Southeast Asia

Mark Mobius radiates enthusiasm as he discusses investments in emerging markets, the year-long tumble in those markets notwithstanding.Mobius, 62, manages the Franklin Templeton emerging-market funds, which have $12 billion in assets, and the slide in Southeast Asian economies has hurt the funds' cash flow. Recently he appeared before a crowd of brokers in a Chicago hotel to display slides and exude confidence.Will there be a sustained collapse in emerging markets? No, it's a buying opportunity.

CANDABA, Philippines -- This is the year the rains didn't come to Southeast Asia. Sun and heat conquered the land, and the paddies dried up, turned into a great expanse of cracked rust-red earth that yielded little but brown tufts of dying rice."

BALI, Indonesia -- Sitting beneath a ceiling fan in an open-air restaurant at the Four Seasons resort, you might never know you're in the world's fourth most populated country and that it's in the middle of its worst economic crisis in decades.Water quietly gurgles from a stone fountainhead as waves lap rhythmically along an empty beach below. Actress Jennifer Tilly, here on a photo shoot, is eating eggs Benedict and French toast at the next table.Not that Indonesia's problems haven't had an impact on Bali.

In the hot, humid afternoon, Pete Stanley and John Pinkham, two veteran Army Green Beret sergeants, lugged a cumbersome 25-pound pack and a rifle as they negotiated a series of rope climbs, scaled walls and crawled through tunnels."

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- In Indonesia, the sequel to a year of living dangerously is "Another Year of Living Dangerously."Battered and bloodied by economic collapse, political upheaval, social mayhem and waves of savage killings, the world's fourth-most-populous nation will stagger into 1999 certain of only one thing: Even more trouble lies ahead.The fall of President Suharto in May after three decades of authoritarian rule has opened the door to reform and democracy for this sprawling archipelago of more than 200 million people.

SAMARINDA, Indonesia -- Borneo is burning again.Just months after blazes in Indonesia sent a devastating cloud of smoke across much of Southeast Asia, flames have blanketed )) much of the island's drought-stricken east coast with a haze so thick that planes can land only a few hours a day and visibility so poor that boat captains cannot navigate the rivers.The effect is surreal here along the equator. Children kick soccer balls through piles of fallen leaves as though it were autumn -- a season that doesn't exist on Borneo.

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- As Indonesia's President Suharto prepares for his reanointment this week at age 76, the question is whether he can stop the country from unraveling and keep his job.The fourth most populous nation in the world and potentially the greatest casualty in Asia's financial meltdown, Indonesia faces its worst economic crisis in three decades -- one that could end Suharto's rule after 32 years and rattle financial markets from Tokyo to New...

The Special Operations group at Kham Duc did not officially exist.Hidden within a legitimate Army camp in the remote Vietnamese jungle, the little corps of secret soldiers spent part of 1968 making raids into Laos.The American government denied at the time that it was undertaking such raids to carry the war outside Vietnam.But James D. McLeroy knew, because he was sent to take charge of Special Operations at Kham Duc only weeks before his tour of duty in Vietnam was to end. And the North Vietnamese knew about the missions because they were already in position to overrun the camp when McLeroy was flown in.A bloody three-day siege ended on Mother's Day 1968, when a lucky break in the weather allowed McLeroy and most of the other troops to escape.

AMERICAN MILITARY power in the southwest Pacific and Southeast Asia is rapidly descending to the level of farce. Nothing illustrates U.S. weakness in the region more than an unseemly dispute in the Philippines on an old theme -- U.S. intrusion on Philippine soil.Having refused to extend the leases on the American bases in the Philippines six years ago, Philippine politicians now are balking at diplomatic immunity for American military people during port visits and war games.The result: The Pentagon has canceled this year's joint exercises and won't let U.S. Navy ships call at Philippine ports.

WHEN THE PEOPLE of Indonesia go to their polls in June, they will have no doubt which political party will win. Like the other "guided" democracies of Southeast Asia, Indonesia has made sure that its ruling party cannot be seriously challenged.Still, there is political ferment across this giant land of 200 million people spread over 17,000 islands, 3,200 miles east to west - roughly Baltimore to San Francisco. The issue of presidential succession has taken first place in the fourth largest country in the world and one of its most successful economies.

STUART I. ROCHESTER, 63 Co-author of book on POWs Stuart I. Rochester, chief historian of the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the co-author of a book many consider the definitive account of American prisoners of war in Southeast Asia, died of melanoma Wednesday at his home in Burtonsville. Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973 (1998) was written with Frederick T. Kiley, a retired Air Force colonel and teacher at the U.S. Air Force Academy. In harrowing detail, the 720-page volume tells the story of hundreds of American captives, among them future Sen. John McCain, former Alabama Republican Sen. Jeremiah Denton and Medal of Honor recipients George "Bud" Day and Humbert "Rocky" Versace.

Question: : What destinations are you seeing as the emerging "new Prague" as we come into a new economic climate for travel? Any new cities in Eastern Europe, or perhaps Southeast Asia that are on your radar as the "next place to be"? Answer: : Prague, as beautiful and interesting a city as it is, has become crowded and expensive compared to other Central and Eastern European cities. I wouldn't skip it, but I'd also spend time visiting some other cities in the Czech Republic, such as Cesky Krumlov and Budejovice.

Robinson Kendall Nottingham, the former executive vice president of global insurance giant American International Group Inc. and a trustee of the Johns Hopkins University, died May 20 at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, several days after suffering a stroke. He was 70. Mr. Nottingham's 38-year career at AIG was hardly the stuff of gray-suited stereotype, offering him adventures in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War era and close calls in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. He climbed the corporate ladder in New York but remained faithful to the Baltimore institutions that nurtured his intellectual development and became was a major donor to Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies.

New flu strains originate in East and Southeast Asia, then make their way around the world before they go extinct in South America, according to two studies released yesterday. This conclusion will enable public health agencies to focus their surveillance on Asia and will increase researchers' ability to quickly develop effective influenza vaccines. "Asia is the place we should be watching. We didn't know that," said Edward Holmes, a biologist at Penn State University and the author of one of the studies.

We're flying to Miami, then taking a cruise on Celebrity out of Fort Lauderdale. Will the cruise line transfer our luggage from the airport to the ship while we sightsee? Cruise lines don't offer a luggage-only service, primarily because of security-clearance issues. However, Celebrity offers a transfer service that will transport you with your luggage from Miami International Airport to the ship. If you purchased your airline ticket through the cruise line, it's already included. If not, you can purchase a round-trip transfer between the airport and cruise port from Celebrity for $56. At the end of your cruise, you can take advantage of Celebrity's "Luggage Valet" program, which allows guests to check their luggage and receive airline boarding passes and baggage claim checks while still on board.

The world's largest flower, a voluptuous beauty as red as lipstick and as big as a child, makes its physical home in the steamy jungle floors of southeast Asia. Now, analysis of the flower's DNA has placed it in a strange taxonomical home - in a family of plants with tiny flowers. Rafflesia, as it's called, is a freak of nature. But it seems the flower is also a freak of evolution. How did such big flowers, some a yard wide, evolve from flowers less than an inch across? "It's a mind blower," said Daniel Nickrent, a Southern Illinois University at Carbondale plant biologist and one of the authors of the study, which was published in the journal Science.

David K. Wyatt, 69, Southeast Asia expert David K. Wyatt, a leading authority on Southeast Asia and widely recognized as the foremost historian of Thailand, died of multiple sclerosis Tuesday at a retirement facility near the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, N.Y., where he worked for 36 years. At Cornell, he served as director of the Southeast Asia Program, chairman of the history department and was the John Stambaugh Professor of History and Asian Studies before retiring in 2002.

SINGAPORE -- Wary Asian leaders will be parsing President Bush's words and body language for his administration's post-election intentions this week as he begins a seven-day regional tour to court the business of booming Asian economies and confront security challenges from Southeast Asia to North Korea. As part of a trip centered around an economic summit of Pacific Rim nations in Vietnam this weekend, the president's address today at the National University of Singapore will mark Bush's first appearance on a world stage since elections denied his party control of Congress for the remaining two years of his presidency, with his own popularity near an all-time low. World leaders will be watching for any shift in the president's approach to foreign affairs in the wake of the election defeat, analysts say. While Bush has promoted the spread of democracy, with a goal of eliminating tyranny worldwide that he voiced in his re-election inaugural ceremony nearly three years ago, critics of American policy in Iraq and the Middle East have interpreted U.S. motives as a policy of unrestrained intervention in other nations' affairs.

Walking early this morning, I make my usual loop through the Baltimore County Courthouse grounds. I pass the fountain with its wrought-iron fence, and arrive at the old green cannon with its perfect pyramid of cannonballs. I know that old cannon well. Once, when I was a child, my father surprised me by hoisting me up onto the barrel. Over the years, I have brought my children to the courthouse to watch the parades on the Fourth. They, too, have clambered around the cannon and smacked their hands against the cool surface of those 14 cannonballs.

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Abu Bakar Bashir, the militant cleric alleged to be one of Southeast Asia's top terrorist leaders, was freed from prison yesterday after serving 25 months for his role in the bombings of two Bali nightclubs in 2002. Bashir, 67, smiled and waved to more than 100 supporters who had gathered outside Jakarta's Cipinang Prison to witness his release. "God is great," the crowd shouted as he stepped out of the prison gates. Bashir, who has denied any role in terrorist activities, signaled that he would use his freedom to promote the adoption of strict Islamic law in Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population but is among the most moderate Muslim nations.