South East Asia

Summary
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At Political Front

• Indonesia

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono promised Saturday to further protect the civil rights of Chinese Indonesians, particularly followers of Confucianism. The pledge marked the President’s address to thousands of Chinese Indonesians attending the commemoration of the Chinese New Year at the Jakarta Convention Center in Central Jakarta.“In the future I will ask the minister of religious affairs, the minister of justice and human rights, the minister of education and other officials in the central and regional governments to improve protection of the civil rights of Confucianism followers and Chinese descents,” Yudhoyono said.

Indonesian government bans buffaloes from attending street protests after president expressed his hurt at being compared to the animals।

• Philippine

Philippine President Gloria Arroyo can make all kinds of claims about the accomplishments of her presidency, but what she will be long remembered for is the legacy of political instability she leaves behind. So important is stability to the functioning of a democracy that one of the crucial achievements of any administration is the peaceful and orderly transfer of power to a new set of leaders at the end of its term. That is why the election of a new president is always a milestone in the life of a democratic polity, and it is especially significant after a long period of uncertainty. Persistent political crisis burdens the legal system, and, in the long term, it engulfs the rest of society’s institutions - the economy, the religious sphere, the civil service, the armed forces, etc.

• Vietnam

The world has come to expect fractured history and fallacious analysis from American presidents. The world welcomed the election of Obama in part because he promised an end to nonsense flowing from presidential podiums. Obama’s speech at West Point confirmed instead that the office of the president can reduce intelligent and articulate men to the level of George W. Bush. One begins to suspect that citizen Bush might not be as stupid and ignorant as President Bush seemed. Let me deal with one aspect of Obama’s speech: his denial of the relevance of Vietnam to Afghanistan.

At Economic Front

• Indonesia

Indonesia's central bank expects the U.S. Fed's discount rate hike to have a positive impact on Indonesia's economy, central bank deputy governor Hartadi Sarwono said on Friday.

Economic growth in Indonesia in 2009 was higher than expected, namely 4.5 percent, with growth in the fourth quarter at 5.4 percent. The growth is still very much supported by consumption with a rate of 4.9 percent. In the last quarter exports and investment also showed indications of recovery.

• Philippine

A drought in the Philippines has destroyed millions of dollars worth of crops, reduced the country’s water supply and is threatening widespread blackouts as power companies contend with low water levels in hydroelectric dams, officials said Friday.

“It is such a difficult situation because we have just survived the typhoons in October that destroyed 1.5 million metric tons of rice and countless basic infrastructure,” Joel Rudinas, an under secretary at the Department of Agriculture, said Friday. “We are bracing for the worst.”

• Thailand

Banking giant HSBC is upbeat about Thailand's eco?nomic outlook, predicting growth of 4.6 per cent for this year.

"The main driver of the cur?rent recovery is domestic demand and not, as is often assumed, exports," Frederic Neumann, senior economist at HSBC Asia Pacific, told a "Green Light 2010: Economic Prospect for Asia and Thailand" press conference yesterday.Most analysts predict a lower Thai growth rate of 4.2 per cent, partly due to political concerns and the fragile recovery in domestic demand.

The country’s industrial output index is expected to expand between 6 and 8 per cent in 2010 as global economic recovery boosts orders for Thai products, director of the Office of Industrial Economics Sutthinee Phuphaka said on Wednesday afternoon.

Thailand's political conflict is unlikely to hit the country's exports as it is projected the exports for quarter 1, 2010 (January-March) will grow at least 17 percent year on year, Commerce Minister Porntiva Nakasai said Friday.

The government will be able to control the political situation and to prevent political violence to occur, Porntiva said, the National News Bureau of Thailand (NNT) under the state-owned Public Relations Department, reported.

Thailand's exports have been improving in light of the global economic recovery, while the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) has also helped boost the Thai exports, she explained.

THOUSANDS of protesters forced Thailand's biggest bank to close its headquarters yesterday, raising tensions one week before a court ruling on the fortune of ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

Bangkok Bank shut its head office for the day and sent 3,000 staff home because of the rally by Thaksin's supporters, who say the bank has links to a royal aide whom they blame for the 2006 coup that toppled their idol.Police said around 1,500 demonstrators had gathered in Bangkok's Silom business district. The protest movement, known as the "Red Shirts" because of their signature clothing, said 10,000 attended.

• Malaysia

Malaysia needs to undertake a major transformation of the economy, even if it involves a short term cost or initial setback, to achieve developed nation status by 2020.

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop explained that Malaysia needs such a transformation as it can ill afford to be stuck as a middle income country, albeit a high middle income nation.

"To achieve developed nation status, our economic model needs to transform to become increasingly knowledge-intensive and innovation-led," he said on the second day of the 1Malaysia Economic Conference here on Tuesday.

WITH 2020 only a decade away, Malaysia has a lot of catching up to do if it is to become a high-income economy.This was the message conveyed by several prominent speakers at the recent 1Malaysia Economic Conference in Kuala Lumpur.

• Cambodia

Cambodia's garment industry, its third-biggest currency earner, shed almost 30,000 jobs in 2009 after a drop in sales to the United States and Europe and could struggle this year, a senior official said on Wednesday.

Oum Mean, secretary of state at the Labor Ministry, said 106 factories had closed in 2009, putting 45,500 people out of work.

On top of that, 66 factories suspended operations, leaving another 38,000 on half pay, after a slump in export orders as shoppers in the United States, Europe and elsewhere cut back on clothing purchases due to the global financial crisis.

• Singapore

SINGAPORE raised its economic growth forecast for this year after reporting better-than-expected fourth-quarter data, citing a pickup in trade and industrial production and stable financial markets.

The government now expects gross domestic product to grow by 4.5 per cent to 6.5 per cent in 2010, up from a forecast of three to five per cent made only a month ago, the Ministry of Trade and Industry said yesterday.

The economy shrank 2.8 per cent in the fourth quarter on a seasonally adjusted, annualized quarter-on-quarter basis, much better than the initial government estimate of a 6.8 per cent contraction made last month.

Singaporeans have been urged to grow the country's external wing so that the republic can prosper further. And on a recent trip to Oman and Bahrain, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong told Singaporeans there to expand their opportunities while in the Middle East.

Singaporeans are making inroads into the Middle East, albeit slowly.And those already there encourage others to explore the opportunities as Singapore's expertise is needed and welcomed.

The government upgraded Singapore's growth forecast for this year, after the economy did better than expected in the fourth quarter.

For 2010, it now expects economy to expand by 4.5 per cent to 6.5 per cent, up from the previous prediction of 3 per cent to 5 per cent.However, the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) has warned that while the first half may look good, there are potential downside risks in the second half.

• Vietnam

The government took the right measures at the right time to weather the global economic slump, says State Bank of Vietnam Governor Nguyen Van Giau said, giving kudos to the interest rate subsidy program.

“In late 2007 and early 2008, when the global recession took its toll on many countries, including Vietnam, the government had to switch its focus from controlling inflation to preventing an economic slump and ensuring stability,” Giau said in an interview published on the central bank website.

At Social Front

• Indonesia

Islamic police in Aceh, Indonesia, patrol daily for women wearing tight clothes and unmarried couples sitting too close.

Sharia police in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, reprimand two women for wearing trousers that they regard as too tight, in December 2009. The police unit, called the "Wilayatul Hisbah", patrolled the beach to look for unmarried couples, Muslim women without headscarves or those wearing tight clothes, and people drinking alcohol or gambling.

“Excuse me,” says Iskandar, as his mobile phone beeps for the umpteenth time in the past half hour. It’s another anonymous tip-off, alerting him to a young couple who have been seen spending time together alone.

Three Muslim women were caned last Tuesday (February 16) for engaging in illicit sex, said Malaysian home minister Hishammuddin Hussein.

They were the first women in Malaysia to receive such punishment under sharia law.Two of them where whipped six times and the third was given four strokes of the rotan at Kajang Prison.

The issue of caning of women has ignited a fierce debate in the country after 32-year-old Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno was sentenced to be caned for drinking beer in July last year.

The sentence against her has yet to be executed

"On the day I was caned, I was scared but, at the same time, I knew I deserved it and was willing to take the punishment," said one of the women, a 25-year-old who went by the name of "Ayu".

She told the New Straits Times that the punishment -- administered while they were fully clothed and by a female prison officer wielding a thin rattan cane -- did not hurt.

The judge in the politically charged sodomy trial of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim yesterday (February 18) refused to disqualify himself from hearing the case. The defence counsel also accused Prime Minister Najib Razak and his wife of being the 'black hands' behind the prosecution.

• Philippine

The Philippines should ban its citizens from working in the Gulf due to the widespread abuse of domestic workers by local employers, according to a survey of Kippreport readers.

In a recent online poll, 44 percent of respondents said they agreed with a proposed ban on Filipinos coming to the Gulf because “domestic workers are treated like slaves and are subjected to abuse”. A third of respondents disagreed with a ban, saying that “the Mideast offers valuable employment opportunities for Filipinos”, while 23 percent said that the government “should not meddle in such matters”.

Last month a group of Philippine politicians called on the country’s government to ban domestic workers from going to the Middle East and Gulf states, according to a report in The National.

In 2008, Human Rights Watch issued a report entitled “As If I Am Not Human” detailing the problems faced by the 1.5 million domestic workers in the Kingdom. The report highlighted a range of abuses including “non-payment of salaries, forced confinement, food deprivation, excessive workload, and instances of severe psychological, physical, and sexual abuse.”

Ironically, authorities in Saudi Arabia recently proposed a ban on housemaids from certain Asian countries - not because they were subject to ill treatment, but because they claim the maids were themselves responsible for abuse. Authorities said housemaids coming from countries such as Sri Lanka, Nepal, Cambodia and Vietnam are indifferent to the local culture and have been involved in “child murders and incidents of violence”, Kipp reported recently.

• Thailand

Around 1,000 anti-government protesters have gathered in the Thai capital Bangkok ahead of a crucial supreme court decision next week involving the country's former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra.

About 20,000 security personnel have been deployed around the country amid concerns the demonstrations could turn violent over the court ruling, which will decide the fate of the ousted leader's $2.2bn fortune

A large number of migrant workers from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos face the threat of deportation from Thailand if the Government goes ahead with its nationality verification process, an independent United Nations human rights expert warned today.

In January, the Thai Cabinet passed a resolution allowing for a two-year extension of work permits for approximately 1.3 million migrants provided that they were willing to submit biographical information to their home governments prior to 28 February 2010.

• Philippine

Nearly five months after tropical storm Ketsana and two typhoons ravaged northern Philippines, evacuation centres are starting to close but thousands of people are still displaced, aid workers say.

• Brunei

An alarming number of government servants are 'walking with a time bomb' after recent studies have shown that 55 per cent of them are struggling with obesity and another 60 per cent suffer from high blood sugar and high blood pressure respectively.