Commentary on Asian news relevant to international and Asian based business managers. Strategic market and business intelligence, international business research information, surveys, and reviews. Editorial reflects the mission of the Asian Business Strategy & Street Intelligence Ezine.

This page makes no attempt to comprehensively cover current news events, and that material is better achieved by the regional sources available from our News Page, country specific news links from Asia Market Research dot Com, or news streams at the Asian Business Portal and Asian business strategy news feeds. We also have a new page indexing all our streaming news headlines. These items are more editorial in nature, and are also designed to engendar discussion at the discussion board.

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Far Eastern Economic Review
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Where not attributed, editorial is authored by co-editor of the APMF, Rod Davies.

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Malaysian Political Fairy Tales Just after Halloween and on Deepavali eve Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohomad called on opposition political parties to join his government coalition, emboldened by the recent defection of many already back to the mother coalition. A fundamentally one-party state however, may not be in Malaysia's long term interests or strategic business competitiveness. ...5th November 2002

Asian Internet Access Trends 2002 Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand have the highest proporyion of their respective populations online in Asia, while China and Japan can boast the highest number of users overall. Factors effecting online uptake include urban/rural concentration, wealth and affordability, telecom infrastructure, IT sophistication and language encoding. ...30th September 2002

The message the world forgot: Reflections on 9/11 The cruel and dramatic nature of the events of 9/11 attacks on the US covered up the fact that they constituted a symptom rather than the cause of an increasingly unstable world. The official US line has failed in it's focus on attacking the symptom rather than treating the real cause - that the gap between global rich and poor is now clearly unsustainable. ...11th September 2002

Mahathir, Fear and Tears at the UMNO Annual Shindig Stage managed or not, Malaysian PM Mahathir's short-lived tear-filled resignation at Saturday's UMNO Annual Assembly must indicate that Malaysia's political leadership is in deep trouble. An apolitical electorate and a nation of followers must realise that a team needs more than one star ...23rd June 2002

Hong Kong and Australia most secure for business in Asia The latest Political and Economic Risk survey by Hong Kong based PERC has just been released, ranking Australia and Hong Kong the most secure, and India the least secure in Asia from the 10 countries polled. There are some surprises too. ...25th April 2002

Singapore pricing itself out of business while Malaysia resurgent? Singapore has always been the high cost/high quality centre for South East Asia. Yet the first few months of 2002 have seen companies opting for Malaysian and other alternatives. The reason? - after all the rationalizations - costs... Its not the stuff of headlines, but the trend is significant. ...17th April 2002

Asian Teen Idols: Better than Western? While Hong Kong's teen idols are Canto-pop stars, mainland idols are elderly politicans, dead revolutionaries and US capitalists. The power of popular culture celebrity has yet to reach China, despite it's opening up and embracing of free market ideals in the past decade. But inevitably it will. What is still under control is WHOSE culture it will mirror... 23rd March 2002

A Creditable Wai None-the-Less The current debate on the revoking of two foreign journalist's visas in Thailand is at once a specific case, but also significant on a regional scale. 28th February 2002

Thailand's Weakest Link: While Thailand PM Thaksin Shinawatra's legitimacy continues to be based on his wealth, success, and so-called entrepreneurism, Thailand's weakest link - that of tax reform - continues to be ignored ... 18th February 2002

Horse Sense: Those desperately looking for an edge by perusing business and finance predictions for the upcoming Chinese Year of the Horse from Chinese soothsayers are in for a disappointment. Give me a room full of Chinese astrologers or a room full of economists, and the latter win by a short nose ... 8th February 2002