Fadzil Mohammad Noor, president of the Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS) and parliamentary opposition leader, died on June 23, two weeks after undergoing heart-bypass surgery.
There are no permanent enemies or allies in politics. Malaysia’s opposition front, dominated by the Islamic Party (PAS), which has joined hands with former UMNO members disenchanted with prime minister Mahathir Mohamad over his injustices to Anwar Ibrahim, are already feeling the winds of betrayal blowing.
Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of Burma’s National League for Democracy, which won the elections annulled by the military junta in 1990, was released unconditionally after years of periods of shortlived and uncertain freedom...
The Malaysian regime has engaged in a fresh round of arrests: another 14 people were abducted on April 18 under the Internal Security Act, accusing them of links with ‘Islamic militants’...
South East Asia has enjoyed relative peace since the end of US involvement in Vietnam two decades ago. Border disputes have been largely controlled, with governments maintaining a neutral zone through the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), which has been hailed as a model regional pact.
This is an abridged version of a paper presented by Abhoud Syed M. Lingga, Chairman of the Bangsamoro People's Consultative Assembly, at a Peace Forum organized by the University of the Philippines in Davao City, Mindanao, on February 28, 2002.
The suspension of two Muslim schoolgirls from their schools earlier this month in Singapore has brought into the limelight the republic’s little-known Muslim community.
Senator Sam Brownback, a member of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was more honest than Filipino officials when he said that the Philippines is to be the “next Afghanistan.”
US allies in South-East Asia have been quick to seize the opportunity offered by the West’s anti-terrorism campaign to act against Islamic activism among the region’s ocean of Muslims. Few now bother to deny that the US is working towards a direct military role in the region.
Nur Misuari, chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), was arrested by Malaysian authorities on November 24 on Jampiras island, Sabah, North Borneo...
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), long regarded as a powerful regional pact that served as an independent voice for the region, ceased to be so on November 5 when its leaders caved in to western pressure.
George W. Bush insists that nations who do not support the “war against terrorism” are themselves terrorists: Muslim leaders in Southeast Asia have their own reasons to take the ‘ultimatum’ seriously.
‘President’ Yasser Arafat found his host cooler towards him when he flew to Kuala Lumpur late in August. In a change from the past, he was given a less-than-friendly welcome by the Malaysian regime, which was caught in the middle of a virtual war against Islamic militants, and had to downplay its reception to the Palestinian delegation.
As Indonesians celebrated their independence from Holland in 1945 on August 17, western governments congratulated president Megawati Sukarnoputri.
The beleaguered Mahathir regime in Malaysia appears to have a knack for finding strategies that have unintended effects. In its latest campaign to silence the opposition, ten more people, including Nik Adli Nik Abdul Aziz, the son of PAS chief Nik Abdul Aziz, were abducted in the first week of August under the notorious Internal Security Act (ISA)...
Abdurrahman Wahid finally lost his tenuous grip on Indonesia’s presidency on July 23, when he was dismissed from office by a unanimous vote in Indonesia’s parliament, shown live on national television.
After rounding up scores of people last April under the notorious Internal Security Act (ISA), the Mahathir regime in Malaysia is now targeting the country’s campuses in its attempts to halt the escalating opposition of young people to his government.
At a time when the Indonesian government is dragging its feet over its promise to make ‘peace’ in Aceh, without even punishing the perpetrators of decades-long violence against civilians, an international labour-group has taken the unprecedented step of further exposing a less-known incident involving an American multinational corporation
Carrying out his promise earlier last month that he would “defy international norms” to ensure the nation’s “security”, Malaysia’s besieged prime minister Mahathir Mohamed continued his crackdown on political dissent with the arrest of individuals under the feared Internal Security Act (ISA).
In what is seen as a sign of desperation by the Mahathir regime, Ezam Nor, a leading Malaysian political activist, was arrested on March 5 for his role in a series of well-attended street demonstrations in Kuala Lumpur over the last few months.
