ASIA: Dengue fever is raging across Southeast Asia, prompting the World Health Organization to warn that the region could face the worst outbreak of the mosquito-borne virus in nearly a decade.

The disease, sometimes called the “bone breaker” illness because of the excruciating joint pain it causes, has flared across the region from ultramodern Singapore to poor Vietnam. There are four different types of dengue, and none have a cure or vaccine.

Cambodia is currently one of the most worrisome spots, where the disease has attacked about 25,000 people and killed nearly 300 children under age 15 so far this year. That’s about three times more than the number of cases for all of 2005, according to WHO.

Sick children have overwhelmed ill-equipped hospitals there, forcing babies burning up with fever to wait for beds outside with IV drips attached to their arms.

The last major outbreak to hit Southeast Asia was in 1998, when about 350,000 cases were reported region wide, including nearly 1,500 deaths. Indonesia and Thailand were not included in that tally.

John Ehrenberg, WHO’s regional adviser on vector borne diseases, said it could potentially reach that level again this year.

“It looks like it might be a bad year,” he said. “I think we’re in the building-up stage, but it could very well peak by August or September.”

Malaysia has seen a 50 percent jump in cases this year over the same period in 2006, with more than 1,000 patients admitted every week for the past month and 56 deaths recorded through June, according to Health Ministry figures.

In Indonesia, more than 100,000 infections have been reported this year, including 1,100 deaths. That compares to 114,000 cases and the same number of fatalities for all of 2006, said Nyoman Kandun, a senior Health Ministry official who predicted the number will hit 200,000 by year’s end.

More than a dozen children infected with dengue filled beds in Jakarta’s Tarakan Hospital. Some had IV drips in their hands while others had tubes coming from their noses.

Muhammad Wildan, 5, was hospitalized last week and remained in critical condition due to internal bleeding. Doctors said he’s lucky his family did not wait any longer to bring him in.

“It did not come to us that it was dengue,” said Padmi Sari, the boy’s grandmother. “We thought it was just a common fever.”

Singapore, known for its spotless streets and cutting-edge health facilities, has also not escaped dengue this year. The government has reported nearly 5,000 cases and at least three deaths. Early rains also caused a surge in cases in Thailand with more than 20,000 cases reported through June, including 17 deaths, officials said.

In Vietnam, which also typically logs a high number of annual cases, health officials have seen a 40 percent increase over last year reporting more than 33,000 infections this year and 32 deaths.

In addition to joint pain, rashes, nausea, severe headaches and high fever that typically accompany the disease, patients stricken with a more serious form, called dengue hemorrhagic fever, can experience internal bleeding, liver enlargement and circulatory shut down.

“You don’t want to have people staying at home and starting to bleed,” Ehrenberg said. “By the time they go to the hospital they’re in shock and they will die.”

The disease is not nearly as lethal as malaria, which kills more than 1 million people annually. But WHO estimates dengue infects up to 50 million people every year worldwide, mostly in Asia and Latin America. About a half million of those cases are severe, and some 19,000 deaths were recorded in 2002.

“We always think next year it will get better, but we always find next year it gets worse,” said Kroeger Axel, a dengue research coordinator at the WHO in Geneva. “There’s a very clear upward trend.”

He said outbreaks run in cycles, occurring roughly every four years. Mosquitoes breed in stagnant pools of water ranging from flower pots to old tires, and residents across the region are urged to avoid letting water collect near houses.

THAILAND: Internet law experts and webmasters have lashed out at the government’s illegal blocking of websites and the use of threats and intimidation tactics against webmasters. 

Paiboon Amornpinyokiart, an internet and IT law expert, said nowhere in the controversial Cyber Crime Act — which was pushed through by the military-appointed government and took effect on July 19 — does it say the government has the authority to freely block websites. The law says any move to block a website must be backed by a court order.
 
He said the Information and Communications Technology Ministry (ICT) had to first seek court orders if it wanted to block any “undesirable” websites. The Cyber Crime Act was passed through the National Legislative Assembly along with a number of other controversial bills this year, despite grave concerns raised by local and international human and media rights groups.
 
The president of the Thai Webmasters Association, Poramate Minsiri, said most of the content of the new law had been altered during the deliberation in parliament and was acceptable to him.
 
But, he said, the unchecked blocking of websites by the government without court approval was now a major problem.
 
Webmasters have received phone threats and other various forms of intimidation from officials criticising content on their websites and threatening to ban them, he said. Mr Poramate also said the officials intimidating them had refused to reveal their names.
 
He said webmasters had provided software programs such as Ultrasurf to internet users to reverse the blocking but had then been told off by the ICT for distributing the programs.
 
Mr Poramate said ICT officials should carefully study the scope of their authority permitted under the new computer crime law and alter their actions accordingly.
 
Chiranuch Premchaiporn of www.prachathai.com, a website providing information on social and political issues, said the government’s rush to issue media-related laws shortly after the Sept 19 coup was grossly inappropriate.
 
The draft Radio and Television Broadcasting Bill, currently being deliberated, has also drawn widespread criticism for the heavy punishments it will impose on radio and television operators who operate without state permission.
 
She said community radio operators would be badly affected by the draft bill as most operate without licenses.

INDIA: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s independence-day speech yesterday should come as a huge disappointment to investors. 

The country’s 60th anniversary of independence from Britain was a perfect opportunity for Singh to make up for lost time and announce bold, new economic freedoms, something that his government has shied away from granting the people in the three years that it has been in power.

He missed the chance.

Singh uttered the word “reform” — India’s official shorthand for all plans that seek to modernize the economy and loosen state controls — just once in his speech, and that too in the context of fixing university education.

By contrast, Singh’s predecessor, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had used the word 13 times in 2000.

The only tangible takeaway for investors from Singh’s uninspiring address is that his government already has the 2009 polls on its mind.

Why else would the prime minister of the world’s second- fastest-growing major economy celebrate a proud and unique moment in the nation’s history with a lament that included as many as 15 references to poverty?

One hates to be a cynic, but a simple analysis of independence-day speeches seems to suggest that concern for the plight of the downtrodden follows a cyclical pattern in India.

It rises when general elections are near and ebbs once they are out of the way.

Gloomy Speech

On the six occasions Vajpayee had addressed the nation from the historic Red Fort in Delhi, he used the words “poverty” and “poor” a combined 27 times. Out of these, as many as 24 mentions occurred in the three independence-day speeches immediately preceding the May 2004 election, which he lost.

Singh isn’t taking any chances.

“Even after years of development and rising growth rates, why have we not been able to banish mass poverty and provide employment to all?” Singh asked his countrymen yesterday, adding that the purpose of his rhetorical question was “not to make you feel dispirited, but to enthuse you to march forward.”

It isn’t the people of India who need to be prodded into action; it’s the politicians that need to wake up. Almost everyone outside of the political and administrative establishment is already marching forward as best they can.

The creative solutions invented by people to make a living are visible on every street corner, though they may not always make for a pretty picture.

State-Sponsored Penury

In smaller towns of the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, it’s common to find pushcart vendors who will replace — even repair — your soiled, torn currency note for a fee. They call themselves “money exchangers.”

Why do the people of India have to be engaged in such desperate, hopeless businesses 60 years after the end of colonial exploitation? Why can’t the world’s biggest democracy, which has done an incredible job of nation-building, find better uses for its people’s enterprise?

Official estimates suggest that between 22 percent and 28 percent of Indians live below the poverty line, which is defined as per-capita consumption expenditure of about 40 U.S. cents a day in urban areas.

While the ratio of poor people in the population has steadily declined for three decades, there’s no denying that 28 percent of 1 billion people translates into a huge challenge.

It’s not that Indians have chosen to live a life of penury; impecuniousness has been thrust on them by an uncaring state that isn’t even now willing to give them the freedoms they need to find a job or run a business.

Endless Wait

Take the country’s overly restrictive labor laws, which discourage hiring by making it extremely difficult and expensive to fire workers. As a result, a majority of workers have to toil in informal, extralegal businesses where they have no rights.

Based on a survey of about 2,000 retail stores across India, World Bank economist Mohammad Amin recently concluded that scrapping the country’s rigid labor laws would boost employment by 22 percent for an average store.

With retailers employing 9 percent of the workforce, the gains in employment would surely be significant for the economy as a whole. Yet, a plan to amend the labor laws has awaited political consensus since 2001.

Similarly, large-format global retailers are being prevented from investing directly in Indian stores, out of a misplaced concern for the small local shopkeeper, curtailing yet another opportunity for employment creation and economic growth.

Finance Suffers

Change is perhaps the slowest in the financial sector, where the opportunity for India is probably the largest.

Insurance, pensions and banking remain heavily state-owned, state-controlled and, therefore, tiny compared with what an economy the size of India’s really needs.

A committee established by the government has come up with a bold road map for turning Mumbai into an international financial center. The least Singh could do was to endorse the strategy in his speech so that it would be taken seriously as part of the executive’s political agenda.

But then, in his speech, Singh even forgot to claim credit for what may well become the single-biggest victory of his political career: the recently concluded civilian nuclear agreement with the U.S. That deal may be getting the Indian prime minister brickbats from politicians of all hues, but it’s also winning him praise from businessmen who are impatient for an end to the country’s acute shortage of electric power.

If only Singh had strived for a great speech, instead of a safe one.

Commentary by Andy Mukherjee in Singapore

THAILAND: With martial law still in effect across half the country outside of the capital, Bangkok, people appear resigned to yet another constitution in Thailand’s first ever referendum on August 19.

In Bangkok’s downtown night market, Ratporn Supsong sells wooden statues of Buddha that the faithful believe will bring them good fortune and protect them from harm.

But the 44-year-old says she is pinning her hopes for a peaceful future on Thailand’s first-ever referendum next weekend, when the military-backed government will ask voters to approve a new constitution.

“I will go to vote and I will vote yes, because I don’t want the political situation to get worse,” she says.

The August 19 referendum only asks voters to approve or reject the charter, but the military sees it as much more — a vote on the legitimacy of the coup that ousted elected premier Thaksin Shinawatra last September.

Generals have tried to play up the idea that they staged a popular coup, because of the warm welcome that many in Bangkok gave soldiers when they seized power, ending months of anti-Thaksin protests and political turmoil.

But for people outside Bangkok, especially in rural areas where Thaksin enjoyed immense popularity, the referendum will be their first chance to deliver a verdict on the coup.

The junta isn’t risking much with the balloting — the generals have vowed to impose a new charter even if voters reject the proposed draft.

They want to win a strong majority, as the vote would be seen as a stamp of approval for their takeover, reducing the risk of further turmoil, says political analyst Thitinan Pongsuhirak.

“If there is a low turnout, less than 50 percent, it doesn’t give them very much legitimacy,” he said.

“A no vote is not good for the people in power. They want to see a high turnout for a yes.”

To do that, the army-installed government is doing everything it can.

A three-day weekend has been declared and the junta has convinced bus and train operators to halve their fares so that millions of migrant workers, who have to leave jobs in the city and return to their hometowns to cast ballots, can do so.

All of Thailand’s 700,000 security officers have been ordered to join a get-out-the-vote campaign, which has included men in green Martian-looking masks passing out flyers on the streets of Bangkok to startled passersby.

Polls seem to indicate that voters are resigned to the constitution.

A national survey released last week by Chulalongkorn University found that 78 percent of respondents said they would vote to approve the charter, even though only 47 percent are satisfied with it.

Opponents say the proposals will grant the military continued political influence by taking power away from elected officials and giving it to bureaucrats.

But they have had a tough time getting their message heard, stifled in part by a law that threatens 10 years in prison to anyone who “misrepresents” the charter.

Thaksin’s allies have led protests in Bangkok against the charter, but they have failed to gain any momentum, rarely attracting more than a few thousand people. The protests have taken an even lower profile since one rally in late July turned violent, with 100 people injured in clashes with police.

Hardly any advertisements are up either for or against the charter. Only a few taxi drivers have stuck “vote no” stickers in their windows.

Martial law imposed after the coup remains in effect across half of Thailand, making campaigning difficult outside the capital.

Many Thais like Ratporn and all the main political parties seem less focused on the charter, with their sights set on general elections, which the military has promised to hold by year’s end.

“More people are willing to just move on, especially in the urban centres,” said Thitinan.

The lack of enthusiasm could also be because Thais have learned not to rely on the permanence of their constitutions. The new one would be the 18th seen in the country over the last 75 years.

“We’ve had a lot of constitutions. It’s possible we could just get a new one in five years,” said a 35-year-old man selling Thai kickboxing gear at the market.

THAILAND: In football crazy Thailand, Dr. Thaksin Shinawatra’s purchase of Manchester City Football Club is nothing short of political genius.

Whilst Thailand’s Military Junta ponder what to do next as the country rapidly falls into economic and political chaos, the famed exiled leader Thaksin Shinawatra is having a ball – literally. Thaksin is pouring on the charm in his adopted country England and known affectionately by Manchester City fans as “Frank Sinatra”.

To add to his growing popularity, the former Thai Prime Minister hosted a concert attended by more than 8,000 people in Manchester’s main square on Saturday – his first major public appearance since he was ousted in a military coup last year.
Surrounded by players from the soccer team he recently bought, Manchester City, Thaksin addressed the cheering crowd outside Manchester Town Hall.

Before the event, Thaksin said he had no plans to attempt a political comeback in Thailand. However, he said the event would demonstrate the strong levels of support he has back home and in England, where he lives in self-imposed exile.

‘The people in Thailand, the majority of them, are still supporting me,’ Thaksin said after watching his first Manchester City game – a 1-0 defeat of Spanish team Valencia in a preseason friendly.

‘If there were to be free and fair elections, my party would win again because this is the first time in Thai history that they have overthrown a very popular government,’ he said.

Thaksin thanked the club and Manchester for accepting him.

‘I feel very honoured and touched by the type of reception I have received from you all today,’ he said.
Thaksin endeared himself further to the crowd by closing the concert – which featured popular Thai singer Mai Charoenpura – singing the club’s anthem Blue Moon.

Mr Noi Ramasut, a friend of Thaksin’s for 40 years, predicted the images of the event broadcast in Thailand would reinvigorate supporters of his Thai Rak Thai Party, which was disbanded by a court ruling in May in a bid to eradicate the former premier’s political influence.

‘He doesn’t want to create conflict now. He will wait for it all to calm down,’ said Mr Ramasut, who moved to Britain in 1973 from Bangkok. ‘This event will make a lot of people feel alive and feel he is present and his future in Thai politics is alive and well.’