Southeast Asia

ANTI-SEMITISM is nothing new for Malaysia's prime minister, Mahathir Mohamed, Asia's longest serving leader. So his ridiculous remarks last week -- Jews "rule the world by proxy" and Muslims must fight them with brains and brawn -- were shocking but hardly surprising. This sort of nonsense would not be worthy of a response were it not for Mr. Mahathir's venue (the Organization of the Islamic Conference, 57 heads of state meeting for the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks on America)

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.

"Mini-Dragons" is big-league, national programming from Maryland Public Television.The four-part series about four economic powers in Southeast Asia premieres at 9 tonight on MPT (Channels 22 and 67) with a smart and sensitive look at South Korea. Photographed with eloquence and edited with intelligence, tonight's show is a sleek and shiny locomotive of cultural insights, history and sociology that streaks along a smooth track of people stories.The stories about people are key to the success of what could easily have been very dry television.

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.

WASHINGTON -- King Abdullah of Jordan, a professional soldier by trade, made his first official visit to the capital this month and was, of course, asked his thoughts on NATO's involvement in Kosovo. The former general in the kingdom's army got right to the point, talking about the United States rather than the North Atlantic Treaty Organization: "An air campaign is not going to do it; sooner or later you are going to have to get into a ground campaign," he said. "The United States' integrity and moral fortitude internationally is at stake.

For the past 34 years, Erminia Locatelli Rogers has lived quietly on her farm near New Windsor, painting in her studio and teaching art for several years at St. John's Catholic School in Westminster.In her book, "Romualdo Locatelli: Memoirs 1938 to 1946," Mrs. Rogers, 86, recounts a life that has been anything but quiet. The 157-page volume, recently published by an Indonesian publisher, details the author's years living in Southeast Asia with her husband, artist Romualdo Locatelli.When they left Italy in 1938 for Bali and Jakarta, the young couple had no idea that they would end their life together in war-torn Manila, caught in the Philippine city during the Japanese occupation of World War II.In the preface to her book, Mrs. Rogers writes: "My story resembles a kind of scriptwriter's invention, however, we lived it. I survived, my husband did not."

WILMINGTON, N.C. - They come to coastal North Carolina from far-away warmer climates, and despite their beauty, they can be a real pain. They are venomous tropical fish known as lionfish. Local sightings are rare, but scientists say that's good - these fish should not be in North Carolina in the first place. After two confirmed sightings in 2000, divers spotted lionfish 17 times last year in sites up to 60 miles apart. That has led officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to believe that the species has established itself off the state's coast.

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."

An almost unnoticed battle against piracy in the South China Sea has become more intense, with the pirates winning and governments in Southeast Asia fearing the pirates will be joined by terrorists in an attempt to disrupt trade throughout Asia. "The essential nature of the threat has changed. Risk and potential targets used to be assessed on the basis of the intrinsic value of cargoes and the ships carrying them. That no longer applies," said Capt. Pottengal Mukudan of the International Maritime Bureau in a statement this week.

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.

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.

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.

Contrary to popular beliefs about the lasting trauma of the Vietnam War, most veterans ultimately made a successful transition into the civilian economy, a new government study of Vietnam veterans and their work record shows."

George McTurnan Kahin, 82, a Cornell University professor and author who was one of the nation's leading scholars of Southeast Asia, died Saturday in Ithaca, N.Y. David Levy, 87, the former network executive who created "The Addams Family" television comedy, died Jan. 25 in Los Angeles. Rudolph W. Patzert, 88, a sea captain who broke through the British blockade of Palestine to move Holocaust survivors to their historic homeland after World War II, died Jan. 21 in Encinitas, Calif. He had battled melanoma.

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.