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Honey, disconnect the phone, I'm back in Soviet Central Asia
SHE'S young and glamorous, and rich too. Though still only in her mid-30s, there seems nothing Gulnara Karimov can't do
Thailand Looks for Return to Growth
IT WAS a simple act but, for Asia, an unusual one. But if it catches on, it could mark a new era for how economic policy is executed in coup-plagued Thailand
CHATTING with Ajith Cabraal, the amiable governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, in his lofty eyrie above Colombo, one could be forgiven that he’s presiding over some approximation of a Switzerland-sur-tropique
Whatever happened to Sir Richard Evans?
Eric Ellis tracks down the former chairman of BAE Systems amid the wintry steppes of Kazakhstan, where he is trying to introduce Western notions of corporate governance
A Tell-All Book
About Rupert Murdoch
Few of Rupert Murdoch’s former employees are eager to write about him. Likewise, few of his publications are eager to review a book about him. This review was turned down by the Far Eastern Economic Review, which is part of Murdoch-owned Dow Jones, after it was initially accepted. Nor was it reviewed by the Murdoch-owned Australian or the Australian Literary Review
The old is new again (minus ideas) in the murky world of Pakistani politics
AUSTRALIANS know how it feels. They felt it last November. A nation rises the day after an election with the warm inner glow of having voted for change, a fresh start. Everything seems new again. That's a bit how Pakistanis feel after last week's election. Civilian rule is to be restored after nine years of dictatorship. They voted out the pro-Taliban Islamists as well, so the terror-panicked West gets to feels the love too. Except that in Pakistan, it's always complicated.
Pakistani elections encourage investors
Pakistanis spurn a dictator and religious extremists in a long-awaited vote
Eric Ellis
A look at polls in Peshawar through the eyes of an election observer
Dubai's rags-to-riches miracle built on the toil of exploited foreign workers
Today, in the Arabian emirate of Dubai, the great and good of the Australian Football League will slap the backs of local expatriates and home-grown potentates in a dollar-drenched celebration of all things Australian, Dubaian and corporate
Afghanistan's Central Bank numbers crunched by Indian accountant
WE ALL know Iraq’s bad but to hear many experts tell it, Afghanistan is the genuine headache of the age, military and economic
Farewell to Asia’s greatest kleptocrat
The death of Indonesia’s former dictator may spur attempts to recover the loot accumulated by his family
Keeping it in the family
After a decade of concealing their enormous wealth, the Soeharto offspring
suddenly have found themselves back in the limelight
The curtain finally falls on Suharto, with the actors still performing their roles
Singapore: Libel case a test for Murdoch
Dow Jones brought some unwanted baggage with it
The most pressing priority for Pakistan after today's brutal termination of the Bhutto dynasty is to stop this difficult nation plunging into civil war
Inside Samruk, Kazakhstan's new state holding company
Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev,
has decreed the creation of a state holding company, roughly on
Singaporean/Malaysian lines, to oversee
and rationalize the country’s lucrative but inchoate collection of state-owned
companies and foster corporate governance. Eric Ellis reports on a confrontation
of cultures
Interview with Sir Richard Evans, Samruk chairman
A British corporate warhorse, Sir Richard Evans, has been hired to pull the Samruk operation together
Unease grows between Jakarta and Singapore
Resentment and envy still appear to underpin a testy relationship, writes Eric Ellis
How business thrives in Pakistan's Epaulette Empire - Why Bhutto would be bad for business
PAKISTAN'S military dictator Pervez Musharraf has declared martial law, effectively mounting a coup on himself
"We have your pictures, and we are going to come and get you”
Web of cash, power and cronies
Singapore isn't just skilled at mandatory executions of drug traffickers, running an excellent airport and selling cameras on Orchard Road.
It also does a useful trade keeping Burma's military rulers and their cronies afloat
More chaos than calm in eye of the Tigers
City Life - Colombo
Peace would be a better business plan for the island of a hundred ministers...
Tea with the Tigers becomes a turbulent brew
Humbled but not off the Flight Path
A failed $9 billion takeover bid in May by a private-equity group for Australian flag carrier Qantas— which would have been the biggest deal in aviation history—seems to have humbled the airline’s pugnacious CEO, Geoff Dixon
Vintage Ceylon
Sri Lankan tea maker Dilmah is taking a leaf from the wine industry to label its beverage as high-end and chic
Singapore cashes in on a raft of graft
The island state has laid out the welcome mat for Jakarta's dubious tycoons
Eyewitness account of Tamil attack
Sunday's Tamil attack was yet another embarrassment to President Mahinda Rajapakse's dysfunctional government
The Flying Tigers of Tamil Eelam Buzz Sri Lanka
A surreal air raid and gunfire awaken the snoozing guests of the Galle Face, Colombo’s famous old seaside hotel
The island state that wishes it could be towed to less murky waters
City Life - War has already been declared in Iran — between Coca-Cola and the theocrats
The Shah is Dead. Long live the Shah — and I don’t mean Reza Pahlavi, the 45-year-old pretender to his late father’s Peacock Throne, whom many in Washington would like to install atop this most vexatious nation
Squeezed between the mullahs and George W. Bush, and with war and a nuclear future looming, many moderate Iranian families are planning their escape
Sanctions? Coke and Pepsi found a way around them and are battling for market share in Tehran with local Zamzam Cola
India: just as messy as it has always been
Booming, business-mad India is not the full story, as Eric Ellis discovers, to his cost
Ferry expensive journey
Kangaroo Island is in the thrall of an overpriced monopoly ferry service to and
from the South Australian mainland
Hot spots, pot shots and gold pots for the brazen and the bold
Compile a fake CV, head for a war zone, and a fortune in taxpayers' dollars can be yours
A short walk with Eric
Newby
Warriors with scimitars and muskets have given way to warlords with AK-47s and
mobile phones, but there are still hidden valleys of timeless peace and beauty
The Iron Lady at the Heart of Pakistan's New Economy
IT WAS France’s wartime resistance leader and later President Charles de Gaulle who lamented how difficult effective governance was in a nation where there are 246 varieties of cheese. Pakistan’s new central banker Dr Shamshad Akhtar would sympathise
The Pakistan-Afghanistan border is awash with arms and drugs – and traces of Osama bin Laden
It's been three years since the recalcitrant Mohamed Mahatir left office, but he still has strong opinions, on North Korea, Israel, Iraq and, of course, Australia
Five years after the war, Kabul is showing signs of economic life. But making money there is still risky business
With books about George Washington arrayed on a shelf behind him in his office in Kabul, Afghan President Hamid Karzai talked to FORTUNE recently about the nation-building challenges that still confront his country five years after the fall of the Taliban
If there's such a thing as the right way to topple a democratically elected government, then Thailand’s generals might be just the strongmen to teach that lesson
Thai adventure backfires on Singapore Inc
The fallout from the Thai coup is yet to hit Singapore's Madame Ho
A weak president, untouchable warlords and a resurgent Taliban are dooming Afghanistan to an endless cycle of violence and corruption, funded by Australian aid and protected by our troops, as Eric Ellis reports from Kabul
Tehran’s top banker looks to the future
Ebrahim Sheibany is governor of Iran’s central bank, a position he has held for three years. He tells Eric Ellis in Tehran that as far as economic policy is concerned, little has changed, despite the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president
Afghanistan Gets Back To Business
The country’s newly revitalized banking system throws up colourful characters and eccentric approaches to marketing. But overseeing it all is a rigorous central banker with solid US commercial banking experience
Whether or not Iran is building nuclear weapons, its auto industry, the largest in the Middle East, is learning how to cope with privation—and planning for worse.
One man’s extraordinary journey from middle Australia into the heart of Indonesia’s Islamic world. Or was it into the heart of darkness?
The first democratically elected Afghan president suggests he won't run again -- and gives a frank assessment of his first five years on the job
India's bureaucracy is a bummer for the boom
Economic growth is yet to improve the ground-level conditions for business in India
In Kabul, a feature window and a bakery illustrate Afghanistan’s decline
An Iraqi-born, Australian economist’s family may have been shot in revenge for his advisory work
The Proton, Malaysia's national car, is losing market share. Can the company be weaned from its government subsidies?
Biographies of Nelson Mandela, Richard Nixon, and Che Guevara sit alongside tomes from ex-Chrysler boss Lee Iacocca and celebrity chef Nigella Lawson on the bookshelves in Abdullah Badawi’s study in Putrajaya
The royals are ridiculed, Maoists are flexing their muscles and the lucrative climbing industry has had a tough season. Eric Ellis finds all is not well in the troubled Himalayan nation
Nepal is in an unprecedented state of flux. For the first time, Maoists are part of an interim government as the royal family becomes increasingly isolated. Eric Ellis reports
Malaysia's grandiose economic policies of the past have created a headache for Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi
Our Malaysian peacekeeping allies in East Timor are facing their own internal unrest at home, as their former PM weighs in from the sidelines. Eric Ellis reports that three years after handing the leadership to Abdullah Badawi, 'Dr M' is unhappy with his performance
It’s election time in Singapore and the opposition pollies are silent as lawyers wait to pounce. Victory is a formality for the Lee family
Libel action puts a dampener on Singapore's
election
Although opposition politicians have little hope of winning, lawsuits are a risk for those who try
Its a good thing Sol Trujillo secured one of Australia's highest executive pay packages--about $8 million--when he signed on last year as CEO of its biggest company, Telstra. At least he's being handsomely compensated for the personal attacks he has weathered since joining the government-controlled telephone company
The US fears a P&O terror takeover, but Middle East petrodollars are welcome in Australia
Is Ho Ching Losing Her Touch?
Even before the Muslim backlash over those notorious cartoons, liberal Denmark was under siege from some demons closer to home
The Battle of the (Very Hot) City-States
After 15 years on the lam, with $1.5bn missing and facing 18 charges from one of the biggest corporate scandals in Australian history, Abraham Goldberg finally wants to come home
Eric Ellis on the background to the hanging in Singapore last week of an Australian drug-dealer
Cobbling a Media Empire in Kabul
Saad Mohseni works the departure at Dubai’s Terminal 2 like a Davos pro
If nothing else, the hanging of Nguyen Tuong Van has shown up the Singapore government for its hypocrisy and barbarism
Almost a year later, too little has changed along the tsunami-smashed Sri Lankan coast. Aid was sent but the will to recover seems to have been swept away
Hang Democracy, Let's Trade
Singaporeans don't like to be reminded they do business with Burmese narco-traffickers,
and admit they don't mind punishing the innocent to preserve law and order
Singapore seems determined to hang Melbourne man Nguyen Tuong Van as an act of defiance in the face of international criticism
Now that John Howard has a strong rapport with the Indonesian president, it's time he got chummy with SBY's more influential deputy
Islamabad's long-delayed sale of state telecom operator PTCL should be encouragement -- and a warning
Indonesia’s suicide bombers are not fervent assassins but desperate boys from impoverished, communities, preyed on by the real murderers
Reputed to be incubators for terrorists, Islamic schools in Pakistan claim they are innocent – and are still waiting for long-promised Western aid
Finally, Some Good News for Pakistan
Pervez Musharraf is a happy man. The Pakistani President finds himself where no previous leader of his country has been before: running a boom economy. In the past four quarters, according to Pakistan’s Finance Ministry, GDP growth has averaged 8.4%—“the second-biggest economic expansion in Asia after China,” Musharraf crows.
Interview with Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf
Pakistan’s President General Pervez Musharraf defies conventional politics....
Sri Lanka’s efforts to rebuild after the tsunami have been slowed by bureaucracy and renewed ethnic tensions. Can President Kumaratunga use the disaster to transform the island’s political culture?
A reporter’s account of one personal mission
Interview with President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga of Sri Lanka
Face-saving finale to seven years of stagnation
Macau's success sealed chief executive's fate
Red opportunity makes Singapore complacent again
The name Chen Jiulin doesn't roll off the Western tongue in quite the same manner as Nick Leeson but many Singaporeans see awkward parallels
Shock therapy to defeat terrorism
In an interview with The Times, the new President of Indonesia reveals his plans to fight a modern scourge
Islamist threat engulfs
Thailand
THE leader of the Islamic Defenders Front of Indonesia is not a man to trifle
with
There are difficult places to invest in, and then there is Indonesia
In a wide-ranging interview, Indonesia’s president talks of a new era in regional relations, economics, defence and anti-terrorism. Eric Ellis spoke with him at Jakarta's Istana Merdeka
Separatists warn tourists to stay away
TO THE foreign hedonists who patronise the resorts of Phuket, Krabi and Koh Samui in Thailand’s gorgeous south, the term Pulo might conjure images of lavish tropical fruits
How a frozen-food salesman from New Jersey - a former refugee from war-torn Afghanistan - built his country's largest wireless network
It’s election time in Kabul and a motley assortment of carpet-baggers, do-gooders and telephone salesmen are gathering for the big day.
Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani is battling warlords, cabinet colleagues, indifferent global donors and stomach cancer as he struggles to salvage Afghanistan’s ravaged economy. If he fails, the world could pay an enormous price. Eric Ellis reports from Kabul
In the days after the bombing of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, The Bulletin journeys into Indonesia's hardline Islamic world
Anwar Ibrahim's release could herald the rebirth of democracy in Malaysia
Political favourite freed after six years
As the Howard government struggles to mend fences in Asia, a changing of the guard in Singapore could slow some of the recent progress
Singapore waits to see if son leads like father
SINGAPORE'S national flags are out, so it must be nearing National Day, when the four million people of this disinfected city-state publicly wear patriotism on their sleeves -or draped over the balconies of their state assisted apartments, as the case may be
Australia and Malaysia should be good friends. With Dr Mahathir gone, they may well soon be
A vote that could prove dangerous
On the surface, things have changed in Singapore, where even bawdy T-shirts are now openly on sale. Underneath, however, it looks like the same old story
Ban on oral sex may be lifted as nanny State goes soft on sin
SINGAPORE'S ban on oral sex, a statute dating from the island's days as a Victorian British colony, looks set to be repealed in another apparent effort by its notoriously strict Government to shake off its nanny-State image.
The rise of the tribute band has closely followed John Howard's conservative ascent. What price Kissteria's Gene Simmons clone as next PM?
Has Asia, home to the world’s most dynamic economies, a region which provided the world’s first modern female leader, suddenly become enlightened?
It became a byword for World War II atrocities but the killing has never stopped at Singapore’s infamous prison, Changi
Mahathir tirade at 'Jews ruling world'
Malaysians face the almost unpalatable prospect that their beloved Dr Mahathir Mohamed – who even helped design the loos at one of the country’s leading hotels – will soon step down as Asia’s longest-serving elected leader
Bali economy victim of nightclub bombings
Indonesia's famous tropical resort isle still struggles with terrorism's effects
The hopes of a generation of Indonesians were destroyed in the rubble of the Sari Club
This weekend's Bali bombing commemoration has upset the island's Hindu elders, who say the gods will not be pleased
Indonesia holds a world record that Jakarta doesn’t like to make public: the most pirate-infested seas on the planet
Singapore's New Straits: Piracy on the high seas is on the rise in South-East Asia
Power behind the throne: Mahathir Mohamad/Abdullah Badawi
Being declared the official successor to Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia’s prickly prime minister, is like being handed a poisoned chalice
Secret agent plan
Bob Lowry knows his way around Indonesia
Why is the chairman of Singapore's leading telecommunications company buying shares in a rival telco?
Why is Singapore Inc. investing bigtime in its neighbor?
Funding the travels of Jose Ramos-Horta requires some lateral thinking, reports Eric Ellis.
As the do-gooders move on, carpetbaggers and corrupt locals are left to count the loot. Eric Ellis discovers that most East Timorese are wondering what went wrong a year after independence
Washington has delivered to Osama bin Laden one of the suspected terrorist mastermind's key demands
Power Behind the Throne: Taufik Kiemas
In modern politics it is difficult to know what constitutes appropriate behaviour for the husbands of female leaders. In Indonesia, however, Taufik Kiemas, the garrulous spouse of President Megawati Sukarnoputri, is redefining the parameters
Battling the new millennium bug
The alarming SARS epidemic has provoked a crisis in China, and Asia generally, that threatens to derail a decade of unparallelled growth, shaking the very foundations of power
Now that the city-state has been identified as an embarkation point for SARS infection outside Asia, the government is moving toward drastic quarantine measures
Allah's Assassins *nominated for 2003 Walkley Award, Asia-Pacific reporting
The Bali bombers were rootless young men recruited from the dusty poverty of a village in West Java - their overseer a worldly West Javanese, burning with Islamic zeal and with the contacts to organise and bankroll their jihad. Eric Ellis retraces their steps as they moved from village to town meeting the fixers, financiers and bombmakers, and finally assembling and detonating the devices that would kill and maim so many in a Kuta Beach tourist precinct
Indonesian forces have historically sought ties with Islamic groups only to suit their purposes, as Eric Ellis reveals
Singapore offers grim view of future terror
An elaborate purification ritual may have exorcised some of Bali's demons, but the killers still to face justice there are monsters on the loose. In Kuta, ERIC ELLIS talks to the policeman heading the investigation and examines the secretive world of 'Indonesia's Arabs."
Trade Minister Mark Vaile hopes the new free-trade deal with Singapore will spell paydirt for Australia. Eric Ellis reports it may not be such a walk-up start.
Bali prays for delivery from evil
Mayor's blisters bear witness to tourism fall
Indonesian police reveal details of Bali bomb suspects
The black marks of a bomb-maker
Trouble in Paradise - Bali Bomb Blasts Indonesia
'Our defense to convince people that doing business in Indonesia is safe is finished.'
As well as the lives of many, the nightclub bombs destroyed any lingering illusions that Bali was a tranquil haven somehow isolated from Indonesia's current malaise. Eric Ellis reports from Kuta Beach.
As dawn broke on the chaos that was Kuta Beach, Eric Ellis searched for survivors of Australia's worst terrorist outrage
Indonesia detains two over Bali terror attack
Singapore: Dragnet in Disneyland
Singaporeans to ask what they can do for their country ... or else
East Timor tries to reconcile past
Tears and cheers greet dawning of East Timor
Canadian recalls dark moments In his role as UN adviser
Dili faces future, hopeful of oil
It's all in the family as No.1 son ascends
What's Separating SingTel and Optus? Canberra.
Australia's government has to O.K. the $8 billion telecom takeover. Despite many objections, chances are it will get the nod
How Clinton Courts America's Techno Might
California Freeway 101 is not the Washington Beltway, although it might as well be.
Why Clinton Tries To Court The `geek Freaks'
When San Francisco investment banker Sanford Robertson says he had dinner with Bill Clinton, he makes no exaggerated boast about a Democratic rubber chicken fund-raiser in a hotel conference room.
Old Grey Mayors Ain't What They Used To Be
Think "mayor" in the United States and you think unrequited political ambition, if not on the road to the White House then certainly connecting with it at a major intersection.
Big Money Flows In The Contest To Run California
Forget the age-old ideology war between Democrats and Republicans. The most spirited battle in the contest to govern the United States' most important State is being waged over the very Californian issue of herbs, or "erbs" as locals prefer to say.
Primary Colourless As Americans Fail To Vote
The self-styled Land of the Free this week displayed an apathy that would horrify many Indonesians prepared to die for US-style liberties. While Indonesians were throwing off a 32-year-old dictatorship, the country many young Asians claim as a model could not be bothered even showing up for its various local referendums, primaries and gubernatorial polls.
Brown Victory In Black And White
The black disc jockey rapped Get Down for Jerry Brown and the people of Oakland, the festering sore of poverty that separates two of the world's richest regions, did.
Meet Mary . . . Quite Contrary
There are a lot of odd places in the United States, and Palm Springs is one of them. Smug and perfectly manicured, it has this strange other-worldly quality about it, appropriately enough given that it's a "God's Waiting Room" of superannuated entertainers with allergy problems cocooned from real life in palatial residences and over-watered golf clubs, sometimes their own.
Fong Helps Redraw US Ethnic Political Map
As he stands beaming before the gates of Chinatown on Grant Street in the heart of San Francisco, Matt Fong is a man Bill Clinton would be proud of.
Latino Voters Bring A Si! Change To California
John Howard might find some common ground with Californian politician Robert Dornan. Pauline Hanson certainly would. Dornan is your common or garden white-bread, white-skinned conservative Republican redneck.
Clinton's Impeachment Puts The Republican Party On Trial
On Thursday, Washington began the turgid and ultimately pointless process of putting America's most consistently popular president on trial for what amounts to getting fellated in the White House.
Washington And Hollywood Share A Common Enemy
Hollywood and Washington tend to agree on the enemy. And the foe of the moment is China, as Eric Ellis reports from Los Angeles.
Clinton's Mantra Neutered South Of The Border
A health food store cum bookshop and espresso bar - just about every town in Middle America has one.
Democrats Clean Up Despite `peckerdilloes'
The booming States of the US West put performance over peccadilloes in snaring the biggest prize of the night for the triumphant Democrats, California's governorship. The Democrat rout of the Grand Old Party was no better expressed than in California where former State Lieutenant-Governor Gray Davis beat his long-time office colleague, State Attorney-General Dan Lungren.
