9/11 — Ten Years On

Published on Sep 13, 2011 by Luke Hunt

Bali Bombing AsiaWATCH — When hijackers crashed into the World Trade Center, their primary hope was to inspire a global jihad. Luke Hunt reports. Under Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organisation Muslims were expected to rise up and support the agenda. That included an Islamic caliphate covering much of Southeast Asia to be established under local affiliate Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) with Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir at the helm. He had been piecing JI together with Abdullah Sungkar, who died two years earlier, and was already proven in the art of terrorist tactics _ wanted in connection to simultaneous church bombings across Indonesia on Christmas eve in 2000, and strikes on the country’s stock exchange. Bashir bowed to bin....

Politics of Sand

Published on Sep 10, 2011 by Luke Hunt

AsiaWATCH — Dredging and mining for use in Singapore’s construction industry and landfill projects are ravaging coastal ecosystems around the region, Luke Hunt reports. The politics of sand is a dirty business, and there’s plenty of it around, particularly in Singapore where a voracious appetite for constructing mega-buildings and expanding its borders by filling in the sea has led to widespread ecological damage around the region. Indonesia, which has 92 outer islands determining its maritime border areas, complains bitterly about its disappearing territory and has banned the export of sand. So have Vietnam and Malaysia, which also uses its dealings with sand as a political bargaining chip when negotiating with the island state. Countries further afield are also thinking twice....

Costs of Anti-Graft Victory

Published on Sep 9, 2011 by Luke Hunt

AsiaWATCH– Anti corruption campaigner Anna Hazare’s hunger strike captivated the Indian public and left the government reeling. But what are the consequences of holding the government to ransom, asks AsiaWATCH from the Indian city of Chennai (Madras). Since August, India has been captivated by the anti-graft movement led by campaigner Anna Hazare. Millions were galvanised by the self-styled Gandhian’s hunger strike, which two weeks ago forced the Indian government into an embarrassing back down over its proposed anti-corruption legislation. Ordinarily, a campaign over competing pieces of legislation might seem too arcane to stir such intense passions. But in a country where corruption is so pervasive, Mr Hazare’s hunger strike struck a chord. It inspired similar anti-graft protests across the sub-continent,....

ASEAN’s 9/11 Differences

Published on Sep 9, 2011 by Luke Hunt

FAR EAST CORRESPONDENT — In a quiet office of Kebangsaan University, Kamarulnizam Abdullah holds court amid his books and thoughts. He’s a dignified man, a Muslim who loathes the concept of revenge and is instead inclined toward reconciliation. He believes terrorists can and must be rehabilitated. It’s not a calculated argument designed to upset those whose lives were forever changed by the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington a decade ago – or those who have suffered from the seemingly indiscriminate bombing campaigns that followed across Southeast Asia. Read more in The Diplomat. .

Military & Islamic Hardliners

Published on Sep 6, 2011 by Luke Hunt

FAR EAST CORRESPONDENT — Ultraviolent Islamic hardline groups with elite political and military backing, a surge in bloody sectarian attacks and a judiciary that is either unable or unwilling to prosecute them. It sounds like Pakistan. But it’s Indonesia. For years, academics and rights activists in the world’s most populous Muslim nation have claimed that the military used violent Islamic groups as proxies to prop up its economic and political interests. Read more from Cain Nunns in Global Post. .