In The News

Korean-Chinese Demand Citizenship

Kim So-young November 27, 2003
More than 5,000 ethnic Koreans from China have demanded citizenship in South Korea after living in the country illegally for some time. 2,200 of them have been on a 14-day hunger strike since the government in Seoul announced it would be deporting all illegal residents of the country. At least one former prime minister supports the immigrants' position, claiming a parallel with Jews wishing...

'Key' Terrorists Passing Through Kingdom

Prayuth Sivayaviroj November 26, 2003
220 people suspected of engaging in international terrorism are now on Thailand's immigration watch-list. After a check of border crossing records from the last 3 years, Thai authorities discovered the names of over two hundred people who were on most-wanted lists of the US FBI, the US CIA, and other international security organizations. Sources told Thailand's "The Nation"...

Terrorism Undermines Political Islam in Indonesia

Endy M. Bayuni November 26, 2003
Although Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population, Islamist political parties in the country have been unable to attract widespread support. Since the 1998 fall of the autocratic Suharto and the beginning of a transition to democracy, support for Islamist parties has not risen above sixteen percent, while their secular and pluralist rivals earn large majorities, writes Indonesian...

Japan Has Some Bold Ideas for Talks with ASEAN

Anthony Rowley November 26, 2003
After China's president made his successful ASEAN trip last month, Japan is now gearing up for December's ASEAN-Japan Commemorative Summit meeting in Tokyo, as well as a meeting of Asean+3 finance ministers early next year. To push further for a common Asian bond market is one of the priorities for Japan at these meetings, says this article in Singapore's Business Times, but Prime...

Teochews Can Take Pride in Successes

Lee Hsien Loong November 24, 2003
Since at least the 1800s, Chinese immigrants speaking the Teochew dialect have moved to many regions of Southeast Asia in search of a better life. Many of them have become the most successful groups in their adopted countries, says Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Sometimes they seem "more than proportionately represented" in top-notch positions such as the Thai...

Asia Worries About Growth of China’s Economic Power

Erik Eckholm November 24, 2003
As China continues to move from a planned toward a free market economy, several of its neighbors are finding foreign investment dwindling. The world’s most populous nation has successfully harnessed its great industrial power, and this has attracted hundreds of thousands of high-tech jobs and millions of dollars in investment that formerly went to countries such as Malaysia, Singapore and...

Crunch Time for Thai Fishing Fleet

November 22, 2003
Over the past 19 years, thousands of Thai fishing trawlers and fishermen have been arrested for poaching in the waters of other countries in the oceans off Thailand's coast. The introduction of the dragnet in 1960 allowed Thai fishermen to net large amounts of fish every hour. But the increased catches soon caused a depletion in supply, which forced trawlers further out from shore and into...