News stories by Analysis by Marwaan Macan-Markar, page 2

For a country plagued by a weak judiciary and where government officials have profited from a culture of impunity, Monday’s verdict in the first case to try a surviving commandant of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime broke new legal ground in Cambodia.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent passage through South-east Asia saw Washington close ranks with its former adversary Vietnam, sending a warning to Asian heavyweight China that its assertive foreign policy in the region will be challenged.

The Mekong River is steadily emerging as a testing ground for public diplomacy, Chinese style. Beijing, it appears, wants to reach out to its southern neighbours who share the river more as a friendly giant than an imposing bully.

Nearly eight weeks after anti-government demonstrators occupied the streets of this modern metropolis, virtually crippling two iconic areas, the rage it has generated in the media has exposed another fault line cutting across this kingdom — a digital divide.

A Thai national habit of openly speculating if this South-east Asian kingdom is on the verge of its next coup d’etat is in full flight.

The recent deportation of Hmong asylum seekers to Laos has shown that Thailand’s powerful military remains the dominant player in shaping the relationship between this South-east Asian kingdom and its immediate neighbours.

The Burmese military spares nothing with its iron grip on power — not even art.

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva faces his toughest foreign policy challenge as his first year in office draws to a close. At stake is this South-east Asian kingdom’s standing in a regional bloc.

The dramatic scenes that unfolded at a regional summit forcing its cancellation Apr. 11 point to a disturbing possibility that this kingdom is heading for a long period of turmoil - pitting the conservative political establishment against the rage of the urban and provincial poor.

Limits placed on a United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal in prosecuting surviving leaders of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime may not prevent revelations about international actors linked to Cambodia's dark period.