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 ...
Has North Korea Risen Above Burma? – The Irrawaddy
November 3rd, 2010
http://irrawaddymedia.com/article.php?art_id=19928&Submit=Submit
While the Nov. 7 election scheduled for Burma has been dismissed by many observers in advance as a charade aimed at keeping the military junta in power, equivalent polls are unlikely anytime soon in countries such as China, Vietnam and North Korea.
“When was the last time China had an election, or Vietnam?” asked US Senator Jim Webb when meeting journalists in Bangkok back in June. He posed the rhetorical question once more in Washington, D.C. last week when urging the Obama administration not to let Burma become a Chinese province.
In his recently-published biography of Snr-Gen Than Shwe, Burma’s reclusive and inaccessible ruler, author Ben Rogers ranked Burma as slightly less oppressive than North Korea.
Foreign Policy magazine ran an article earlier this year ranking Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s ailing strongman, as the world’s “worst of the worst,” describing him as “a personality-cult-cultivating isolationist with a taste for fine French cognac” and going on to say that “Kim has pauperized his people, allowed famine to run rampant and thrown hundreds of thousands in prison camps (where as many as 200,000 languish today)—all while spending his country’s precious few resources on a nuclear program.” (more…)
ASEAN sups with Chinese ‘devil’ – Asia Times
November 3rd, 2010
HANOI – China’s rise has altered the dynamics within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and across Asia, as was on display at recently concluded
US Secretary of State and Vietnamese Foreign Minister witness signing of Boeing-Vietnam Airlines deal (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
summits meetings in Hanoi. Chinese naval expansion and increasingly assertive claims to disputed maritime areas in the East and South China Seas has prompted Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and others to reaffirm their enthusiasm for America’s security umbrella after some ambivalence in recent years.
Japan and India, China’s main Asian rivals, are increasingly looking to each other, and to Southeast Asia, as a hedge against China’s rise, which has taken a hard turn in recent months. Prime Ministers Naoto Kan and Manmohan Singh met after the Hanoi summits, which were overshadowed by the mud-slinging coming from the Chinese and Japanese delegations.
“Prime Minister Kan was keen to understand how India engages China,” India’s foreign secretary, Nirupama Rao said after that meeting. As well as increasing ties with Japan, India’s slow-to-action ‘Look East’ policy, which has brought the self-proclaimed world’s largest democracy into disrepute over its feting of the Myanmar junta, is likely to be enhanced in coming years, as highlighted in the statement issued after the India-ASEAN summit. (more…)
On a (cyber) war footing – The Irrawaddy
November 1st, 2010
http://www.irrawaddymedia.com/article.php?art_id=19872
Junta's cyber attackers set their sights. (Cartoon by Harn Lay/The Irrawaddy)
As Burma’s Nov. 7 election draws near, The Irrawaddy and other Burmese exile media are on something akin to a nonviolent war footing, a position forced upon them by the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on their websites on Sept. 27—the third anniversary of the 2007 Saffron Revolution protests. At risk is nothing less than freedom of speech and the right of media to cover important political events such as the Burmese elections.
The notion that an election can be “free and fair” without impartial and independent media coverage is, of course, absurd. According to media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF): “It is essential that these [Burmese exile] websites continue to operate in order to provide the Burmese people and the rest of the world with independent news and information about the upcoming election.”
The Internet is tailor-made for media. However this fast and accessible communications platform comes with a downside. “The Internet was not developed with security in mind. It was developed with transparency in mind; it was developed for ease of technological innovation; it was developed with openness in terms of the system design,” said US Deputy Secretary for Defense William J. Lynn III in a recent speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, where he outlined how the US views the cyber threat.
To some, the concept of “cyberwar” might come across as another faddish national security policy niche, or at best a side issue compared with conventional or old-school war and defense issues. But such views have changed after a cyber attack of unprecedented sophistication using the malware “Stuxnet” hit Iranian nuclear facilities in September. (more…)
Intel’s new Vietnam plant showcases Asia’s rise – Sunday Business Post
October 31st, 2010
http://www.sbpost.ie/news/world/intel-deal-highlights-vietnams-rise-52584.html
Simon Roughneen in Hanoi – Like much of Asia, Vietnam’s economy is vaulting clear of the global slowdown, with growth for 2010 projected to beat the 5% recorded last year, and the opening of what is computer chip maker Intel’s largest plant highlights the country’s emergence as an investment target for multinationals.
Intel president and chief executive Paul Otellini joined Vietnam’s Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai at the opening, with Hai saying the new facility “supports our goal of accelerating economic transformation led by technology-intensive industries”.
Lenin statue in central Hanoi (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
While the new Vietnam operation will not directly affect Intel’s Irish base in Leixlip, it highlights the longer-term challenges posed to smaller, inward-investment oriented western economies, by lower-cost emerging economies in rapidly-growing Asia, particularly as education and income levels increase. Intel recently announced record global quarterly revenues of €7.95billion, driven partly by growth in emerging markets, the company said. (more…)
Tapping into the summit drip-feed – RTÉ World Report
October 31st, 2010
http://www.rte.ie/news/player.html?worldreport#programme=World%20Report
Hands over cameras and ‘back-off’ glares and growls made it a drip-feed for journalists in Hanoi covering the Asia-Pacific meetings over the past few days.
Hillary Clinton arrives in Hanoi for the East Asia Summit (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
There was plenty happening however, even if information was slow to come out. Stakes were high, with the US and China clashing over a number of long-running issues, such as the value of the Chinese renminbi, control of the South China Sea, North Korea, and more recently, Japan.
Arriving late to the show, American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was on the end of Chinese anger once more, with Beijing claiming she took Japan’s side in a territorial dispute over a group of islands in the East China Sea. China recently overtook Japan to become the world’s second biggest economy, behind the United States.
This comes after China and Japan clashed over Tokyo’s arrest of Chinese sea captain near the islands, which prompted street protests and threats to boycott Japanese businesses in China. Beijing then stopped exports to Japan of so-called rare earth minerals, which are vital to the production of hi-tech communications and electronic goods. China currently dominates the world market in rare earths, meaning that Japan, and other countries, may seek alternative sources.
One possibility is summit host Vietnam, which Japan says has some of the minerals underground. The Hanoi Government, like many others in southeast Asia, is doing its best to balance between the US and China. Though economically-linked to and in some ways dependent on China, Vietnam has moved closer to the US in recent months, with the former enemies now sharing naval intelligence. (more…)
Hanoi holiday for Burma’s junta – The Irrawaddy
October 30th, 2010
http://irrawaddymedia.com/article.php?art_id=19897
Thein Sein pictured en route to the ASEAN/EAS summit gala ball at Hanoi's NCC (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
HANOI – Some news reports coming from the 17th ASEAN Summit here in Hanoi say that the Burmese representatives have been under pressured by ASEAN counterparts to add some credibility to the country’s November 7 general election.
However, with the notable exceptions of Indonesia Foreign Minister Marty Natelegawa, his Philippines counterpart Alberto Romulo and President of the Philippines Benigno Aquino III, ASEAN leaders have kept quiet about the upcoming vote.
A kinder, albeit less-likely interpretation, is that whatever they might have said to Prime Minister Thein Sein and Foreign Minister Nyan Win behind closed doors is just not reaching the information-starved media gathered inside Hanoi’s National Convention Centre. ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan affected a weary countenance when asked whether Burma was discussed by ASEAN leaders at their meeting on Thursday – though to be fair he told reporters as much about what was said on Burma as anyone else.
By Friday, it appeared that ASEAN leaders had given up on the issue. Surin told reporters that it was now important to focus on the post-election period. However, elections are, after all, merely part of a broader process, requiring credible electoral laws, open campaigning provisions, free access to information, freedom of the press and a working system of checks and balances underpinned by the country’s constitutional or legal codes. Burma has none of these. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon repeated his view expressed earlier in the week when visiting Thailand, that “it is not too late” for the elections to be made credible, it is hard to know, short of wholesale revision of the Burma’s governance, how the elections could be made free and fair.
In an email, Aquilino Pimentel, a veteran Filipino politician, said that he is “saddened that there appears to be lukewarm support from other ASEAN countries, save for one or two exceptions, for the upholding of the rights of the Burmese people, which have been trampled upon for more than two decades now”.
Thailand’s delegation at the summit has said little about the vote, despite, or perhaps because of the stakes involved for Burma’s biggest trading partner. Host Vietnam has a democratic deficit of its own, jailing bloggers and Catholic land protestors during the past week, thereby prompting a rebuke from Washington, D.C. “There have been some recent instances where journalists, bloggers, other activists have been arrested. (more…)
Cool winds at Hanoi summit – Asia Times
October 29th, 2010
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/LJ30Ae01.html
HANOI – Great power rivalries, including US-China chest-thumping on a wide range of political, economic and security issues, look set to dominate this weekend’s Asian summits set inside the bleak, socialist-cliché trappings of Hanoi’s imposing National Convention Center.
The immediate focus of the 17th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit, with regional leaders in attendance, will be Myanmar’s first elections in two decades scheduled for November 7. As ever, the military-ruled country has added an edginess to the typically anodyne proceedings, where attention to the ephemera sometimes borders on the absurd.
Building bridges in Hanoi? Hoàn Kiếm Lake, in the heart of the city (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Two days after Robert Kelley, a former International Atomic Energy Agency official, called on ASEAN to take the lead in addressing an alleged nuclear weapons program in Myanmar, one of the three official summit press statements released by ASEAN at time of writing was devoted to the issuing a commemorative stamp by host country Vietnam. (more…)
Burma not raised by ASEAN leaders – The Irrawaddy
October 28th, 2010
http://www.irrawaddymedia.com/article.php?art_id=19861
Great power rivalries and regional security and economic issues to dominate Asian summit agenda, as compromise deal on Burma election observers discussed in Hanoi
Empty hall: the NCC in Hanoi (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
HANOI – Speaking to media inside Hanoi’s National Convention Center in Vietnam’s capital, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said Burma was not discussed by the region’s heads of Government at their retreat this afternoon.
After Asean foreign ministers discussed the Burma elections at length over a working dinner last night, the region’s heads of Government – including Burma Prime Minister Thein Sein – today focused on the summit’s “Connectivity” theme, which involves plans to enhance communications and transport infrastructure across the region.
Asked about whether Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s detained pro-democracy leader, would be released on November 13, the date on which her house arrest is due to expire, Surin said that representatives from the junta did not give any indication that this date would be amended or her sentence extended.
Surin told media that a request was made last night to Nyan Win, the Burma military government foreign minister, to allow foreign observation of the November 7 election. The junta is considering a deal to allow current Asean member-state embassies and some international organisation officials based in Burma to carry out poll observation. However no detail was given about the extent of access the officials and diplomats would be given, if the proposal goes ahead, or whether it would involve anything more than election observation. The deal would represent a compromise, after Asean member-states previously asked that election observers be permitted to enter Burma to observe the elections. (more…)
Investigating Burma’s nuclear mystery: a job for ASEAN? – The Irrawaddy
October 27th, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=19836
Nuclear scientist and former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Dr. Robert E. Kelley hit the headlines earlier this year when he wrote a report claiming that Burma’s military junta was mining uranium and working toward developing a nuclear reactor. His report was commissioned by the exile Burmese news agency Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), which was, in turn, shortlisted for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
Dr. Kelley recently spoke to The Irrawaddy’s Simon Roughneen about the alleged nuclear weapons program, and said that despite the claims in his report there has been little or no international effort to investigate Burma. He said he believes that the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) should be at the forefront of efforts to address the nuclear weapons issue. The 17th Asean Summit takes place this coming weekend in Hanoi, alongside the East Asian Summit, to be attended by Chinese Premier Wen Jaibao and U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton.
Question: Remind us of the content of the documentation that you reviewed as part of the DVB exposé of the Burmese military junta’s alleged nuclear weapons program. Can you tell us the significance and implications of this material?
Answer: Firstly, the jargon and terms that people were using were reminiscent of insider knowledge, not just general mentions of “a nuclear program in Burma.” I got a chance to interview the defector source, Sai Win, when he came out, and the photos he brought out were of pieces of chemical processing equipment at the factories he worked in. I recognized one of those objects as a bomb reactor, which is a very strong steel vessel for producing metal and chloride compounds, usually uranium or plutonium. What I found was a set of photos showing uranium compounds for use in a nuclear program, either for fuel in a nuclear reactor or metal parts in a nuclear bomb. I didn’t see much other purpose for those things, or for keeping it all secret, for doing it in military factories or for lying to the Germans inspecting those factories—unless it were for a nuclear weapons program. (more…)
Still time for inclusive election in Burma, says Ban – The Irrawaddy
October 26th, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/highlight.php?art_id=19828
UNSG urges inclusive elections as Thai PM says Burmese refugees will not be sent home until their safety in Burma can be assured.
BANGKOK – United Nations Secretary-General Ban ki Moon has made a last-ditch plea for an “inclusive, transparent and credible” November 7 election in Burma, saying that “it is not too late, even now, to make this election more inclusive”.
The Secretary-General made no mention of detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, nor did he remark upon UN Human rights envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana’s recommendation that a Commission of Inquiry be set up to investigate allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity inside Burma.
“It will be perhaps more important after the election, to how inclusive the Government is”, said Ban, who will have a bilateral meeting with junta Prime Minister Thein Sein when both men are in Hanoi for the 17th ASEAN summit this coming weekend.
Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajjiva said that there are no plans to repatriate Burmese refugees or intellectuals after the election, but added that he discussed the issue of Burmese citizens in Thailand during his recent visit to Burma, where he met with military dictator Senior General Than Shwe. (more…)
