Never (sort of) mind the bollocks!

Published on Jan 6, 2012 by Luke Hunt

FAR EAST CORRESPONDENT — In December the Okamotos, an up-and-coming Japanese band, played in Hanoi along with two other Japanese bands and a couple of local acts. The week before an American-Khmer band called Dengue Fever performed in Hanoi to a mostly expat crowd. These are not stadium rockers, but they are a sign of a growing live-music scene in Vietnam. Read more in The Economist. .

Mullah Omar: Last Man Standing

Published on Jan 3, 2012 by Luke Hunt

FAR EAST CORRESPONDENT — Anti-terrorism officials around the world last year chalked up some stellar success stories, capturing or killing a number of high-profile Islamic terrorists linked to al-Qaeda. Chief among them was obviously Osama bin Laden. But others included Omar Patek, the last of Jemaah Islamiyah’s senior leaders, who was arrested in Pakistan last January in the same town that bin Laden was captured in. But one man has eluded everyone for more than a decade. Since the September 11, 2001, strikes on New York and Washington, Mullah Mohammad Omar – the self-styled Imam and Taliban chief – has ranked among the world’s most wanted, alongside bin Laden who Omar for years helped harbor. Read more in The Diplomat. .

Indonesia Boat Tragedy

Published on Dec 22, 2011 by Luke Hunt

FAR EAST CORRESPONDENT — As the grim details emerge concerning a boat tragedy that appears to have resulted in the deaths of at least 200 people off the Indonesian coast over the weekend, few can be in any doubt that a massive international effort is required to hunt down and prosecute the human smugglers responsible. In a shocking act of cowardice, asylum seekers watched on helplessly as the captain and five of his crew made off with the few life jackets available. The rest had to make do in a five to six meter swell, with only a handful making it ashore. Read more in The Diplomat. .

The Despairing Status Quo

Published on Dec 20, 2011 by Luke Hunt

ASIAWATCH – Although state television showed footage of hysterical North Koreans pounding the pavement in wretched grief, it is hard to imagine anyone legitimately mourning the loss of Kim Jong-Il. Unpredictable, reclusive and bizarre, he was the most grotesque despot of our time.Starving North Koreans were forced to call the evil dictator “Dear Leader”, in what was one of the many cruel ironies of the planet’s most secretive nation. Kim Jong-Il enforced the most totalitarian system on earth. It is a crypto-religious cult where the legend of the Kim family is portrayed as immortal. North Koreans were told he descended from heaven onto a mountainside. By comparison, his reported death from a heart attack whilst travelling on a train seems....

An Indian Firewall

Published on Dec 20, 2011 by Luke Hunt

FAR EAST CORRESPONDENT — India’s tradition of free speech may be facing its biggest obstacle yet, following an end-of-year government push to require Internet giants Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo and Google to filter its users content for “offensive” material. The crack down came after Communications Minister Kapil Sibal became aware of photoshopped images of Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hosted on social networking sites sometime in September, as well as some images deemed offensive to Islam.  Sibal swiftly demanded the social media companies remove the offensive material and create human-run monitoring systems for their networks, which would catch such images before they hit the Internet. Faine Greenwood reports for the UN Dispatch. .