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 ...
Clinton must maintain pressure on Burmese Government – The Irrawaddy
November 22nd, 2011
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22510
Political prisoner release and an end to attacks on civilians in ethnic minority areas should be U.S. Sec. Of State’s priority in Burma.
BANGKOK – Burmese opposition figures and analysts hope that the upcoming visit by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Burma will boost reforms in the country, but caution that the Burmese Government continues to violate human rights despite some positive recent signals
Speaking by telephone from Rangoon, National League for Democracy (NLD) spokesperson Ohn Kyaing said that “We welcome Secretary Clinton’s visit, as we hope she can address the Government to release political prisoners, give human rights to our people and to stop fighting in the ethnic regions”. (more…)
US-China rivalry to dominate Bali summit as Clinton gets set for Burma – The Irrawaddy
November 18th, 2011
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22489
BANGKOK—The weekend’s Asia-Pacific summits in Bali will be dominated by a growing US-China rivalry, part of which revolves around Burma, with Hillary Clinton set to visit the country next month.
Burma’s Government has been granted its wish to hold the Association of Southeast Nations (Asean) chair in 2014, two years ahead of schedule and one year before the country’s next elections, due in 2015. This step-by-step rehabilitation continued today, with US President Obama announcing that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit Burma next month. (more…)
Pardon politics in Thailand as Clinton announces $10m flood aid – Christian Science Monitor
November 17th, 2011
At today's Clinton-Yingluck press conference in Bangkok (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
BANGKOK – Areas of capital Bangkok are still under water since the worst flooding in decades hit Thailand almost four months ago, prompting visits by both US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and United Nations Secretary-General Ban ki Moon today promising aid to the country, as a divisive debate grows about an official pardon list.
The official death toll in Thailand from the floods is now at 564, and several neighborhoods of Bangkok were today ordered to evacuate as water slowly drains from the under water areas in the north and west of the capital through Bangkok toward the sea. (more…)
Bittersweet festival for flooded Thailand – The Huffington Post
November 11th, 2011
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/simon-roughneen/bittersweet-festival-for-_b_1087789.html
Sasikarn Kornair (back, right) at work on Thursday in Ayutthaya (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
AYUTTHAYA, Thailand – On dark, humid and gloomy Sunday one month ago, Sasikarn Kornair served up just about the best fried chicken I have ever tasted, standing knee-deep in rising floodwaters in her Arthika restaurant, which on a sunny day would sit in the shade of the nearby city hospital.
That day came yesterday, when the local Governor and tourism agency organised a feel-good photo-op style cleaning day for the venerable old citadel. The former Siamese capital, now site of ample gray and red-brick old temple ruins that are but the surviving fraction of one of the world’s major cities prior to its sacking by invading Burmese in 1767, were surrounded by 3-4 feet of water on October 9 last. (more…)
Not much festival feeling on Bangkok’s flooded streets – The Irrawaddy
November 10th, 2011
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22434
Amorm Kenkadthong, a neighbour of Kanita and Riaam, shows me around her flooded home in Minburi (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
BANGKOK – Shrugging her shoulders at the leech-marks on her shin, Kanita Somsaard emptied her wellington boots, for what she said was the fourth or fifth time that day so far. “By now we are used to the water”, she said, “I haven’t had time to go looking for bigger ones”, she added, pointing at her 10 inch high black rubber boots, which she nonetheless wears while wading through the 3 feet of water surrounding her home in Minburi, a northern suburb of Bangkok.
“The water came a week ago”, said her friend Riaam Faklek, lounging on a wicker-table a mere 6 inches above the water surface. (more…)
Bangkok floods force evacuation of migrant flood shelter – The Irrawaddy
November 4th, 2011
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22391
Burmese migrants help load up trucks at Rai Khing temple in Nakhon Pathom outside Bangkok this afternoon (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
NAKHOM PATHOM, THAILAND – On Friday afternoon Thailand’s Government announced that almost 500 mostly Burmese migrant workers will be evacuated to Ratchaburi, west of capital Bangkok tomorrow morning.
“The floods are less than 2 kilometers away”, announced the Thailand’s Labour and Social Welfare Ministry, at the Rai Khing temple in Nakhon Pathom, close to the flooded western side of Bangkok.
An official, giving his name only as Kobchai, said “so we have to move the group tomorrow, starting at 9am”, he added. ‘they will go to the Skilled Labour Institute in Ratchaburi”, he added.
Around 60 of the migrants, who have fled rising floodwaters in central plains areas of Thailand and northern Bangkok suburbs, will return to Burma via Mae Sot, also tomorrow. (more…)
Thailand floods: can-do ethos at the water’s edge – Christian Science Monitor
November 3rd, 2011
Suchida and friends selling boots beside the flood (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
BANGKOK - As floodwaters edge closer to some of Bangkok’s hitherto-dry central areas some enterprising people – including those affected by the waters – are doing a steady business selling flood-related provisions.
For more than two weeks, the floods that have killed 437 people and submerged northern suburbs and towns to the north, have been slowly making their way to the center of Bangkok. The west bank Chao Praya river, the central part of the city, is heavily-flooded, but the main shopping and business districts have been spared – so far.
Squatting on a sidewalk on the Phahonyothin Road, Suchida Kumjit looks over her shoulder at the newly-rising waters less than a foot away. “It was dry here this morning,” she says, “the water only came here at around noon today.” (more…)
Hell and high water in Thailand – Asia Times
November 3rd, 2011
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/MK04Ae01.html
Floodwaters make their first appearance near Thanon Phahonyothin, close to Ladphrao today (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
BANGKOK – With floodwaters now edging closer towards the Thai capital’s heavily-sandbagged city center, the economic, political and human costs of the country’s worst floods in over five decades are fast rising.
While northern suburbs are now sitting under two-week-old stinking floodwaters, and historic towns such as Ayutthaya and its famous temple ruins flooded for more than month, the recent news focus has been on whether Bangkok’s central areas, including the business district, will likewise be inundated. (more…)
Thailand floods: The straw that broke the broker’s back – The Irrawaddy
November 2nd, 2011
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22371
Flooding ensued after this breach in wall along Phra Khanong canal in inner Bangkok (Photo; Simon Roughneen)
Former Burmese migrant ‘broker’ unloads on shakedown of poor migrants fleeing Thailand floods
BANGKOK – “They are using the opportunity (provided by the floods) to exploit the workers”, says *Aung, slamming Thai immigration officials and Burmese brokers for extorting Burmese migrants who have been fleeing flooding Thailand. “I have never seen anything so bad as this”, said the man.
Aung used to work as a broker in Thailand, part of a sometimes-reviled network who, for an often substantial fee, help migrants find work and living quarters in Thailand, but often collude with traffickers in Burma and Thailand, and with brutally-exploitative employers in Thailand.
Leaked information from inside the immigration detention centre near Mae Sot, the main land border crossing between Thailand and Burma, suggests that 30,000 Burmese trying to head home have been detained at the centre during recent weeks, as floods close factories and inundate their often ramshackle homes. (more…)
Thailand flood defenses divide Bangkok – Christian Science Monitor
November 1st, 2011
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2011/1101/Thailand-flood-defenses-divide-Bangkok
View from newly-flooded homes across to Saw Wa sluice gate (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
BANGKOK – An uneasy calm prevailed today along the Sam Wa canal in northern Bangkok after Thailand’s government acquiesced to angry locals who wanted to hack a 1-yard-wide opening in a sluice gate along the canal. The hole will allow their flooded suburbs to drain – but threaten flooding in the heart of the city.
For more than two months Thailand has been inundated with the worst flooding the country has seen in decades, in some places deeper than five feet. Almost 400 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands of others displaced. (more…)
