Southeast Asia

Thailand peripatetic former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has turned up in Cambodia, where he has been named a special economic advisor to the government. As Thailand's current government is seeking Thaksin extradition on corruption charges, they're not too thrilled about this development and have recalled their ambassador from Cambodia:

[Thai prime minister] Abhisit accused Cambodia of interfering in Thailand's internal affairs, and a foreign ministry official said bilateral co-operation agreements would be reviewed.

"Last night's announcement by the Cambodian government harmed the Thai justice system and really affected Thai public sentiment," Mr Abhisit said.

The Cambodian government claims they want to take advantage of Thaksin's business expertise, though it's likely also relishing the chance to irritate Thailand. The two countires have been engaged in border skirmishes in recent months.

It's been an interesting year for Thaksin, who has demonstrated a Carmen Sandiego-like ability to generate controversy around the world while evading arrest. In April, he was named an honorary Nicaraguan ambassador and granted a passport by Daniel Ortega's government. He was also granted a residency permit in Germany under false pretenses a few months later with a member of his entourage claiming to be German intelligence agent. 

So, gumshoes, where will Thaksin turn up next?

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A new Islamic law in Indonesia's devoutly Muslim Aceh province takes a strict interpretation of Sharia law including a provision to stone adulters to death. The "Islamic Crime Bill," passed by the regional parliament on September 15, 2009, authorized the following punishments for adultery and homosexuality:

“Any person who deliberately commits adultery is threatened with 100 cane lashes for the unmarried and stoning to death for those who are married.”

“Any person deliberately performing homosexuality or lesbianism is threatened with up to 100 cane lashes and a maximum fine of 1,000 grams of fine gold, or imprisonment of up to 100 months.”

Additionally, the law outlines the punishment for rape is a minimum of 100 cane lashes and a maximum of 300 cane lashes or imprisonment of at least 100 months and up to 200 cane lashes or a maximum imprisonment of 200 months for pedophiles.

The regional parliament passed this law in order to target "behavior considered morally unacceptable."

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The band, that is. Thanks to a government decree today, Muslims in Malaysia will not be allowed to attend the group's concert next month. The policy, as told to the AP goes like this: "Muslims cannot attend. Non-Muslims can go and have fun."

So... Where is the Love? It's not the hip-hoppers that Malaysia is concerned about; it's the event's sponsor, Guinness. It's part of a bid to crack down on alcohol use among the Muslim majority. On top of this incident, liquor sales are being watched more closely, and sharia courts -- set up for the civil cases of Muslim adherents -- are taking the laws seriously, granting rough penalties for infractions.

Not everyone is happy about all this, and not just because they will miss a rockin show. The country's minority Indian, Chinese, and other ethnic populations have often chafed against the government's pro-Malay (and hence pro-Muslim) politics. In regional elections earlier this year, ethnic and religion tensions came to fever pitch. Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim led a multiethnic coalition that came the closest in memory to actually challenging years of pro-Malay rule by the United Malays National Organization and its partners.

So why did Malaysia give this concert a go-ahead in the first place? Tourism revenue, it seems. But there's more Humps on the road to winning Black Eyed Peas cash than it seemed.

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This Google Earth image of a mysterious building in Northern Burma posted by the New America Foundation's Jeffrey Lewis on the Arms Control Wonk blog has been making the Internet rounds.

It may look like an Olympic-sized swimming pool, but the thing is huge -- 80 meters long on each side and seems to roughly match up with the Sydney Morning Herald's report of a Burmese nuclear reaction construction project. The Institute for Science and International Security has more.

No one seems to have a conclusive idea about what the thing is yet, but it does seem worth keeping an eye on. Via James Fallows, the Lowy Interpreter has a useful roundup of the latest Burma nuke speculation.

A sea of mourners besieged the cortege of former Philippine President Corazon Aquino today as it passed along Manila's central business district and brought the capital to a standstill. After a 16-month battle with colon cancer, and in the wake of numerous state-sponsored "healing masses", Aquino died on August 1. Her body will lie in state at the Manila Cathedral until her funeral on Wednesday.

"Cory" was the wife of national hero Ninoy Aquino, head of the opposition to former dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Once dismissed by Marcos as a "mere housewife", Aquino was catapulted into political limelight after her husband's assassination and went on to lead the 1986 non-violent People Power Revolution that ended Marcos' 20-year regime and made her Asia's first female president.  

Despite seven coup attempts during her term in office, Aquino remained a symbol of Filipino democracy and a firm fixture on the national political arena until her death. Most recently, Aquino was one-half of an unlikely coalition of former presidents (the other half being Joseph Estrada, whom Aquino herself helped oust from the presidency in 2001 with the second People Power Revolution) that repeatedly called for incumbent President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's resignation. Even after being diagnosed with cancer, Aquino continued to serve as a rallying point for Arroyo's opposition and remained an outspoken critic of the proposed charter change.

But Aquino's death will likely foreshadow the death of the anti-Arroyo movement. If anyone was capable of bringing to life a third People Power Revolution, it was her. Besides a nation in mourning, what she leaves behind is a vacuum in Filipino politics -- that functions almost exclusively on cults of personality -- for a beloved figurehead.   

Yet one politician guaranteed to never fill that void is Arroyo, whose current visit to Washington has been altogether eclipsed by Aquino's death, if the papers in Manila are any indication. In the face of mounting unpopularity, Arroyo's hopes of a triumphant return to the international stage and a standard-issue U.S. blessing went unnoticed back home. Perhaps with Aquino or without, Arroyo's days in office are numbered.

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Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will today become the first Southeast Asian leader to visit the White House since Barack Obama was elected last year. On the agenda for the two presidents is the global financial crisis, climate change and terrorism -- a high priority for the Philippines that has consistently sought U.S. help in combating Muslim separatists on the southern island of Mindanao.

But back in Manila, the Philippine Daily Inquirer says Obama plans to "lecture Arroyo on democracy" during her visit. Since coming to power in 2001, the Philippine president has fielded numerous allegations of -- among others -- corruption, extrajudicial killings, torture, bribery and fraud. Arroyo's attempts to push through a charter change, instituting a unicameral parliamentary form of government and effectively allowing her to extend her term in office past June 2010, has sparked a great deal of opposition.

A recent Social Weather Stations survey revealed that 70 percent of Filipinos are opposed to amending the Constitution. Her current approval rating stands at -31 percent, making even former U.S. President George W. Bush look good.

An estimated 10,000 protestors took to the streets on Monday in yet another anti-Arroyo demonstration. The Philipines has a history of "people power" movements and has twice ousted sitting presidents using popular mobilization. Arroyo (and Obama) would be wise to take heed.

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Last Friday's Jakarta bombings, which killed nine people, were the first attacks in almost four years in the Indonesian capital, and this time, the targets were not just foreign businessmen, but also the famous Manchester United football club. A blog post purportedly from terrorist leader Noordin Mohammed Top, who is wanted for both last week's attacks and several attacks from 2002-04 (including the Bali nightclub bombing that killed over 200) reads, "“The [Manchester United] club consists of players who are Crusaders and therefore they did not deserve to play in a Muslim country.”

Given the recent behavior of their top stars, the equating of the "Red Devils" with religious warriors amuses football fans everywhere outside of the Greater Manchester area (and plenty of people inside of it as well). Even so, the actual danger to the team was small; the bombings took place several days before Manchester United was supposed to arrive in Jakarta, and even if the message is authentic, it's impossible to tell whether Top is merely trying to claim more headlines after the fact. But in the long-term, the threat is likely to have significant implications for international sports, as top teams will have to step up security, particularly while traveling to other countries, and events like the Olympics, which already require massive security budgets, will likely have to spend even more.

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NYU economist, FP contributor and aid critic extraordinaire William Easterly says no:

The only useful definition of human rights is one where a human rights crusader could identify WHOSE rights are being violated and WHO is the violator. That is what historically has led to progress on human rights...Poverty does not fit this definition of rights. Who is depriving the poor of their right to an adequate income? There are many theories of poverty, but few of them lead to a clear identification of the Violator of this right.

He writes in part to criticize Amnesty International's 2009 report (pictured at right) for its inclusion of poverty as a rights violation. In a following post he then publishes a response from Sameer Dossani of Amnesty:

It's true that lack of income, in and of itself, isn't a human rights violation. But poverty is about a lot more than just income. As Easterly knows, those who live on less than a dollar a day are poor not just because they lack income; the lack of income implies lack of access to services, clean drinking water, adequate education, housing, employment and so on. All of these are violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights. To give just one of many possible examples, estimates indicate that as many as 8,000 children die daily in Africa alone from preventable diseases such as cholera and dysentery. It's certainly true to say that these are diseases of poverty - the rich can ensure that their water is not contaminated and can seek treatment at private hospitals as opposed to understaffed government clinics - but they are more than that. They are violations of the right to health and the right to clean water.

Is this more than a semantic debate? Both agree poverty ought to be alleviated and that poverty is connected to actual human rights violations. Easterly calls it "disappointing" that Amnesty is "blurring its previous clear focus on human rights." Is it? 

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