South East Asia: Summary

At Political Front
• Indonesia
A critical component of Indonesia's democratic future involves recognition of the special role of Islam in the state. Because most Indonesian Muslims want their government to respect Islamic customs even if they do not support the creation of an Islamic state, the line between support for and opposition to Islamic law is often blurred.
Many Indonesians, including those who are only nominally Muslims, hold conservative values and support strict moral laws without necessarily seeing them as purely religious or based on sharia, or Islamic principles. It is easy to mistake support for a conservative moral law as support for political Islam when it is more simply a reflection of basic conservative values.
"A dialogue, if carefully prepared, offers the possibility of addressing longstanding grievances, without calling Indonesian sovereignty into question”, says Sidney Jones, senior adviser to Crisis Group’s Asia program. “But it will only succeed if all issues -- political and historical, not just economic -- are on the table, and President Yudhoyono gives it visible, public backing”.
The urgency of dialogue is underscored by the upsurge of violence in the second half of 2009 and early 2010. The report examines several incidents where members of the KNPB either claimed responsibility for the violence, although in one case playing no direct role, or appeared to be working in co-ordination with local guerrilla commanders of the Free Papua Movement’s National Liberation Army (Tentara Pembebasan Nasional/Organisasi Papua Merdeka, TPN/OPM).
An intriguing sidebar to the story of the Indonesian president's visit to Australia this week has been the additional insight into Jakarta's role in trying to solve South-East Asia's biggest problem: the brutal grip of Burma's military regime.
Burma is the most glaring bit of evidence for the critics of the Association of South-East Asian Nations, ASEAN. To them, the regional grouping's inability to persuade Burma's military junta to retreat from political power shows it up as a toothless tiger, unable to provide the foundations for a wider security arrangement in Asia, and its human rights standards to be set at the lowest common denominator. ''Among the lessons in democratisation that Indonesia has to offer Burma is the realisation that the 'experts' failed to anticipate Suharto's downfall and the military's retreat to the barracks,'' Kingston says.
• Thailand
Thailand's weekly cabinet Tuesday decided to impose the Internal Security Act (ISA) during March 11- 23 to ensure law and order in a mass anti-government rally by the United front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) group. The mass rally by the anti-government UDD group will start from March 12 when the UDD or red-shirted supporters from the countryside will travel to capital Bangkok.And, in the morning on March 14 the UDD protesters will stage their mass rally at Sanam Luang, the open field and public square in the center of Bangkok. Thai authorities have deployed 50,000 troops on the streets of Bangkok ahead of ralliesby anti-government protesters that they fear could turn violent, the deputy prime minister said
• Malaysia
Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) adviser Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has admitted that the party is facing a problem after three MPs quit recently.He said the resignations served as a good lesson that only loyal members should be chosen as candidates in future elections.“PAS had the same problem when its president quit while the late Tunku Abdul Rahman also quit Umno. Keadilan is now facing a little problem,” he said at a political rally at Pulau Gadong on Friday night.
Malaysia's opposition alliance, at one point poised for a possible takeover of the federal government, is now starting to suffer from internal squabbling and an increasing number of defections.The three-party alliance made history two years ago by capturing power in five of the country's 13 states and denying the powerful ruling coalition its two-thirds majority in Parliament. But recently, the opposition has appeared to be struggling to maintain some semblance of control and public confidence.Led by former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim, the People's Alliance consists of Anwar's People's Justice Party, the hardline Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) and the multiracial Democratic Action Party (DAP).
• Cambodia
The Cambodian parliament [official website] passed a controversial anti-corruption bill Wednesday meant to further transparency in government while opposition parties staged a walkout, saying the new law would stifle criticism and foster corruption. The law will create a national anti-corruption council to oversee investigators, but critics have said that the lack of independence from the government is troubling.
Foreign Relation
• Indonesia

With President Obama’s health care bill hanging in the balance, the White House is facing intensifying questions about whether Mr. Obama should take his planned trip to Indonesia and Australia next week.The visit, which has been timed to coincide with spring break for the Obama daughters, Malia and Sasha, is something of a homecoming for Mr. Obama, who spent part of his childhood in Indonesia. The trip is unusual, experts say, in that there is no economic summit or other multinational gathering for the president to attend.
• Malaysia
Malaysia wants to revive the Look East policy with South Korea by broadening areas of co-operation in capacity-building, said Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman.“New areas of co-operation are like green technology and biotechnology as well as initiating co-operation in third countries.
At Economic Front
• Indonesia
Indonesia’s central bank raised its 2011 economic growth forecast to as much as 6.5 percent from an earlier forecast of as much as 6 percent as consumer spending accelerates, Deputy Governor Hartadi A. Sarwono said. Yudhoyono, 60, has pledged to double spending on roads, seaports and airports to $140 billion over the next five years, part of his push to deliver economic growth of at least 6.6 percent by the end of 2014. While countries such as China, India and Vietnam have opened their doors to foreign investment by cutting red tape and lifting other barriers, Indonesia persists in making it difficult for non-Indonesians to do business in this country The truth of the matter is that without foreign direct investment, Indonesia’s economy will never expand at the 7 percent rate that is required to create new jobs and boost new sectors. “The perception that corruption is especially bad in Indonesia will make it more difficult for the country to attract foreign direct investment,” the PERC report said. It noted that “the absolute level of corruption in Indonesia might not be any worse than in any other Asian country.
Last year, I wrote an article that said a big population was good for the economy. As it turned out, the big domestic market size, healthy purchasing power and a tendency to save that kept the big economies of Brazil, China, India and Indonesia from sinking, at least for now.
Indonesia remains the most corrupt country in Southeast Asia and graft is getting even worse, a poll of businessmen said, dealing a blow to the president’s efforts to clean up the country. The Philippines, however, was not far behind and was ranked 13th on the list of 16 countries that included developed economies for comparison purposes.
• Malaysia
Growing demand from traditional markets like the United States and Europe is boosting exports of the local timber industry, which is expected to chart an improved performance this year.Malaysian Timber Council (MTC) chief executive officer Cheah Kam Huan said the industry could surpass its 2008 export figure, at about RM23bil, if the export markets recovered at a faster pace.
The consolidation programme for the domestic banking sector introduced by Bank Negara after the financial crisis in 1998 and the Government’s RM67bil stimulus package to boost the economy have helped to make banks bigger and stronger and more resilient to weather the recent rough global financial problems.
IS the worst over for the Malaysian economy? Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak last month announced that the country had emerged from the economic crisis, chalking up gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 4.5% for the fourth quarter of 2009. Although the economy shrank by 1.7% for the whole of 2009, this performance was far better than the expected 3% contraction.
• Thailand
To mark the 120th anniversary of their diplomatic relations and the signing of an economic partnership agreement, Japan and Thailand have agreed to vigorous programme to jointly develop Thai small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs).
• Philippine
New computerized electronic voting machines are meant to prevent fraud in Philippines election in May. But in tests, the voting machines rejected ballots and failed to connect to the cell phone networks to transmit results.
Concerns are rising that the use of electronic voting machines in the May Philippines election, meant to prevent vote-rigging, could fail due to technical problems and end up threatening rather than reinforcing the credibility of the ballot.
Filipino-American leaders are asking the US government to send top-level election monitors to the May 10 elections in the Philippines amid concerns that the Southeast Asian nation’s first automated elections are being rigged to fail.
PHILIPPINE President Gloria Arroyo will not be able to achieve her aim of ending a decades-old Muslim rebellion before she steps down in June, the government's top peace negotiator said on Tuesday.
Mrs Arroyo has backed years of tortuous negotiations in between outbursts of violence in the southern Philippines, but a 'comprehensive compact' that she had wanted is beyond her reach, negotiator Rafael Seguis told AFP.
At Social Front
• Cambodia
Survivors of rape in Cambodia face limited access to justice, medical services and counselling, Amnesty International says in a report issued today, as rapes of women and girls appear to be increasing.
Sexual violence in Cambodia, issued to mark International Women’s Day, exposes how corruption and discrimination within the police and courts prevent survivors of rape from receiving justice and the assistance they require, while most perpetrators go unpunished.
• Brunei
The American State Department yesterday published its Human Rights Report for the year 2009, which for Brunei carried a mixed review of the human rights conditions that can be found, according to their assessment and observations, within the individual, civil, political and worker rights that have been stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
On the whole, the US report that was compiled by the US State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour found that among the human rights problems that it listed for Brunei were the "inability of citizens to change their government; arbitrary detention; limits on freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association; restrictions on religious freedom; discrimination against women; restricted labour rights; and exploitation of foreign workers".
At Environmental Front
• Indonesia
The Toba super eruption occurred between 69,000 and 77,000 years ago at Lake Toba (present day Indonesia), and it is recognized as one of Earth's largest known eruptions. The related catastrophe theory holds that this super volcanic event plunged the planet into a 6 to 10 year volcanic winter, which resulted in the world's human population being reduced to 10,000 or even a mere 1,000 breeding pairs, creating a bottleneck in human evolution. Some researchers argue that the Toba eruption produced not only a catastrophic volcanic winter but also an additional 1,000 year cooling episode.
• Malaysia
THE movie 2012 made us to ponder what may happen if disasters such as an earthquake or tsunami were to ravish our home. Are we prepared for such disasters? One should not think that Malaysia is free from all natural disasters. If we may recall, in 2004 a tsunami hit India, Sri Lanka, Aceh as well as Penang and Kedah as a result of an underwater earthquake measuring 9.1 magnitude in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
• Thailand
Thailand's biggest foreign investors have learned to live with a lot in recent years, including mass protests, airport closures and persistent rumblings about military coups. But now there is another issue that has companies such as Ford Motor Co. and a host of petrochemical firms wondering if they should be putting their money somewhere else: the government's struggle to deal with tough new environmental regulation.