Southeast Asia
Golden Triangle opium boom
The UN in its new Southeast Asia Opium Survey finds that opium production in Burma soared in 2013—along with renewed insurgency wars in the country's north.
Tag: Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Blood jade empire as Burma warlords diversify
Burma’s military and the rebel Kachin Independence Army vie in control for a semi-underground jade industry in the northern jungles, with the exports going to China.
Southeast Asia
Indonesia threatens West Papua ‘Freedom Flotilla’
A Freedom Flotilla carrying indigenous Australian protesters bound for the restive Indonesian territory of West Papua set off from Queensland—despite threats from Jakarta.
Southeast Asia
Burma marks 1988 pro-democracy uprising
Burma’s regime finally allowed commemorations of the 1988 uprising that launched the democracy movement—but there has been no accountability for the bloody repression.
Southeast Asia
Chinese mining interests take hit in Philippines
The Philippines high court issued a "temporary environment protection order" against 94 Chinese-owned "small-scale mines" operating on the margins of the law in Luzon region.
Southeast Asia
US troops to Philippines amid Mindanao fighting
The White House is finalizing a deal with the Philippines that will allow the US to deploy more troops—as new fighting is reported from Mindanao despite talks with Islamist rebels.
Southeast Asia
Burma: new Shan state opium eradication plan
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) announced a new peace initiative in Burma’s conflicted Shan State aimed at facilitating poppy eradication.
Southeast Asia
Burma: pipeline plans behind Rohingya cleansing?
The Burmese port of Sittwe, epicenter of violence against the Muslim Rohingya people, is to be the starting point for the new Shwe pipeline linking Burma’s west coast with China.
Southeast Asia
China: drug lord’s execution sparks dissent
Chinese TV broadcast images of a Burmese drug lord and his accomplices on their way to a death chamber in Yunnan, prompting online protests from rights activists in Beijing.
Southeast Asia
Malaysia: 10 dead in stand-off with Sulu partisans
The Sultanate of Sulu claims that 10 members of the royal army were killed in an attack by Malaysian authorities on a village siezed by the Sulu partisans in Sabah state on Borneo.
Southeast Asia
Borneo stand-off: whither Sulu sultanate?
Security forces in Malaysian Borneo are in a stand-off with some 100 men they say are insurgents from the Philippine island of Sulu raising an ancestral claim to the territory.
Southeast Asia
Thailand: insurgents launch Army of Pattani?
The Thai military says Islamist insurgents in the country's south have formed a "Pattani Army" after an audacious raid on a government base near the Malay border.