While the govt is making progress in talks with the MILF, extremists seem determined to stay on the offensive. The ongoing peace negotiations between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) face serious obstacles.

STOPPAGE TIME: Wild ride of 2005 reflects the state of our values

Like a good school semester, 2005 seems to have been so short. We haven’t been bored for even one minute, have we? The tsunami aftershock was followed by that amazing Thai Rak Thai election landslide, then by the equally mind-boggling plunge in Thaksin Shinawatra’s popularity and the stunning U-turn of his number one cheerleader. In between, an entertainment tycoon with a dubious scheme to take over a respectable newspaper was shooed away by society, tail between his legs. Our deep South continues to weep and burn. And who could have forgotten about you, Kataleeya McIntosh?

In Bhutan, happiness you can feel

All of Bhutan was in shock when the 50-year-old HM King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, or Druk Gyalpo, told his subjects on the county’s national day, last Saturday, that he would step down within two years and that his eldest 25-year-old son, Crown Prince Dasho Jigmey Ghesher Namgyel Wangchuck, would take the throne. It was not a major headline around the world the next morning as it should have been – it took wire services two days to realise the significance of this development and get out the story. But to the Bhutanese, the news came down at once like an avalanche.