With Thailand under military-appointed rule, the Philippines fresh off a stint of martial law and an unresolved vote-rigging scandal and the rest of Southeast Asia under hard and soft authoritarian yokes, Indonesia has clearly emerged as the region's healthiest, most vibrant functioning democracy.
The Baker report on an exit strategy from Iraq, leaked this week in the US, is as sensible as it is sensational. It rejects "staying the course" as no longer plausible and purports to seek alternatives to just "cutting and running". Stripped of political sweetening, it concludes that there is none.
In August, Derek Locke, CIO for the New Zealand Defence Force, told an audience of peers at an event for MIS Magazine that data generated by email and associated data storage concerns were an enduring headache.
Thailand's military coup last week nominally aimed to break the country's grinding political deadlock and usher in a new era of democracy and political reform.