Southeast Asia

A bevy of Australian and other foreign mining companies moving into the poverty stricken but mineral-rich Philippines face a number of challenges, among them communist insurgents wielding extortion demands and hit and run raids.

Consumers throughout Southeast Asia have begun to show their displeasure at the rising cost of food, but the threat of these protests degenerating into region-wide, destabilising unrest is, for the moment, overstated.

Pado Mahn Sha, the 65 year-old leader of the Karen National Union (KNU), Burma’s largest armed opposition group, sat outside his house in Mae Sot following a briefing session with a foreign analyst.

Christmas and New Year have come and gone and the events of the Bali meeting of the UN’s Climate Convention and Kyoto Protocol seem distant mountains on the horizon.

Kelvin Rowley considers the life, death and legacy of drug kingpin Khun Sa, once known as king of the ‘Golden Triangle.’