Traveling around the Southeast Asian region two weeks ago, the mood was all about currency fluctuation and impact on markets.

Futurists who have been predicting “exponential growth” in mankind's technological development might just give a “we told you so” shrug on hearing the news that the world's next tallest building will only take six or seven months to construct. The rest of us can only marvel.

Good, bad or ugly, the 2013 elections are over; and now testing times are ahead for the new incumbents. It is the third coming for Nawaz Sharif, a remarkable turn of fortune for a leader who was ousted from power by the military at gunpoint in 1999 and convicted on treason charges.

For the past five years, the Philippines has dodged the recession plaguing the developed world mainly because of the billions of dollars sent home by some 10 million Filipinos living or working abroad. But the picture is no longer that rosy. Last week, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP or central bank) reported that in March, remittances from overseas Filipinos grew at the slowest pace in nearly four years.

An official visit to the United States by Myanmar President Thein Sein this week should not be regarded as a celebration of the success of reforms in Myanmar. The job is far from finished, with many tough challenges still to be tackled, with no guarantee of success or achievement.

In an ideal world, how would the recent shooting by the Philippine Coast Guard of a Taiwanese fishing boat, which resulted in the killing of one of the fishermen, have been handled?

On May 3, South Korea delivered US$13 million in cash to North Korea and withdrew the last batch of seven South Koreans from the industrial complex in the North Korean border town of Kaesong. The money was for back pay and severance pay to 53,000 North Koreans that had been withdrawn from the South Korean factories in the industrial complex at the height of inter-Korean tensions the previous month.

During the four years I spent in the Philippines in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I developed a healthy distaste for the ruling elite, exemplified by the inept leadership of President Corazon Aquino, who dragged her feet on key reforms and left us without power for 10 hours a day.

The suggestion of compulsory mediation for warring neighbors unable to resolve their differences signals the difficulty faced by community peacemakers caught between a rock and a hard place.

Japan's rightwing political leaders, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, have raised the ire of neighboring countries with acts and remarks denying Tokyo's pre-1945 wartime atrocities.