Kampuchea Crossings

Bump to baby on the beaten expat track

ASEAN trade barriers fall, but will political barriers follow?

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The new regional free trade agreement across ASEAN-China is off to a strong start:

To date, about 99 percent of tariffs have been removed, with exemptions awarded to rice, tobacco and alcohol, along with scores of other sensitive items. Customs procedures are being harmonized and common standards applied.

The regional economic integration across ASEAN has many observers comparing it to the EU. ASEAN countries have vast disparities developmentally, culturally, economically, and politically. Signatories will be absorbed at staggered dates, with the least developed countries like Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Burma to sign on 2015.

Many investors are optimistic about tapping the potential high growth this particular FTA will bring, especially since other regions’ economies are still struggling to recover. What is worrying is the expectation that “international issues such as education, medical research and climate change will be governed increasingly from a trade perspective”.

This bodes not so good for countries like Cambodia..

The New Idealist Social Network

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The New Idealist Social Network, from the kid who co-founded Facebook and got Barrack Obama into the White House: a new social venture for connecting volunteers with their causes, Jumo.

Whether the non-profit sector is ready to embrace a new social networking platform remains to be seen, especially given these organizations’ often-limited staff time and lack of familiarity with cutting edge technology. And there’s competition—Ning, for instance, allows non-profits to build their own branded social networking websites using pre-fabricated tools. But the most formidable rivals are [Chris] Hughes’ old friends at Facebook, which already offers the application Causes, on which users can donate money and promote non-profits to friends. Hundreds of thousands of non-profits are members of Causes, and in the application’s first two years, 25 million Facebook users “joined” at least one of the causes. But according to a Washington Post report, the majority of Causes non-profits have never received a single donation through the application.

triangulating information

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Nobody has the time for lengthy research into every aspect of an issue. We all rely on public representatives in politics, in the media, whose job it is to delve into the gritty details and summarise the pertinent points for us.

I usually do this by reading opposing views on a topic. But headlines are increasingly hijacked by rabid partisan politics and monied interests (especially given the recent Supreme Court ruling overturning corporate spending limits). The news is like an entertainment industry anymore (eg talk show radio). It’s insidiously not limited to their viewership, diverting the national attention and precious energy away from constructive dialogue, which the country so badly needs.

Being outside the country probably makes it easier to find rationale reasoned scholarship; I’m amazed at the poor quality of dialogue on the mainstream media outlets when I was in the US for six weeks at the end of last year, not to mention the numerous paid infomercials dominating the airwaves. I’m so grateful to twitter and the blogosphere for triangulating the news these days.

One thing I find interesting is the purge among the GOP of many of its bright minds who refuse to be blinded by rigid ideological purity. This religion of “American exceptionalism” needs dialogue, but that seems not forthcoming. Dissent is un-American according to the GOP. With such appalling characters in the public eye (eg Palin), I wonder why there aren’t any conservative comedians?

So these days the following moderate conservatives are on my reading list, many of whom I suppose have been rejected by their party: Andrew Sullivan, Clive Crook, David Frum, Julian Sanchez, Megan McArdle, David Brooks, Bruce Bartlett, Tyler Cowen. Who else should I read that isn’t frothing at the mouth resentful, angry-at-the-world, raving fanatics?

Thailand’s state of emergency

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Sociologist Dr Pasuk Phongpaichit was quoted in the Bangkok Post saying that the gap between the richest and poorest families in Thailand is 13 times, higher than any other country in the ASEAN region, a record I didn’t realise Thailand held. For about four weeks now, the Red Shirts (the disenfranchised poor or The National United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra, ousted in 2006) have been marching from the provinces into Bangkok and are agitating for fresh elections. They’re still gathering strength and they’ve hardened their negotiating stance.

Below are some links for keeping up with what’s happening:

Here’s a good collection of stills, maps and footage of the carnage this past weekend, on Media140, where the death toll has today risen to 23.

@nkoleszar has a great twitter list to watch for Thailand developments.

At least overall it seems armed repressions are in check, with a more solid consensus for non-violence. Both sides seem to have distanced themselves from the weekend’s clashes, with many observers now reporting a deeply divided military, unwilling any longer to take drastic measures to protect its military-installed Abhisit government.

The monarchy’s inability to reign in the situation, as it has successfully done so in previous political turmoils, seems to contribute to significantly diminishing its position. The Economist had a great backgrounder on the monarchy in Dec 2008, A Right Royal Mess (downloadable pdf as you need a subscription to access the archives). Severe lèse-majesté laws ensures that critical dialogue of the monarchy is restricted. So this radical call for monarchy reform by Thailand’s FM Kasit while on his trip to Washington DC for a landmark nuclear summit has surprised all observers (he being a PAD yellow shirt supporter, normally associated with the elites). Needless to say there is little coverage of this bombshell announcement by Kasit in the Thai presses.

Commercial interests are currently taking a hit, especially the crucial tourism industry, which makes up 7 percent of GDP. The SET index dropped 6.5% since the government declared a state of emergency last Wednesday, and more than 40 countries have issued advisories against traveling to Thailand. The protestors have largely kept away from the tourist-populated sites like commercial districts, shopping malls, the sky train. But these are the main hubs for demonstrations, as seen in these maps.

 

Wikileaks: the new journalism? the new threat to national security?

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I just saw the Apache airstrike footage that recently exploded around the web, thanks to Wikileaks, a non-profit organization that serves as  a repository for sensitive, classified or otherwise secret information from often anonymous tipsters.

While the video seems to reveal nothing newly horrific about the nature of war (those more familiar with military procedures and war crimes have been editorialising – rightly so – on that point eg Roger McShane of the Economist), it’s more the nature in which this story was broken that interests me. The tapes being classified, no traditional journalism organisations, including Reuters, has been able for three years to bring it to the public. Wikileaks did, and it is increasingly presenting a special sort of threat to governments and corporations around the world.

Foreign Policy on Wikileaks: Is this the future of Journalism?

At its best, the rise of Wikileaks represents the type of accountability journalism made famous in the 1970s by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of Watergate fame, and practiced today by Jane Mayer of the New Yorker and Eric Lichtblau and James Risen of the New York Times — and Seymour Hersh in both eras.

The New York Times on Wikileaks: Pentagon sees a threat from Online Muckrakers

To the list of the enemies threatening the security of the United States, the Pentagon has added WikiLeaks.org, a tiny online source of information and documents that governments and corporations around the world would prefer to keep secret.

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Perhaps the most amusing aspect of the Army’s report, to Mr. Assange, was its speculation that WikiLeaks is supported by the Central Intelligence Agency. “I only wish they would step forward with a check if that’s the case,” he said.