Monthly Archives: November 2009
Sycophancy lavished on Asian hosts
THERE must be something about Asian potentates, benevolent or otherwise, that gets those expatriate corporate hormones racing to lavish love in spades on them. In nearly two decades trawling through corporate Asia, I’ve seen it time and again. Foreign businessmen who’d be the first to trash the business policies of … read more >>
Fire rages over Red Dragon ‘prawn ultimatum’
JAKARTA – IT’S THE EMERGING market investor’s lament – if it’s Tuesday it must be Shanghai, Wednesday Mumbai and Thursday Rio. But it seems that if it’s most any day of the week, it’s Jakarta: there’s yet another financial drama to upset Indonesia’s emergence as a credible investment destination. Indonesia’s … read more >>
After the war comes Sri Lanka’s refugee crisis
Menik Farm refugee camp, Northern Sri Lanka. LAST week at her bowls club, in a bucolic town in Victoria’s whitebread Western District, my mother mentioned to ‘the girls’ that I’d soon be in town for a school reunion. Her bowling mates know that I’m a foreign correspondent, reporting from sometimes … read more >>