Any Thai who marks the anniversaries of the May 1992 “mobile phone mob” uprising and May 2010 red-shirt uprising with the same solemn sincerity should be commended. From a general observation, it's unlikely that there are many such people. The country's political divide has run deep and the two bloody events do not share many crucial things in common.

On Thursday, May 9, Hung Shih-cheng died from gunfire while hiding in the cabin of the Kuang Ta Hsing No. 28, a Taiwanese fishing vessel plying its trade in the South China Sea.

Late last month, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe claimed that “invasion” had no definition that was firmly established, either internationally or academically. He said it differed, depending on from whose perspective it was seen. He made the remarks in reply to a question regarding Japan's past apology for invading Korea, China and other Asian countries for colonial occupation.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak's immediate priority is to introduce an effective Cabinet that can face up to the challenges ahead.

With its resources boom coming to an end, the good times in Australia cannot last. But while economists blame China's economic slowdown and politicians blame one another, it is perhaps time to ask whether Australia might have brought some of the coming hardship on itself.

The first task for Prime Minister Najib Razak is to form the Cabinet. And we can expect the process to be different this time.

The latest and most controversial speech of Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra about democracy in Mongolia last week has led to an impact beyond her expectation.

Mt. Fuji, which has been adored as a symbol of Japanese culture since ancient times, will most likely be registered as a World Cultural Heritage Site.

It doesn't take a new-media expert to say it — everybody knows that social media cut both ways. But Hernando Rojas should be credited for taking on the technological darling of the hour fearlessly. Speaking at a lecture organized by the Thai Journalists Association a few days ago, he basically said that few things inflame an ideological divide better than the social-connection tools at our disposal nowadays.

The withdrawal from the industrial complex in North Korea's border town of Kaeseong has been completed, with the seven remaining South Koreans having returned home and US$13 million in back pay and severance pay having been delivered to the North on Friday. Now there is no predicting what will become of the industrial complex, where small South Korean manufacturers have operated for the past decade.