar, Guan Mu.
“The Chinese are clearly fed-up with foot-dragging by Than Shwe regime,” Villarosa’s report of the meeting concluded. (more…)
Thai films: in need of a (tax) break
December 8th, 2010
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2010/12/08/thai-films-in-need-of-a-tax-break/
Despite the help of Aung San Suu Kyi and Bill Clinton, the Thai film industry is struggling. Luc Besson’s Dans la Lumiere – a biopic about the life of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition leader – is being filmed in Thailand and Clinton passed through to shoot a cameo role in the Hollywood movie The Hangover II, part of which is set in Thailand.
However, the celebrity support has not stopped a decline in Thai film-making, with producers going elsewhere in the region for their locations and tax-breaks. (more…)
Tough on graft, kind of – The Diplomat
December 8th, 2010
http://the-diplomat.com/2010/12/08/asia-gets-tough-on-graft-kind-of/
Thursday marks UN Anti-Corruption Day. There’s plenty of it to be worried about, reports Simon Roughneen from Bangkok.
Despite the supposed global nature of the economic crisis, a number of countries in Asia have managed to maintain robust enough growth rates to make the whole thing feel more like a Western story. But while the resource sector in energy-hungry China and the construction sector boom of new roads and high-rise buildings across the continent suggest the region should be well on its way to slashing poverty, there’s a potentially major obstacle to continued rapid growth: these booming sectors are chronically corrupt.
Speaking at the recent International Anti-Corruption Conference in Bangkok, Prof. Paul Collier said that increased corruption could undermine the opportunity for many of the about 900 million Asians living on less than $1.25 a day to climb out of poverty. ‘Commodities and construction are the two most corrupt sectors on earth,’ said Collier, a professor at Oxford University and author of The Bottom Billion.
