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Hockey needs more than Google for his economic research
Australia: Wayne Swan Confounds His Domestic Critics
Australia: How Euromoney's Finance Minister Award Became a Political Football
Egypt: Banking on a revolution
Thailand: Korn puts Shinawatra government on watch
Untainted talent leading from front
Former Libyan exile Ali Tarhouni may finally get a chance to make a difference
Why David Cameron is sounding a lot like Hosni Mubarak
Wendi Deng Murdoch: La Tigresa del Magnate
Behind Wendi Deng’s billion-dollar spike
US/UK/China/Australia: No profile
I was commissioned to write a piece about Murdoch’s wife – then someone pulled the plug
Getting away with murder in Colombo
WHEN governments kill the people they are mandated to protect and help prosper, what is the world's tipping point for outrage? How horrific must despotism be to compel the ''international community'' to pursue and prosecute national leaders whose regimes commit war crimes?
I would like you to meet my cousin
Syria's richest man might be wondering how long he can stay on top
An unlikely economic stability has returned
A year after the bloody red-yellow clashes, Thailand has stepped back from civil war in horror and the tourists have returned to Bangkok
Sick man of Asia looking a bit better
PERMANENT sick man of Asia? Or tiger in waiting? Once Asia's richest country save Japan but now with reasonable claims to be one of its poorest, the Philippines confounds
Egypt's reluctant finance minister gets to work
Samir Radwan was a surprise choice as Egypt's new finance minister, even to himself. Appointed at the height of the chaos, the retired economist is working hard to sustain Egypt's finances and economy through a period of extraordinary upheaval. Eric Ellis joins him in Cairo
Avoiding the grip of Singapore Inc
The island state's government-owned corporations need us more than we need them, writes Eric Ellis. Yet we all know national interest goes both ways
With Tamil Tigers slain, booming Sri Lanka makes up for lost time
The West practises selective dudgeon
Saudi Arabia and Bahrain grease our wheels, so they're all right
Egypt still waiting for someone to lead
Indonesia is no role model for Egypt
Let’s hope life after Mubarak does not resemble the post-Suharto era
Orascom: A very modern tale of corporate finance
How do you solve a problem like Korea?
Making turmoil pay- Egypt's richest man is not for fleeing
Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris knows a thing or two about operating among strongmen in their dictatorships
Hot money threatens to scorch Asia again
Just 13 years after the Asian Contagion, Eric Ellis questions whether the region's reforms would prevent another crisis
Asian sirens cast a spell but leave some things to be desired
They're robust and the road to the future, but our nearest and dearest could resolve to do better
Our Julian - for once, Australia really is punching above its weight in the world
Media mogul makes his mark in a troubled land
Melbourne-raised Saad Mohseni is forging an empire in his homeland of Afghanistan
Aung San Suu Kyi is the dissident tailor-made for Western luvvies
Turkey, with its strong economy and links to Asia, may not need to be part of the European Union
Why Farnood was flushed out of Kabulbank
In the battle to rebuild war-torn Afghanistan, Kabulbank inserted itself as a key player, building the country's largest deposit base and becoming the payment agent for many government enterprises. But a run on the bank in August led to the ousting of colourful poker-playing bank owner Sherkhan Farnood. What does this mean for the country's banking sector?
IN THE fomenting debate over Singapore Inc's bid to buy a most vital pillar of Australia's economic architecture, there is something deliciously apt that the decisive call on the Australian Stock Exchange will probably be made by Canberra's independent members of Parliament
ASIA'S monumental sporting events change nations; indeed, that seems to be the point of the billions lavished on them.....and so it was supposed to be for India and its Commonwealth Games that have just come to a close in Delhi, the biggest single global event yet staged by India
Indonesia: New dawn slowed by speed limits
In December 1967, the prominent US magazine The Atlantic made a foray into the Pacific, to look at Indonesia. Fast forward 43 years - 30 of them under Suharto - one is struck by just how much of the 1967 article could be written about today's Indonesia under the President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, with just the names - but not all of them - changed
ONE of Australia's key partners in Asia is struggling. Given the way its leaders have taunted Australia over the years, schadenfreude at its plight would be understandable. But this should be resisted, for if Malaysia stumbles, the effects may ripple across the region
Double A team inspires new hope in Indonesia
Don't bet on
Kabul Bank
On the verge of collapse, Kabul Bank operates in a financial system we
would barely recognise
New evangelical, deal-making networks are tiptoeing to the edges of power in south-east Asia
BIG problems require big ideas to fix them and, in Asia, few problems are bigger than the red-yellow divide that bedevils Thailand
Thailand's finance minister Korn
faces the ultimate stress test
Finance minister Korn Chatikavanij has steered the Thai economy successfully through huge political and social upheaval. But his long-term aim is to connect with Thailand's people, and not just its financial and business elite, to bring prosperity to the majority. Eric Ellis shadowed Korn as he travelled beyond Bangkok, examining the extent of the grassroots challenges Korn faces to effect meaningful change in a country ill-served by previous incumbents
Thailand: Korn Steps Out in Samut Sakorn
Gibraltar - Cracks in the Rock?
Tiny Gibraltar is an ocean away from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, but it doesn’t take much traversing of the Rock’s lanes to get a distinctly Groundhog Day feeling that Bill Murray might recognize
IT IS a measure of the limited appeal of Karachi, Pakistan's bumptious commercial capital, that eager taxi drivers try to lure their few tourist passengers to a laundry
Finally free, Proctor warns of Qatar's complexities
The nightmare of being held against his will is finally over for David Proctor, the former chief executive of Al-Khaliji Bank. Reunited with his family, he can finally reveal the extent of his ordeal, and issues a stark warning to other finance professionals looking to do business in Qatar
Pakistan's central bank governor Syed Salim Raza resigns before our very eyes
Euromoney’s correspondent has spent more than two decades navigating Asia’s often fathomless vagaries. But this was an exceptional experience
Thailand has been spared its Tiananmen moment but Thais now know what civil war looks like
Qataris score own goal in banking stoush
WHAT is more important, money or liberty? David Proctor is in no doubt - it is liberty every day of the week
LIFE'S daily drama that is modern Indonesia can be glibly boiled down to an arm-wrestle between goodies and baddies. The reformist goodies are gathered under the moral and electoral authority of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, now a year into a second five-year term and as popular as ever. Reform is sclerotic, but it is happening and Indonesians are starting to believe that democracy delivers not just a vote, but credible institutions
Nightmare over for UK banker held in Qatar (see also The Banker Who Cant Get Out of Qatar)
David Proctor, the former CEO of Al-Khaliji Bank who had been kept in the Gulf state against his will for 14 months, has finally been allowed to leave Qatar and will be reunited with his family this weekend. Eric Ellis, the reporter who broke news of his plight, reveals that no charges were ever brought against Proctor, who says his experience makes him caution others about doing business in Qatar
Touted as the next Bric country, Indonesia has avoided the worst of the financial crisis and its economy is powering ahead - but is that despite or because of a vacancy at the head of the country's central bank?
Islamic finance: Hub or hubris?
Shariah banking is becoming big business in Southeast Asia, with Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta battling for the title of regional Islamic finance centre. But even the most optimistic bankers fear further expansion could be stymied by arcane regulation and lack of cross-border consensus
Thailand's royal ill-health threatens to infect ASEAN
BARELY affected by the Atlantic financial crisis, ASEAN's regional economies are vaulting ahead and presenting sexy business opportunities for corporate Australia....but for all the neighbourhood's prospects and rising consumer classes, there remains a ticking time bomb lurking at its heart: Thailand.
WHAT do you know about Qatar?
Sri Lanka: A one family state?
The Banker Who Cant Get Out of Qatar
David
Proctor thought he had found a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a Gulf
financial powerhouse at Al-Khaliji Bank. It didn't work out. But almost a year
after he was removed as chief executive Proctor's life is in limbo, as Qatar's
authorities decline to grant him an exit visa that would reunite him with his
family. Eric Ellis investigates
Thailand has found much-needed stability under the Abhisit Government but maintaining it is a problem
Sleepy Dili, capital of East Timor, doesn't have much going for it. Its tallest building is just three storeys
Crony v reformer; fight becomes feisty in
Jakarta
IT IS Asia's feud of the year, and one that could define whether Indonesia makes it to international investment grade, or will spend some more time in the economic basket-case category
Dubai's debt crisis - A 'new paradigm' built on sand
At Dubai's soaring, spurious peak, one factoid the emirate's bling-burdened battalion of 'corporate communications consultants' liked to slip to junketing media was that Dubai had the world's densest concentration of cranes. Impossible to verify but too good to ignore, the glib observation almost always made it into media reports. It compelled people to want to go where the action was: subliminally, it suggested an economy where the fast buck came easy
The Dubai 'miracle' was always a mirage of spin
NOW that the external impact of Dubai's sovereign debt crisis seems to have passed, for now at least, what's the big lesson from this drama-in-the-dunes? I think it boils down quite simply...
After the war comes Sri Lanka’s refugee crisis (shorter version or longer)
Indonesian reform the path to investment
PESKY corporate regulators sniffing around the business? Stock exchange on your
case? Not in Jakarta, where it's plain sailing for all manner of corporate
governance fiddles
Indonesia’s elite has too much to lose from addressing its actions in East Timor - part 1 - part 2
From financial powerhouses to the houses of power
Former bankers are emerging as political leaders across a region that could desperately use the economic smarts of expert high-financiers, perhaps fixing the impact of mistakes made by colleagues elsewhere
WITH Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) re-elected for a second term as Indonesia’s president, the big question Jakarta bankers are asking is whom he will appoint to his cabinet
World turns disapproving eyes on Singapore banquet
WERE every high school as wonderful as Singapore's United World College....
Each morning, a convoy of chauffeur-driven Mercedes, BMWs and SUVs sweep up to the expansive campus, dropping well-shod students dangling all manner of modish teenage bling; mobile phones, computers, designer this and that. The sumptuous grounds are more suggestive of a five-star resort than a secondary school
The World’s Most Powerful Women - Emilia Pires
Exiled to Australia at age 15, she spent 24 years away from East Timor. Good experience for her job as finance minister
East Timor's Finance Minister, Emilia Pires, remembers well her first days at Moreland High School in the tough Coburg of the 1970s
Afghanistan needs an economic leader
The Karzai regime has lost the will to rule
Postwar Sri Lanka Holds Promise, at Last
After a long civil war, Sri Lanka looks ready to do business
East beats West in the Land of Morning Calm
CROWDED, dynamic, bewildering Seoul — the thrusting capital of Australia's third-largest trading partner; the world's most technologically wired nation-city, boasting the world's fastest broadband; home to the world's best airport; and, thanks to its kimchi-loving commuters, the only mass transit system that permanently reeks of garlic
City Life: Morning calm in financial markets despite mad Kim’s nuclear endgame
Kidnappings, extortion and mayhem make Nepal a tough place to do business. But an American woman and her son have managed to keep their distillery company going
Climbing the world’s highest peak is the ultimate adventure, says Eric Ellis, but with trips costing up to $100,000 each and numerous fatalities each season, it can be an expensive one too
Thailand's lesson For the West
East Timor: Learning on the Job
East Timor's politicians can't agree on how to handle its oil and gas wealth. So Venancio Alves Maria puts the cash into T bills. Smart move.
Campaign fever and the corruption crackdown make Indonesia sweat
President Yudhoyono may seem to be pandering to Islamists, but the grafters will be running scared if he wins another term
The return of the old-school Thais
Eric Ellis meets the Wykehamist and the Old Etonian who head recession-hit Thailand’s new government, and asks whether foreign investors can have confidence in them
Korn Grapples with Thailand's Downturn
The perils of insulting King Bhumibol
Eric Ellis ponders the Thai monarch’s political role as an Australian writer is prosecuted for lèse majesté
A cornered tiger still has teeth
One of the world's most notorious terrorists seems to be cornered....
Abhisit Vejjajiva is the latest to lead Thailand in a tumultuous 12 months. Does he herald economic reform or simply a new round of governmental intrigue?
Putting Indonesian Governance to the Test
Where on Earth can you find a 500% return these days? Here's one that its sponsors claim is guaranteed. Hmmm.
Corruption is the hot election issue, but the biggest fish are yet to be fried
It’s early days in Indonesia’s election season, but already Jakarta is transformed into a riot of colour....
Are the Turks ready to be part of Europe? Brussels says no but Kylie says yes
As China struts the world stage in the lead-up to the Olympics, its behaviour has been more revealing about future relations than anyone could have imagined
Honey, disconnect the phone, I'm back in Soviet Central Asia
SHE'S young and glamorous, and rich too. Though still only in her mid-30s, there seems nothing Gulnara Karimov can't do
Thailand Looks for Return to Growth
IT WAS a simple act but, for Asia, an unusual one. But if it catches on, it could mark a new era for how economic policy is executed in coup-plagued Thailand
CHATTING with Ajith Cabraal, the amiable governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, in his lofty eyrie above Colombo, one could be forgiven that he’s presiding over some approximation of a Switzerland-sur-tropique
Whatever happened to Sir Richard Evans?
Eric Ellis tracks down the former chairman of BAE Systems amid the wintry steppes of Kazakhstan, where he is trying to introduce Western notions of corporate governance
A Tell-All Book
About Rupert Murdoch
Few of Rupert Murdoch’s former employees are eager to write about him. Likewise, few of his publications are eager to review a book about him. This review was turned down by the Far Eastern Economic Review, which is part of Murdoch-owned Dow Jones, after it was initially accepted. Nor was it reviewed by the Murdoch-owned Australian or the Australian Literary Review
The old is new again (minus ideas) in the murky world of Pakistani politics
AUSTRALIANS know how it feels. They felt it last November. A nation rises the day after an election with the warm inner glow of having voted for change, a fresh start. Everything seems new again. That's a bit how Pakistanis feel after last week's election. Civilian rule is to be restored after nine years of dictatorship. They voted out the pro-Taliban Islamists as well, so the terror-panicked West gets to feels the love too. Except that in Pakistan, it's always complicated.
Pakistani elections encourage investors
Pakistanis spurn a dictator and religious extremists in a long-awaited vote
Eric Ellis
A look at polls in Peshawar through the eyes of an election observer
Dubai's rags-to-riches miracle built on the toil of exploited foreign workers
Today, in the Arabian emirate of Dubai, the great and good of the Australian Football League will slap the backs of local expatriates and home-grown potentates in a dollar-drenched celebration of all things Australian, Dubaian and corporate
Afghanistan's Central Bank numbers crunched by Indian accountant
WE ALL know Iraq’s bad but to hear many experts tell it, Afghanistan is the genuine headache of the age, military and economic
Farewell to Asia’s greatest kleptocrat
The death of Indonesia’s former dictator may spur attempts to recover the loot accumulated by his family
Keeping it in the family
After a decade of concealing their enormous wealth, the Soeharto offspring
suddenly have found themselves back in the limelight
The curtain finally falls on Suharto, with the actors still performing their roles
Singapore: Libel case a test for Murdoch
Dow Jones brought some unwanted baggage with it
The most pressing priority for Pakistan after today's brutal termination of the Bhutto dynasty is to stop this difficult nation plunging into civil war
Inside Samruk, Kazakhstan's new state holding company
Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev,
has decreed the creation of a state holding company, roughly on
Singaporean/Malaysian lines, to oversee
and rationalize the country’s lucrative but inchoate collection of state-owned
companies and foster corporate governance. Eric Ellis reports on a confrontation
of cultures
Interview with Sir Richard Evans, Samruk chairman
A British corporate warhorse, Sir Richard Evans, has been hired to pull the Samruk operation together
Unease grows between Jakarta and Singapore
Resentment and envy still appear to underpin a testy relationship, writes Eric Ellis
How business thrives in Pakistan's Epaulette Empire - Why Bhutto would be bad for business
PAKISTAN'S military dictator Pervez Musharraf has declared martial law, effectively mounting a coup on himself
"We have your pictures, and we are going to come and get you”
Web of cash, power and cronies
Singapore isn't just skilled at mandatory executions of drug traffickers, running an excellent airport and selling cameras on Orchard Road.
It also does a useful trade keeping Burma's military rulers and their cronies afloat
More chaos than calm in eye of the Tigers
City Life - Colombo
Peace would be a better business plan for the island of a hundred ministers...
Tea with the Tigers becomes a turbulent brew
Humbled but not off the Flight Path
A failed $9 billion takeover bid in May by a private-equity group for Australian flag carrier Qantas— which would have been the biggest deal in aviation history—seems to have humbled the airline’s pugnacious CEO, Geoff Dixon
Vintage Ceylon
Sri Lankan tea maker Dilmah is taking a leaf from the wine industry to label its beverage as high-end and chic
"Cheers to Wendi! Gan bei! Drink the cup
dry!"
It's 8 pm on a freezing night in Xuzhou, and we're having a jolly time in the
Overflowing Fragrance dining room of the Sea Sky Holiday Hotel, an oddly named
establishment given that this grim industrial city of 10 million people is 500
kilometres west of the Yellow Sea, and no place for a vacation. We're toasting a
thriving Chinese export, a girl born of modest means in nearby Shandong in
December 1968 and given a politically correct name - Wen Ge, shorthand for
‘Cultural Revolution' - as was the imperative for parents in that dark era. And
what a remarkable journey to celebrate: catapulting herself from the anonymity
and austerity of communist China to the family, and the family trust, of one of
the world's most powerful and wealthy men, and all by the age of 30.
Singapore cashes in on a raft of graft
The island state has laid out the welcome mat for Jakarta's dubious tycoons
Eyewitness account of Tamil attack
Sunday's Tamil attack was yet another embarrassment to President Mahinda Rajapakse's dysfunctional government
The Flying Tigers of Tamil Eelam Buzz Sri Lanka
A surreal air raid and gunfire awaken the snoozing guests of the Galle Face, Colombo’s famous old seaside hotel
The island state that wishes it could be towed to less murky waters
City Life - War has already been declared in Iran — between Coca-Cola and the theocrats
The Shah is Dead. Long live the Shah — and I don’t mean Reza Pahlavi, the 45-year-old pretender to his late father’s Peacock Throne, whom many in Washington would like to install atop this most vexatious nation
Squeezed between the mullahs and George W. Bush, and with war and a nuclear future looming, many moderate Iranian families are planning their escape
Sanctions? Coke and Pepsi found a way around them and are battling for market share in Tehran with local Zamzam Cola
India: just as messy as it has always been
Booming, business-mad India is not the full story, as Eric Ellis discovers, to his cost
Ferry expensive journey
Kangaroo Island is in the thrall of an overpriced monopoly ferry service to and
from the South Australian mainland
Hot spots, pot shots and gold pots for the brazen and the bold
Compile a fake CV, head for a war zone, and a fortune in taxpayers' dollars can be yours
A short walk with Eric
Newby
Warriors with scimitars and muskets have given way to warlords with AK-47s and
mobile phones, but there are still hidden valleys of timeless peace and beauty
The Iron Lady at the Heart of Pakistan's New Economy
IT WAS France’s wartime resistance leader and later President Charles de Gaulle who lamented how difficult effective governance was in a nation where there are 246 varieties of cheese. Pakistan’s new central banker Dr Shamshad Akhtar would sympathise
The Pakistan-Afghanistan border is awash with arms and drugs – and traces of Osama bin Laden
It's been three years since the recalcitrant Mohamed Mahatir left office, but he still has strong opinions, on North Korea, Israel, Iraq and, of course, Australia
Five years after the war, Kabul is showing signs of economic life. But making money there is still risky business
With books about George Washington arrayed on a shelf behind him in his office in Kabul, Afghan President Hamid Karzai talked to FORTUNE recently about the nation-building challenges that still confront his country five years after the fall of the Taliban
If there's such a thing as the right way to topple a democratically elected government, then Thailand’s generals might be just the strongmen to teach that lesson
Thai adventure backfires on Singapore Inc
The fallout from the Thai coup is yet to hit Singapore's Madame Ho
A weak president, untouchable warlords and a resurgent Taliban are dooming Afghanistan to an endless cycle of violence and corruption, funded by Australian aid and protected by our troops, as Eric Ellis reports from Kabul
Tehran’s top banker looks to the future
Ebrahim Sheibany is governor of Iran’s central bank, a position he has held for three years. He tells Eric Ellis in Tehran that as far as economic policy is concerned, little has changed, despite the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president
Afghanistan Gets Back To Business
The country’s newly revitalized banking system throws up colourful characters and eccentric approaches to marketing. But overseeing it all is a rigorous central banker with solid US commercial banking experience
Whether or not Iran is building nuclear weapons, its auto industry, the largest in the Middle East, is learning how to cope with privation—and planning for worse.
One man’s extraordinary journey from middle Australia into the heart of Indonesia’s Islamic world. Or was it into the heart of darkness?
The first democratically elected Afghan president suggests he won't run again -- and gives a frank assessment of his first five years on the job
India's bureaucracy is a bummer for the boom
Economic growth is yet to improve the ground-level conditions for business in India
In Kabul, a feature window and a bakery illustrate Afghanistan’s decline
An Iraqi-born, Australian economist’s family may have been shot in revenge for his advisory work
The Proton, Malaysia's national car, is losing market share. Can the company be weaned from its government subsidies?
Biographies of Nelson Mandela, Richard Nixon, and Che Guevara sit alongside tomes from ex-Chrysler boss Lee Iacocca and celebrity chef Nigella Lawson on the bookshelves in Abdullah Badawi’s study in Putrajaya
The royals are ridiculed, Maoists are flexing their muscles and the lucrative climbing industry has had a tough season. Eric Ellis finds all is not well in the troubled Himalayan nation
Nepal is in an unprecedented state of flux. For the first time, Maoists are part of an interim government as the royal family becomes increasingly isolated. Eric Ellis reports
Malaysia's grandiose economic policies of the past have created a headache for Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi
Our Malaysian peacekeeping allies in East Timor are facing their own internal unrest at home, as their former PM weighs in from the sidelines. Eric Ellis reports that three years after handing the leadership to Abdullah Badawi, 'Dr M' is unhappy with his performance
It’s election time in Singapore and the opposition pollies are silent as lawyers wait to pounce. Victory is a formality for the Lee family
Libel action puts a dampener on Singapore's
election
Although opposition politicians have little hope of winning, lawsuits are a risk for those who try
Its a good thing Sol Trujillo secured one of Australia's highest executive pay packages--about $8 million--when he signed on last year as CEO of its biggest company, Telstra. At least he's being handsomely compensated for the personal attacks he has weathered since joining the government-controlled telephone company
The US fears a P&O terror takeover, but Middle East petrodollars are welcome in Australia
Is Ho Ching Losing Her Touch?
Even before the Muslim backlash over those notorious cartoons, liberal Denmark was under siege from some demons closer to home
The Battle of the (Very Hot) City-States
After 15 years on the lam, with $1.5bn missing and facing 18 charges from one of the biggest corporate scandals in Australian history, Abraham Goldberg finally wants to come home
Eric Ellis on the background to the hanging in Singapore last week of an Australian drug-dealer
Cobbling a Media Empire in Kabul
Saad Mohseni works the departure at Dubai’s Terminal 2 like a Davos pro
If nothing else, the hanging of Nguyen Tuong Van has shown up the Singapore government for its hypocrisy and barbarism
Almost a year later, too little has changed along the tsunami-smashed Sri Lankan coast. Aid was sent but the will to recover seems to have been swept away
Hang Democracy, Let's Trade
Singaporeans don't like to be reminded they do business with Burmese narco-traffickers,
and admit they don't mind punishing the innocent to preserve law and order
Singapore seems determined to hang Melbourne man Nguyen Tuong Van as an act of defiance in the face of international criticism
Now that John Howard has a strong rapport with the Indonesian president, it's time he got chummy with SBY's more influential deputy
Islamabad's long-delayed sale of state telecom operator PTCL should be encouragement -- and a warning
Indonesia’s suicide bombers are not fervent assassins but desperate boys from impoverished, communities, preyed on by the real murderers
Reputed to be incubators for terrorists, Islamic schools in Pakistan claim they are innocent – and are still waiting for long-promised Western aid
Finally, Some Good News for Pakistan
Pervez Musharraf is a happy man. The Pakistani President finds himself where no previous leader of his country has been before: running a boom economy. In the past four quarters, according to Pakistan’s Finance Ministry, GDP growth has averaged 8.4%—“the second-biggest economic expansion in Asia after China,” Musharraf crows.
Interview with Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf
Pakistan’s President General Pervez Musharraf defies conventional politics....
Sri Lanka’s efforts to rebuild after the tsunami have been slowed by bureaucracy and renewed ethnic tensions. Can President Kumaratunga use the disaster to transform the island’s political culture?
A reporter’s account of one personal mission
Interview with President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga of Sri Lanka
Face-saving finale to seven years of stagnation
Macau's success sealed chief executive's fate
Red opportunity makes Singapore complacent again
The name Chen Jiulin doesn't roll off the Western tongue in quite the same manner as Nick Leeson but many Singaporeans see awkward parallels
Shock therapy to defeat terrorism
In an interview with The Times, the new President of Indonesia reveals his plans to fight a modern scourge
Islamist threat engulfs
Thailand
THE leader of the Islamic Defenders Front of Indonesia is not a man to trifle
with
There are difficult places to invest in, and then there is Indonesia
In a wide-ranging interview, Indonesia’s president talks of a new era in regional relations, economics, defence and anti-terrorism. Eric Ellis spoke with him at Jakarta's Istana Merdeka
Separatists warn tourists to stay away
TO THE foreign hedonists who patronise the resorts of Phuket, Krabi and Koh Samui in Thailand’s gorgeous south, the term Pulo might conjure images of lavish tropical fruits
How a frozen-food salesman from New Jersey - a former refugee from war-torn Afghanistan - built his country's largest wireless network
It’s election time in Kabul and a motley assortment of carpet-baggers, do-gooders and telephone salesmen are gathering for the big day.
Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani is battling warlords, cabinet colleagues, indifferent global donors and stomach cancer as he struggles to salvage Afghanistan’s ravaged economy. If he fails, the world could pay an enormous price. Eric Ellis reports from Kabul
In the days after the bombing of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, The Bulletin journeys into Indonesia's hardline Islamic world
Anwar Ibrahim's release could herald the rebirth of democracy in Malaysia
Political favourite freed after six years
As the Howard government struggles to mend fences in Asia, a changing of the guard in Singapore could slow some of the recent progress
Singapore waits to see if son leads like father
SINGAPORE'S national flags are out, so it must be nearing National Day, when the four million people of this disinfected city-state publicly wear patriotism on their sleeves -or draped over the balconies of their state assisted apartments, as the case may be
Australia and Malaysia should be good friends. With Dr Mahathir gone, they may well soon be
A vote that could prove dangerous
On the surface, things have changed in Singapore, where even bawdy T-shirts are now openly on sale. Underneath, however, it looks like the same old story
Ban on oral sex may be lifted as nanny State goes soft on sin
SINGAPORE'S ban on oral sex, a statute dating from the island's days as a Victorian British colony, looks set to be repealed in another apparent effort by its notoriously strict Government to shake off its nanny-State image.
The rise of the tribute band has closely followed John Howard's conservative ascent. What price Kissteria's Gene Simmons clone as next PM?
Has Asia, home to the world’s most dynamic economies, a region which provided the world’s first modern female leader, suddenly become enlightened?
It became a byword for World War II atrocities but the killing has never stopped at Singapore’s infamous prison, Changi
Mahathir tirade at 'Jews ruling world'
Malaysians face the almost unpalatable prospect that their beloved Dr Mahathir Mohamed – who even helped design the loos at one of the country’s leading hotels – will soon step down as Asia’s longest-serving elected leader
Bali economy victim of nightclub bombings
Indonesia's famous tropical resort isle still struggles with terrorism's effects
The hopes of a generation of Indonesians were destroyed in the rubble of the Sari Club
This weekend's Bali bombing commemoration has upset the island's Hindu elders, who say the gods will not be pleased
Indonesia holds a world record that Jakarta doesn’t like to make public: the most pirate-infested seas on the planet
Singapore's New Straits: Piracy on the high seas is on the rise in South-East Asia
Power behind the throne: Mahathir Mohamad/Abdullah Badawi
Being declared the official successor to Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia’s prickly prime minister, is like being handed a poisoned chalice
Secret agent plan
Bob Lowry knows his way around Indonesia
Why is the chairman of Singapore's leading telecommunications company buying shares in a rival telco?
Why is Singapore Inc. investing bigtime in its neighbor?
Funding the travels of Jose Ramos-Horta requires some lateral thinking, reports Eric Ellis.
As the do-gooders move on, carpetbaggers and corrupt locals are left to count the loot. Eric Ellis discovers that most East Timorese are wondering what went wrong a year after independence
Washington has delivered to Osama bin Laden one of the suspected terrorist mastermind's key demands
Power Behind the Throne: Taufik Kiemas
In modern politics it is difficult to know what constitutes appropriate behaviour for the husbands of female leaders. In Indonesia, however, Taufik Kiemas, the garrulous spouse of President Megawati Sukarnoputri, is redefining the parameters
Battling the new millennium bug
The alarming SARS epidemic has provoked a crisis in China, and Asia generally, that threatens to derail a decade of unparallelled growth, shaking the very foundations of power
Now that the city-state has been identified as an embarkation point for SARS infection outside Asia, the government is moving toward drastic quarantine measures
Allah's Assassins *nominated for 2003 Walkley Award, Asia-Pacific reporting
The Bali bombers were rootless young men recruited from the dusty poverty of a village in West Java - their overseer a worldly West Javanese, burning with Islamic zeal and with the contacts to organise and bankroll their jihad. Eric Ellis retraces their steps as they moved from village to town meeting the fixers, financiers and bombmakers, and finally assembling and detonating the devices that would kill and maim so many in a Kuta Beach tourist precinct
Indonesian forces have historically sought ties with Islamic groups only to suit their purposes, as Eric Ellis reveals
Singapore offers grim view of future terror
An elaborate purification ritual may have exorcised some of Bali's demons, but the killers still to face justice there are monsters on the loose. In Kuta, ERIC ELLIS talks to the policeman heading the investigation and examines the secretive world of 'Indonesia's Arabs."
Trade Minister Mark Vaile hopes the new free-trade deal with Singapore will spell paydirt for Australia. Eric Ellis reports it may not be such a walk-up start.
Bali prays for delivery from evil
Mayor's blisters bear witness to tourism fall
Indonesian police reveal details of Bali bomb suspects
The black marks of a bomb-maker
Trouble in Paradise - Bali Bomb Blasts Indonesia
'Our defense to convince people that doing business in Indonesia is safe is finished.'
As well as the lives of many, the nightclub bombs destroyed any lingering illusions that Bali was a tranquil haven somehow isolated from Indonesia's current malaise. Eric Ellis reports from Kuta Beach.
As dawn broke on the chaos that was Kuta Beach, Eric Ellis searched for survivors of Australia's worst terrorist outrage
Indonesia detains two over Bali terror attack
Singapore: Dragnet in Disneyland
Singaporeans to ask what they can do for their country ... or else
East Timor tries to reconcile past
Tears and cheers greet dawning of East Timor
Canadian recalls dark moments In his role as UN adviser
Dili faces future, hopeful of oil
It's all in the family as No.1 son ascends
What's Separating SingTel and Optus? Canberra.
Australia's government has to O.K. the $8 billion telecom takeover. Despite many objections, chances are it will get the nod
How Clinton Courts America's Techno Might
California Freeway 101 is not the Washington Beltway, although it might as well be.
Why Clinton Tries To Court The `geek Freaks'
When San Francisco investment banker Sanford Robertson says he had dinner with Bill Clinton, he makes no exaggerated boast about a Democratic rubber chicken fund-raiser in a hotel conference room.
Old Grey Mayors Ain't What They Used To Be
Think "mayor" in the United States and you think unrequited political ambition, if not on the road to the White House then certainly connecting with it at a major intersection.
Big Money Flows In The Contest To Run California
Forget the age-old ideology war between Democrats and Republicans. The most spirited battle in the contest to govern the United States' most important State is being waged over the very Californian issue of herbs, or "erbs" as locals prefer to say.
Primary Colourless As Americans Fail To Vote
The self-styled Land of the Free this week displayed an apathy that would horrify many Indonesians prepared to die for US-style liberties. While Indonesians were throwing off a 32-year-old dictatorship, the country many young Asians claim as a model could not be bothered even showing up for its various local referendums, primaries and gubernatorial polls.
Brown Victory In Black And White
The black disc jockey rapped Get Down for Jerry Brown and the people of Oakland, the festering sore of poverty that separates two of the world's richest regions, did.
Meet Mary . . . Quite Contrary
There are a lot of odd places in the United States, and Palm Springs is one of them. Smug and perfectly manicured, it has this strange other-worldly quality about it, appropriately enough given that it's a "God's Waiting Room" of superannuated entertainers with allergy problems cocooned from real life in palatial residences and over-watered golf clubs, sometimes their own.
Fong Helps Redraw US Ethnic Political Map
As he stands beaming before the gates of Chinatown on Grant Street in the heart of San Francisco, Matt Fong is a man Bill Clinton would be proud of.
Latino Voters Bring A Si! Change To California
John Howard might find some common ground with Californian politician Robert Dornan. Pauline Hanson certainly would. Dornan is your common or garden white-bread, white-skinned conservative Republican redneck.
Clinton's Impeachment Puts The Republican Party On Trial
On Thursday, Washington began the turgid and ultimately pointless process of putting America's most consistently popular president on trial for what amounts to getting fellated in the White House.
Washington And Hollywood Share A Common Enemy
Hollywood and Washington tend to agree on the enemy. And the foe of the moment is China, as Eric Ellis reports from Los Angeles.
Clinton's Mantra Neutered South Of The Border
A health food store cum bookshop and espresso bar - just about every town in Middle America has one.
Democrats Clean Up Despite `peckerdilloes'
The booming States of the US West put performance over peccadilloes in snaring the biggest prize of the night for the triumphant Democrats, California's governorship. The Democrat rout of the Grand Old Party was no better expressed than in California where former State Lieutenant-Governor Gray Davis beat his long-time office colleague, State Attorney-General Dan Lungren.
