Sep
2
2012
If nothing else, the torrent of revelations released on the WikiLeaks whistle-blower website has changed our understanding of how the world works. It has also landed key WikiLeaks figures in an ocean of trouble.
In a stormy global outlook, Malaysia’s muscular economy offers a glimpse of sunshine
Aug
27
2012
Condoms, like food and medicine, are largely impervious to the deflation of economic bubbles. So Malaysia’s largest condom manufacturer, Karex, will blithely ignore depressing global financial trends and launch an initial public offering sometime in the near future. Beyond confirming the impending float, Karex this week shyly declined to reveal any further details, but chief …read more
Architects eye Hong Kong’s blank canvas
Aug
24
2012
SITTING smack on the shores of a bustling harbour, in the heart of an international city, looking across the water to skyscrapers, and flanked by trees and lawns: the parallels with the Sydney Opera House are manifest. Or at least they will be. Hong Kong’s M+ museum of visual culture hasn’t actually been built yet, …read more
Hopes soar for an end to life in exile
Aug
17
2012
Musaab Naji Al-Wakil is an ordinary, middle-class Iraqi who has been stuck in Malaysia with his wife and four children for five years, and he too has felt the pull of the boats.
Racial slights fly in Malaysian political scene
Jul
28
2012
Hemmed in by the towering piles of books dominating his Kuala Lumpur living room, Malaysia’s eminent poet-activist snorts with derision. “This government isn’t fair, it isn’t just,” said 77-year-old A. Samad Said. “They use racial tension.”
Too poor for a boat, family stuck in asylum void
Jul
21
2012
One small family of Burmese refugees living in a dingy tenement on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur has slipped right through the cracks of asylum officialdom, it seems mostly because they wouldn’t abandon their adopted sons in Burma.
Welcome to the people-smuggler frontline: two runabouts, two hours of fuel and 117km to patrol
Jul
6
2012
On the beautiful, scalloped coast of southern Java, a battle is raging between determined people-smugglers and a poorly-resourced local police force. It seems the people-smugglers are mostly winning and the police are frustrated.
Afghan’s arrest could break syndicate of people-smugglers
Jul
4
2012
A massive people-smuggling syndicate in Indonesia could soon be cracked wide open, after police seized two satellite phones, a laptop and financial records belonging to a teenage people-smuggler arrested in Jakarta.
All At Sea
Jul
1
2012
A semi-literate Indonesian hired hand started thumbing the tears from his cheeks in the dock of courtroom LG2 in Sydney’s Downing Centre last April. He faced a roomful of imposing figures: two defence barristers and a crown prosecutor in black gowns, a judge resplendent in black, scarlet and lilac, an Australian Federal Police officer, two …read more
“We’ll risk death at sea – but not if the door is closed”
Jun
30
2012
Asylum-seekers will continue to flood across the sea on rickety boats unless the Australian government slams the door on them. Afghan asylum-seeker Mohammad Ali told The Australian yesterday that he would happily buy clandestine passages to Australia for himself, his wife and his two young children if he had the money. He said the growing …read more