BOMBORRA ...

China’s Un-Neighborly Ban

Webmaster — Sat, 19 May 2012 01:09:07 +0000

FAR EAST CORRESPONDENT — China has imposed its annual ban on commercial fishing in the South China Sea, but its efforts to preserve and replenish fish stocks have been met with skepticism. Hanoi is particularly irritated, while Manila is biting its tongue, believing the move is simply another form of Chinese bullying. Vietnam says the ban, from [...]

Singapore’s Facebook Windfall

Webmaster — Fri, 18 May 2012 01:28:49 +0000

FAR EAST CORRESPONDENT — Singapore’s next billionaire has upset the strategic heart of capitalism.Eduardo Saverin, who owns a four percent stake in Facebook, is renouncing his U.S. citizenship, lodged the required paperwork to make Singapore his new home and is no doubt scouting the island-state for the right bankers. All this comes as Facebook readies itself for [...]

Bush and Cheney on Trial

Webmaster — Tue, 15 May 2012 09:29:57 +0000

FAR EAST CORRESPONDENT — For decades, critics have politely pointed to Malaysia as a country of parallel universes. Laws separate race and religion, and people who live and work side by side are forced to coexist within different worlds as defined by successive UMNO coalitions and at times enforced by the courts, civilian and Islamic. [...]

Horst Faas Dead

Webmaster — Fri, 11 May 2012 03:20:43 +0000

FAR EAST CORRESPONDENT — Celebrated combat photographer Horst Faas, who covered the Vietnam War for the Associated Press, has died aged 79, his daughter says. Germany-born Faas won four major photo prizes, including two Pulitzers, during his career, and served as AP’s Saigon photo chief at the height of the war. The BBC reports.

Lady Gaga: Threat to Kids?

Webmaster — Fri, 11 May 2012 02:43:59 +0000

FAR EAST CORRESPONDENT — The self-appointed culture police are at it again. Indonesia’s hard-line Muslims are promising to block American singer Lady Gaga from taking to the stage during a scheduled June 3 performance in Jakarta. Among their many complaints are that the pop diva is a danger to children. In threatening to mobilize 30,000 [...]

Uncle SMS is Dead

Webmaster — Wed, 09 May 2012 03:47:04 +0000

FAR EAST CORRESPONDENT — Southeast Asian governments are prone to gloating over their economic success and are rarely shy when it comes to cultural assertions. But for all the ranting and raving about Southeast Asia as a success story, public attitudes just don’t seem to be toeing the official line. In fact resentment in many [...]

Khmer Rouge, a Family Affair

Webmaster — Tue, 08 May 2012 00:51:50 +0000

FAR EAST CORRESPONDENT — Cambodia is enduring a controversial period. The recent murder of Chhut Vuthy, a high-profile environmentalist, has rattled the country and diverted attention from issues the government would prefer its bureaucrats to focus on, including Cambodia taking over as annual hosts of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and a diplomatic plan [...]

Murder in Cambodia

Webmaster — Tue, 08 May 2012 00:37:40 +0000

ASIAWATCH – In Cambodia, the murder of a high-profile environmentalist has sent shockwaves around a country which has never shaken-off its reputation for violence, corruption and a culture of impunity among the ruling political and moneyed classes. Luke Hunt reports. Understandably, the shooting of Chhut Vuthy, 45, in a remote southern forest has outraged human rights [...]

Cambodia’s Corporate Darling

Webmaster — Sat, 05 May 2012 07:03:31 +0000

ASIAWATCH — When the Khmer Rouge were driven out of Phnom Penh in 1979 they left behind a city that had been laid bare. Its infrastructure was in ruins and utilities like the colonial-era water supply were in a state of filthy disrepair. The ideology of the ultra-Maoists also left 1.7 million people dead and [...]

Chea Vichea & Chut Vuthy

Webmaster — Sat, 05 May 2012 04:05:01 +0000

FAR EAST CORRESPONDENT — Next month, American filmmaker Brad Cox will travel from his base in Bangkok to New York, where he will receive a prestigious Peabody Award for a documentary he made on the assassination of the Cambodian trade union leader Chea Vichea in 2004. Two men – Bom Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun [...]