Hello friends!

Apologies for the lack of update last week — my tiny baby niece was born! She’s so cute that no one could fault me for staring at her and dying every time she did a little sneeze rather than monitoring Google news alerts. 

In celebration of her, I’ve made today free for all readers. Asean and Timorese nationals under 30 are always welcome to a free premium subscription, just hit that reply and let me know who you are and where you’re from and I’ll happily add you to the list. 

For everyone else, click here:

See you Wednesday for an update on Singapore’s foreign interference debate and a look at the big developments ahead of the formal nominations for the Philippines’ presidential election.

Erin Cook

🇮🇩 Indonesia begins to win the battle

Well done, Indonesia! Monday saw the lowest case count in over a year and that trend down is continuing. The positivity rate is now within the WHO range of ‘dealing with it’ at 4 percent. Which is just incredible! At some points it hit the low 30s, indicating a pandemic raging out of control. 

Chief Investment Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan has found enough time now to lodge defamation charges against rights activists Haris Azhar and Fatia Maulidiyanti over claims the political stalwart is motivated by his business links in security operations in Papua.

"There is no such thing as absolute freedom, everything has a consequence. I have the right to defend my rights. I have asked them to present evidence [on the allegation] and there was none,” he told reporters after filing the claim in Jakarta this week, according to the Jakarta Globe. 

Nope, not them, Indonesia says of reports from the US that Chinese hackers had infiltrated government networks including those of state intelligence agency BIN. “BIN calls on people to not believe the rumours of hacking of BIN and other government institutions, and to keep checking, rechecking and crosschecking information circulating on internet and social media,” agency spokesman Wawan Hari Purwanto told the AP. 

🇱🇦 Laos into Lockdown

Terrible news from Laos where Vientiane has locked down and inter-province travel banned amid the worst outbreak yet. The capital is the identified hot spot at the moment but I always keep in mind that Laos has more limited testing capacity than elsewhere in the region, and that is particularly true in further-flung parts of the country. 

The Asian Development Bank has bad news for Laos’ economy. The initial projection of 4 percent growth has been slashed to just 2.3 percent for the year with the pandemic having a far deeper toll than expected, particularly given, as we say repeatedly now, Laos had dodged the worse of it last year. 

This story about bats with ‘COVID-like viruses’ found in Laos was widely published for obvious reasons, but tell you what I’ve seen at least half a dozen of these since the pandemic started and nothing ever comes of it! This one is interesting though because it’s framed as evidence that the virus ‘exists in nature’ and therefore plausibly contracted from an animal rather than via some shady lab leak. See, Sharri?

🇻🇳 Staying at home is working

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been kind of fascinated with Mike Tatarski’s HCMC Lockdown Diaries (that is not what he named them). His update at the start of the week looked at cases easing, but restrictions are still quite tight in the city. The biggest take-away though, for me at least, is the warning from experts that opening up too quickly for economic reasons can be a mistake. 

Up north in the capital, restrictions are also easing in Hanoi. Authorities say 94 percent of adult Hanoians have been at least partially vaccinated, as of this Reuters report at the start of the week, with full inoculation expected by November. Holy heck, that’s a good effort. 

The hyper-localised lockdowns across the country are expected to eventually replace the whole community approach. This would mean not full neighbourhoods but instead a ‘household, an apartment floor or an alley’ would be locked down in the case of further outbreaks, as reported by VN Express. 

🇲🇲 ASSK, Facebook in court

Another big week-and-a-bit for Myanmar. I’ve been particularly interested in the US court ruling which has forced Facebook’s hand in turning over documentation of the Rohingya genocide dating back to 2018. “Locking away the requested content would be throwing away the opportunity to understand how disinformation begat genocide” and Facebook “taking up the mantle of privacy rights is rich with irony,” US Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui wrote in the judgement, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. Facebook can appeal the ruling. 

Aung San Suu Kyi formally pleaded not guilty in her incitement trial. Lawyer Khin Maung Zaw says she appears in good health after missing a court date last week. She will also face separate corruption charges next month. 

The Tatmadaw has its eyes on economic reform but its plan, writes John Liu and Frontier Myanmar, seems awfully familiar to a similar plan in the works by the NLD government before the February 1 coup although ‘reforms’ have been dropped from the agenda. This is a long piece with a lot of nitty-gritty so click through if you’re interested. 

China is donating COVID vaccines to both the military and the armed ethnic groups it is fighting. This piece posits it is strong evidence of China playing both sides and ‘strengthening its hand’ as conflict becomes more entrenched. 

I’m still trying to get my head around the Buddhist extremism in the country, particularly the release of Ashin Wirathu. Amresh Lavan Gunasingham has taken a look for the Lowy Institute’s Interpreter in this compelling piece.  

🇰🇭 Child target in govt campaign

A hideous one in Cambodia’s long annals of political intimidation. Autistic teenager Sovann Chhay was arrested in June over a post on Telegram which allegedly slighted the government and his family has not seen him since. His parents are prominent opposition figures and his father, a CNRP member, is currently jailed. The BBC has done a really good job of covering this sad story and I recommend clicking through to read the whole thing. 

🇹🇭 Thailand wants to welcome the world

Bangkok wants to reopen to the world on November 1, assuming vaccination is at 70 percent. I don’t really believe it and this piece from Bangkok Post shows how complicated the maths of it is really and ugh doesn’t it just seem like a hassle. Thai Island Times has an exhaustive look at the reopening plans and the speculation around them here.

Finance Minister Arkhom Termpittayapaisith announced the government will extend the debt ceiling from 60 percent of GDP to 70 percent following a meeting with top government officials earlier this week. It’s one trick announced by the government desperate to get the economy back on track but is seen as somewhat of a last resort. The raising will allow the government to pursue a plan to borrow a huge 2.3 trillion baht ($69 billion) for a pandemic recovery fund. 

Sawit Kaewvarn, president of the State Railway Union of Thailand, is looking at three years for a safety campaign. The Guardian reports Sawit is also boss of State Enterprises Workers’ Relations Confederation, the country’s largest union peak body, so a very big fish in a fight which human rights watchers say will further erode workers rights across the country. Click through to read the whole story because it’s big and excellently reported. 

This story did some sort of short-fusing of my brain. Something popped in there. The US has 1 million Pfizer doses to give to Thailand, but they haven’t gotten any paperwork back, US Senator Tammy Duckworth says, as reported by the Thai Enquirer. Now, this isn’t a region well known for its streamlined bureaucracy but this is a huge oversight — especially given Indonesia not only got the papers in on time but has since received 8 million doses! What a letdown, Thai government!  

🇲🇾 Positive trend in pandemic fight

Malaysia’s case count remains high but is firmly trending downwards as talk of booster shots continues.

Malaysia’s response to the Australian-US deal for nuclear submarines has been interesting. Much of the region has been quietly unconcerned or dismissive, but the Malaysian government wants to seek some advice. Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told parliament this week he’d have a quick word with his counterparts in China to see how they feel after proposing an ‘immediate work visit,’ Bloomberg reports. It’s a long way from the ‘take your train plans and shove it’ of just a few years ago, no?  

Clare Rewcastle Brown, the iconic editor of the Sarawak Report, isn’t too stressed about extradition from the UK to Malaysia. ‘Criminal defamation,’ which she was charged with following the breaking of the 1MDB scandal, doesn’t exist in the UK and she’s not heading to KL for a quick trip any time soon. “And I have no intention of subjecting myself to such attempts at intimidation,” Rewcastle Brown said, as reported by the FMT.

And on that theme: Najib Razak is coy about not running again for Pekan, the seat in parliament he has held on and off (mostly on) since before my parents even met. While he’s allowed to finish out this term, the constitution bars would-be candidates who have been convicted of crimes from running. In an exclusive with Reuters, he’s not worried. "It depends on interpretation in terms of the law, the constitution and whatever happens in court proceedings," Najib told the wire. How exactly he’d get around it all, which usually involves a permission slip from the monarch, he didn’t say. 

🇸🇬 The new normal isn’t so normal

Singapore reported a huge daily case count yesterday with 1650 cases. It’s off the back of a week of steady climbing cases prompting the Ministry of Health to wind back some freedoms for social gatherings and tougher guidance on work from home arrangements. Public health authorities say that while the numbers are scary at face value, with the city’s huge vaccination rate 98 percent of these cases are asymptomatic. 

Health Minister Ong Ye Kung warns other countries that these sorts of surges should be seen as a ‘rite of passage,’ the Telegraph reports. “It is a journey that is uncertain and full of twists and turns,” he said during an online press conference.  

There’s a juicy foreign interference bill up at the moment which has prompted some brilliant reporting and commentary, which I am still wading through. I’ll bring the best and most illuminating to your inbox on Wednesday. 

🇧🇳 Brunei eyes lockdown

Brunei is still quietly battling. Case counts this week began pushing the 200 a day ceiling, prompting the Ministry of Health to note that a full lockdown will not be ruled out. A possible lockdown would be a hard one, Health Minister Dr Hj Mohammad Isham Hj Jaafar said, as infections are typically among household groups. 

“Shops will not necessarily open. There will be no deliveries, so we have to prepare food at home for at least one month. That is the shortest period if we [send the country into] a lockdown. If it is prolonged, a lockdown might last two to three months before we start seeing results,” The Scoop reports. 

🇹🇱 Timor-Leste fights on

Like the other regional minnows, Timor-Leste is having a bad run after a relatively solid time through the pandemic last year. The country is hovering around 1200-odd active cases with less than a third symptomatic.  

🇵🇭 Heavy hitter’s hats in the ring

We’ll be back for the Philippines next week. I will admit, I get overly excited for political drama and the last week has been more dramatic than most with a whole bunch of hats in the ring ahead of the election nomination cut off next month. Isko! Pacquiao! Marcos Jr! Duterte Jr! Duterte himself!