Hillary Clinton makes an historic visit to Burma as the junta’s army chief signs a new military cooperation pact in Beijing—and the regime is accused of war crimes against ethnic minorities in remote Kachin state.
The relatives of 57 people killed in a 2009 massacre on the conflicted Philippine island of Mindanao have sued former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for allegedly assisting the perpetrators, the militia controlled by a local clan.
Human rights groups staged a demonstration at the headquarters of Ve Wong Corp in Taipei, accusing the snack food giant in the illegal seizure of farmland in Cambodia, and using private security forces to repress peasant protests.
Indigenous and peasant communities in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao are protesting the armed forces' proposal to allow mining companies to establish their own militia force to secure their operations.
Indonesian security forces fired on an unarmed political meeting of indigenous leaders in West Papua after they issued a declaration of independence. Six people were killed, many were injured, and some 300 arrested. Six have been charged with treason.
Police fired on striking workers at a mine run by US-based Freeport McMoran in Indonesia’s Papua region, leaving at least one dead. The workers, mostly indigenous Melanesians, are demanding that their wage of $1.50 an hour be raised to $12.50.
In an unprecedented move, Burma’s President Thein Sein yielded to a protest campaign, announcing cancellation of the controversial Myitsone Dam on the Irrawaddy River, already under construction by Chinese contractors.
Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his involvement with a terrorist training camp in the province of Aceh to prepare Islamic radicals to carry out attacks in Jakarta.
Villages are militarized and some 58,000 are displaced on both sides of the border as Thailand and Cambodia step up their local war over a disputed outpost that includes ancient Hindu and Buddhist temples.
Islamist protesters put two churches to the torch in central Java, two days after three members of the Ahmadiyya minority sect were lynched for promoting “blasphemy.”
Two were killed in a Thai-Cambodian border clash at a contested ancient temple, while presumed Muslim separatists escalated armed attacks in Thailand’s south.
Abu Sayyaf, the most militant wing of the Moro separatist movement in the Philippines’ southern Mindanao region, is suspected in a deadly bus blast in Manila’s financial district.
