News stories by Marwaan Macan-Markar, page 10

A political fault line has emerged just days after Burma’s junta held the country’s first election in two decades, one that was held on Nov. 7 with near military precision to ensure a sweeping victory for the military regime’s allies.

South Korea’s closing of ranks with Asian countries that have recently embraced capital controls signifies that such measures will be up for discussion at next week’s summit of the world’s 20 major economies in Seoul.

A campaign to rid the world of cluster munitions has still to rope in the U.S. government, a major producer and stockpiler of the deadly payload, on the eve of a key global conference in Laos to ban its production and use.

A year after its creation, a South-east Asian human rights body has earned an unflattering label — that of being a window-dressing exercise to improve the image of a region that is home to governments notorious for suppressing political opponents, rather than expanding civil liberties.

The ghost of military-ruled Burma’s first strongman, Gen Ne Win, has returned to haunt the South-east Asian nation’s current junta leader, Senior Gen Than Shwe, as the country heads for its first general election in two decades on Nov. 7.

Asia’s search for ways to feed over one billion new mouths in the next 40 years is prompting experts to call for renewed faith in its wide network of irrigation systems in order to ensure adequate food production.

Northern Thailand’s Chiang Rai province has many charms to draw foreign visitors, from hilltribe communities dressed in colourful ethnic clothes, trips to gentle hills close to the Burmese and Lao borders, excursions to once infamous opium trails and a journey along the Mekong River.

As military-ruled Burma heads towards its first general election in two decades in November, its citizens are tuning in to their enduring faith in the old communication order — the power of the radio.

For over a decade, seasoned activist Sarojini Rengam’s efforts to storm the bureaucratic barricades at global food security meetings in Rome hardly produced any cracks. The tightly structured agenda at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) gatherings she went to were unequivocal about where activists stood — in the margins.

A hydropower dam project in Laos that could permanently scar South-east Asia’s largest river, the Mekong, faces a strong wall of opposition from local and regional green groups determined to protect its pristine environment.