Southeast Asia News 34

Siam Map

Playing with the wrong card
The Weekend Standard
Weekend: October 23-24, 2004

Even those rich enough to have bought a Thailand Elite Card are too embarrassed to talk about it. And even after it was put on the market a year ago with overt government backing - including the imprimatur of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra - not even the government bodies responsible for the card want to talk about it now.

Launched with great fanfare ahead of Thailand's hosting of last October's Apec (Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation) summit, the card confers exclusive benefits such as discounts on spas, a fast-track line at airport check-in and business introductions for "VIP foreigners who have high purchasing power'' and want to buy into what promotional materials say is the world's first `countrywide country-club''.

Costing US$25,000 (HK$195,000) each, the Elite Card promised a whole new level of service and special perks, backed by powerful government support for self-identified "high-quality tourists'', in contrast, presumably, to the hordes of downmarket visitors already spending their vacation dollars in Thailand.

But the golden bloom logo - the pat bok, or ceremonial palm-leaf fan which "has been reserved throughout Thai history to designate VIPs'', according to the Elite Card website - is already looking tarnished

The Thailand Elite Card Fiasco


Myanmar shakeup offers glimpse of junta Inc
Yahoo News Asia-Pacific
Oct 25, 2004
By Darren Schuettler

BANGKOK, Oct 25 (Reuters) - From karaoke bars to travel agents and newspapers, rivals are carving up the business empire of Myanmar's sacked prime minister and his once powerful clique. Scores of firms linked to Khin Nyunt's military intelligence have been shut or temporarily suspended at the behest of junta strongman Than Shwe, who purged his former ally last week.

Khin Nyunt's demise has offered a rare glimpse into how the generals, their families and a handful of businessmen profit in one of the world's most corrupt economies, analysts say. "It's about controlling access to money and Khin Nyunt's removal may have had as much to do with internal business interests as with politics," said Bradley Babson, a retired World Bank economist and Myanmar watcher.

Burma Shakeup All About the Money


Cambodia's underwear gang strikes again
Mail and Guardian Online
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
25 October 2004 15:45

Cambodia's notorious underwear thieves have struck again, shooting and seriously wounding a motorbike taxi driver just outside the capital, local media said on Monday. The gang earned its name because its members wear nothing but underpants, but wield AK-47s. It terrorised communities in several provinces last year but had appeared to have disbanded until the attack on Sunday, Khmer-language Kampuchea Thmei said.

Terror in Cambodia


Asia by Blog
Simon World
Hong Kong
Oct 25, 2004

Asia by Blog is a twice weekly feature, posted on Monday and Thursday, providing links to Asian blogs and their views on the news in this fascinating region. Please send me an email if you would like to be notified of new editions. Previous editions can be found here. This edition contains Korea's worst season, China's mines, Hooters, which US Presidential candidate is best for China, Japan's earthquake system, could China annex North Korea, pissed off Pakistanis and plenty more...

Simon's Asia by Blog


Vietnam's Phone Subscribers Growing
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 26, 2004

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- What's the best way to sue my neighbor? How big is Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum? Is surgery necessary to remove a bunion? Am I pregnant? For answers to these questions, call 1080. Directory assistance in communist Vietnam goes a lot further than America's 411. It's a combination of a lonely hearts column, Dr. Ruth and general information service, with a force of female operators ready to take on just about anything, 24/7.

In a country where information -- including the Internet and media -- is tightly controlled by the government, the service fills a big gap. And its popularity attests to a level of telephone penetration that reflects Vietnam's growing prosperity -- 9.3 million telephone subscribers in a nation of 82 million.

The service started in 1992 in Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon, as a way for the Communist Party to explain social and economic policies. More than a decade later, exchanges in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City alone field 75,000 calls a day asking for everything from college exam scores and soccer results to advice on finding love.

"One day I got a call from a man who said that two people were quarreling on Hang Bong street," said Tran Hong Ha, 30, an operator in Hanoi for 10 years. "That old man asked me to come there immediately because they were quarreling with each other very fiercely and he hoped that with my sweet voice, I could help..."

New York Times Reports on Phone Service in Vietnam


Smuggling Cost Philippines US$10 BLN Last Year
Yahoo News Asia-Pacific
Oct 25, 2004

MANILA, Oct 25 Asia Pulse - Smuggling in the country has resulted to US$10 billion in losses to the Philippine ngovernment last year yet the Bureau of Customs has not sent a single smuggler to jail in the last three years. This was the result of today's hearing by the Senate committee on trade and commerce investigating the problem of unabated smuggling of goods to the detriment of local producers.

Smuggling in the Philippines


So You Want to Be on TV?
Sassy Lawyer in the Philippines
Oct 25, 2004

Reading X-P’s latest entry reminded me of something that my husband and I were discussing a couple of weeks ago--hidden cameras and the right to privacy. Reality TV or not, someday I’m going to get my chance. Not to be on reality TV but to sue at least one TV station for invasion of privacy.

Hidden security cameras are one thing. But a hidden TV camera in a taxicab or in a restaurant is quite another thing. There’s this local TV show hosted by Andrew E. I saw part of one episode where Andrew E. pretended to be a cab driver and was carrying on conversations with real passengers. It was a gag, naturally. At the end of the segment, the camera was revealed and the passengers were told that they were on TV.

Sassy Lawyer in the Philippines on Hidden Cameras


U.S. pays $1 million reward to Filipino informers
Yahoo News Asia-Pacific
Oct 25, 2004

U.S. government representatives on Monday handed reward money totaling $1 million to three Filipinos who helped authorities track down and kill a senior leader of the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group. Two men and a woman wearing black caps, long-sleeved white shirts, gloves, sunglasses and stockings over their faces to conceal their identities received the money in suitcases at a ceremony in the grounds of a hospital in Basilan, an island near the southern tip of the Philippines.

The Philippine military said the three gave information that led to operations in Basilan last April in which Hamsiraji Sali was killed. Sali was among the leaders of the Abu Sayyaf who kidnapped and later killed hostages in 2001.

Big Bucks Rewards for Information


10,000 pay-TV pirates in Singapore
Singapore Straits Times
By Alfred Siew
Oct 26, 2004

THE temptation of watching English Premier League matches and other pay-TV programmes for free is drawing people to use illegal decoder boxes, even as the law is being changed to jail those who do so. As many as 10,000 illegal decoder boxes are being used in Singapore this year, according to survey results released by the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (Casbaa) on Tuesday.

These pirates have caused StarHub to lose US$3 million (S$5 million) so far this year, said Casbaa. On the whole, the cost of pay-TV piracy in Asia is expected to rise 11 per cent to US$970 million this year, the association said.

Singapore laws are being toughened to punish not only the sellers of unauthorised decoder boxes, but also anyone who uses them to receive pay-TV programmes. Proposed changes to the Broadcasting Act, which were first read in Parliament last week, will make it a criminal offence for anyone to receive pay-TV signals with unauthorised set-top boxes. Illegal decoder boxes, which cost between S$200 and S$600 in the black market, unscramble signals from StarHub and give a user access to all cable-TV channels for free.

TV Piracy in Singapore


City state does its death by the book
Kimina Lyall
The Australian
23 October 2004

When it comes to the death penalty, Singapore is unapologetic for its cold-hearted efficiency. In its official drug education website, the city state publishes the diary of David W, a 21-year-old addict the Government hanged in 2000.

"They weighed me today," David wrote three months before his death. "Not because they are worried about me putting on weight, no not for that. They need to know how heavy I am to calculate the length of the rope."

Later, David says one of the reasons he will be wearing a hood at his execution, "is so they don't have to look at you".

Australian Nguyen Tuong Van, 24, is likely to know soon how David felt. In a decision as swift as his expected execution, three judges this week dismissed his appeal against the death sentence without saying a word to the former child refugee. Not looking at the condemned man might be one way of coming to terms with state-sanctioned murder, but righteousness is another.

Singapore and Executions


Singapore Eyes Vegas-style Casino Project
Yahoo News Asia-Pacific
Oct 25, 2004

Singaporeans already spend about $180 million a year in neighbouring Malaysia's casinos, operated by Genting Bhd, which bar Muslims. About $140 million of Singaporean money is spent in Indonesia's Batam island casinos and about $400 million on casino cruises. The Innovation Group, a U.S. consultancy that compiled the data, said "floating casinos" and illegal gambling in Asia are worth about $4.2 billion alone. Some estimates put the value of Asia's legal gambling industry at about $14 billion.

But critics say Singapore is flirting with a social disaster and public debate simmers over a proposal to restrict local access, possibly by introducing a membership system, in the hope of heading off widespread gambling addiction. A survey by the Straits Times newspaper last month showed public opinion in Singapore evenly split over the idea, with 53 percent of the country behind it and 46 percent disapproving.

Is Gambling Coming to Singapore?


Singapore percussion group breaks Guinness record for non-stop drumming
Yahoo News Asia-Pacific
Oct 25, 2004

SINGAPORE : A Singapore percussion group, Rhythm Masala, has drummed its way to a Guinness World Record. The five drummers played non-stop for three days and two nights, totalling 50 hours, at the Awesome Africa Music Festival held in Durban, South Africa from September 23 to 29. They used 40 international drums - some of which are of Chinese, Malay and Brazillian origin - to break the record for non-stop drumming.

Another World Record for Singapore