When Hien’s wife returned to the shack from feeding the pigs and realized her youngest child was missing, “she was in a panic looking around,” he recalled. “Our neighbors helped us look for her. Her body was found an hour later in the canal near the house.”

Children make up around a quarter of the nearly 800 deaths reported since July across Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and the Philippines, according to the United Nations. The region has been ravaged by some of the worst flooding in decades, but drownings are a huge unreported epidemic in Asia. Every year, an estimated 240,000 children up to 17 years old die — mostly because the majority of kids simply never learn to swim.

That annual number is roughly equal to the total deaths from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, but day-to-day water deaths rarely get attention.

“Those (in the tsunami) were counted because they drowned in a space of six to eight hours in the region, and everyone was just stunned because the number was enormous,” said Michael Linnan, technical director of the U.S.-based Alliance for Safe Children in Bangkok, who has studied child drowning. “But the reality is that in that the 364 days before that, an equal number of mothers and children had drowned as well. But they drown one at a time and not in a disaster setting, so they weren’t counted.”

During excessive flooding, it’s easy for children to accidentally get in over their heads while playing or wading in filthy water where it’s impossible to see what dangers lurk beneath each step. Some fall into fast-moving canals or streams in their yards or villages, while others lose their footing on porches or windows, falling into waters surrounding their houses — sometimes at night. Often their disappearance goes unnoticed because parents are busy trying to salvage livestock, crops or meager belongings vital to the family’s survival.

“You have very little dry land and you have massive population movements,” Linnan said. “It doesn’t take very long for a child to slip away from an already harried mother or older sibling who are trying to schlep all the belongings. It takes only two or three minutes for a child to drown.”

Monster seasonal monsoon rains have overwhelmed swollen rivers, dams and canals in the region, and back-to-back typhoons and tropical storms have hammered the Philippines, China and Vietnam. Some 4 million acres of Thailand have been inundated in the country’s worst flooding in a half century, and the waters are creeping deeper into Bangkok, an anxious capital city of 9 million barricaded behind walls of sandbags.

BANGKOK (AP) — Asian stock markets overcame early losses to mostly gain Wednesday as investors hoped for good news from the slew of corporate earnings reports due soon in the U.S.

Oil prices fell to near $85 a barrel while the dollar was stronger against the euro and the yen.

Asian stocks initially slipped after Slovakia, one of the smallest members of the 17-nation grouping that uses the euro, blocked a measure to expand the region’s financial rescue program for heavily indebted countries. The move intensified worries that a failure by Europe to contain its debt crisis could lead to a massive debt default by the Greek government.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index dropped 0.3 percent to 8,745.57. But other major indexes reversed course. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.6 percent to 18,255.23 and South Korea’s Kospi added 0.2 percent to 1,798.82. Benchmarks in Singapore and mainland China also swung into positive territory.

In Hong Kong, sentiment was helped by a government pledge to expand the supply of affordable housing for low- and middle-income residents. Blue chip real estate stocks in Hong Kong welcomed the news. China Vanke Co. rose 2.4 percent, Poly Real Estate Group jumped 3.2 percent, and China Overseas Land & Investment Ltd. gained 1 percent.

China’s Shanghai Composite Index rose 2.2 percent to 2,399.18, two days after a government investment fund announced it had bought shares in major banks, helping to bolster the country’s sagging stock market.

The banks’ Hong Kong-listed shares continued to pile on gains. Industrial & Commercial Bank of China gained 1.2 percent, Agricultural Bank of China added 1.3 percent, and China Construction Bank rose 2 percent.

But in Japan, shares of Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. fell, a day after the companies said some vehicle manufacturing in Thailand had to be suspended due to flooding. Honda lost 2.1 percent and Toyota was down 0.9 percent.

Benchmarks in Australia, Taiwan and Thailand were also lower.

Many analysts hope that the upcoming wave of U.S. corporate earnings reports will pull investor focus away from Europe and back to the health of American companies.

PepsiCo Inc., one of the world’s largest food and beverage makers, is expected to report an uptick in profit Wednesday when the food and beverage maker releases its fiscal third-quarter results.

The results are being closely watched for clues as to what U.S. consumers are willing to spend their money on, which plays a critical role in the U.S. economy.

“If the U.S. corporations miss their estimates for the third quarter, then we will see selling pressure” on markets, according to Castor Pang, head of research at Core Pacific-Yamaichi in Hong Kong.

On Tuesday, Slovakia’s parliament rejected a bill that would have strengthened the powers of a regional rescue fund to help bail out strapped economies in the eurozone.

The 16 other countries that use the euro have already signed off on the bill, but the measure requires unanimous support.

There are ways around Slovakia’s opposition, but the move temporarily sets back efforts to address Europe’s debt jam, which has been the most important issue for financial markets for months.

Such worries have caused investors globally to dump stocks, according to Cambridge, Mass.-based fund tracker EPFR Global.

Eight of the nine major equity fund groups tracked by EPFR posted outflows during the week ending Oct. 5. Investors withdrew a net $11.57 billion from equity funds, the third-worst weekly tally this year.

On Tuesday, the Dow Jones industrial average ended down 17 points after moving between small gains and losses throughout the day.

The Dow lost 0.1 percent to close at 11,416.3. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 0.1 percent to 1,195.54, and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.7 percent to 2,583.03.

Benchmark crude for November delivery was down 73 cents at $85.08 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 40 cents to settle at $85.81 in New York on Tuesday.

In currencies, the euro fell to $1.3616 from $1.3669 late Monday in New York. The dollar strengthened slightly to 76.69 yen from 76.66 yen. — AP

Asia’s trade volume will grow 96 percent to nearly $14 trillion by 2025, recording annual year-on-year growth of 4.8 percent versus an estimated 3.8 percent for global trade, the bank said in its latest quarterly Trade Connections report.

By 2025, world trade is expected to increase 73 percent from the current level, driven mainly by India, Vietnam, Indonesia and China, said the report.

But HSBC said it found a dip in confidence among Asian importers and exporters about the trade outlook for the next six months, with 41 percent expecting the global economy to decline.

“There are undoubtedly short term risks for businesses given the challenging economic conditions,” Noel Quinn, regional head of HSBC commercial banking Asia-Pacific, said in the report.

Singapore, China and India showed the largest drops in confidence, it said.

Businesses in Australia, Singapore, Vietnam and China are concerned about buyers defaulting on payments and intend to request advance payments or tighten payment terms with suppliers, the report added.

China will remain Asia’s largest trade partner by value in 2025, increasing its total trade from $1.1 trillion in 2010 to over $2 trillion by 2025.

China’s share of world trade will reach 13 percent by 2025, overtaking the United States as the largest trading nation, driven both by commodities and an increase in manufacturing in the mainland, the report said.

Trade between Asia-Pacific and Brazil is expected to more than double to $206 billion by 2025, much of it in soy, it said. — Reuters

At a time when al-Qaida seems to be faltering, the recruitment of such an educated, somewhat mainstream following is raising fears that Hizbut Tahrir, an enigmatic global movement, could prove more effective at radicalizing the Islamic world than outright terrorist groups.

Active in 45 countries, Hizbut is now expanding in Asia, spreading its radical message from Indonesia to China. It wants to unite all Muslim countries in a globe-spanning bloc ruled by strict sharia law. It targets university students and professionals, working within countries to try to persuade people to overthrow their governments.

The movement’s appeal to an often influential part of society worries experts. Its goal of an Islamic state may be far-fetched, but it could still undercut efforts to control extremism and develop democracy in countries such as Indonesia, which the U.S. hopes will be a vital regional partner and a global model for moderate Islam.

“Our grand plan over the next five to 10 years is to reinforce the people’s lack of trust and hope in the regime,” said Rochmat Labib, the group’s Indonesia chairman in a rare interview with a Western reporter. “That’s what we are doing now: converting people from democracy, secularism and capitalism to Islamic ideology.”

Hizbut Tahrir, which means The Party of Liberation, is also raising its profile in the U.S. after operating largely underground since the 1990s. Its first major event was a 2009 conference, followed by another one in Chicago this June.

Starkly conflicting views swirl around Hizbut. It has been described as both a peaceful movement to restore one-time Islamic glory and a breeding ground for future suicide bombers, “a conveyer belt to terrorism,” in the words of Zeyno Baran, an expert on Islam in the modern world.

Banned in most countries, Hizbut remains legal in others, including the United States, Great Britain, Australia and Indonesia, where its leaders say it has spread to all 33 provinces. It is closely monitored everywhere, and often operates on the knife-edge of legality.

“The rhetoric they have goes to the fringe of democracy,” said Hans Joergen Bonnichsen, the former head of Denmark’s intelligence service. But the Danish Justice Ministry has twice asked the nation’s top prosecutor if Hizbut could be banned under Danish law, and both times the answer was no.

Its new frontier in Asia ranges from Indonesia and neighboring Malaysia to Pakistan and China, where Beijing has accused it of inciting violence among Muslim Uighurs in the remote west. It has also become the most widespread, and persecuted, radical Muslim group in Central Asia.

The Indonesia chapter is believed to be the largest, with a following estimated in the hundreds of thousands, according to Sidney Jones, an expert on Islam in Southeast Asia.

“They are a real force here. They are a greater long-term threat to Indonesia than people who use violence,” said Jones, a Jakarta-based analyst with the International Crisis Group think tank. “Collectively, hardline civil society can have a bigger effect than jihadists and terrorists.”

Her words are echoed by anti-terrorism expert Zhang Jiadong of China’s Fudan University, who said Hizbut is “more harmful than terrorist organizations, because it has more influence on ordinary people.” The group, estimated at up to 20,000 members in China, is more likely to foment riots or rebellions than terrorist attacks, he said.

Ismail Yusanto, the group’s urbane spokesman in Indonesia, insists that “we are a peaceful Islamic movement.”

“We believe people can be influenced by their environment, so so-called terrorists could be influenced by everyone, not just us. But Hizbut itself is committed to not being violent. There is no evidence,” he says, when asked whether some adherents later veer to violence.

The claims of nonviolence contrast with the movement’s fiery rhetoric, which calls for the annihilation of Israel — that’s what led to it being outlawed in Germany in 2003 — and exhorts Muslims to fight coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. One flyer shows a decapitated Statue of Liberty with New York City aflame in the background.

The U.S. State Department says the group “may indirectly generate support for terrorism but there is no evidence that it has committed any acts of terrorism.”

Hizbut followers may later “graduate” to terror under the tutelage of other groups. Often cited are the first British suicide bombers, Asif Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif, who attacked a Tel Aviv bar in 2001 and had past Hizbut links.

Reports have also linked Hizbut to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Sept. 11 mastermind, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former al-Qaida chief in Iraq, but they have never been proven.

Hizbut calls for the establishment of a caliphate, uniting all Muslim nations under centralized Islamic rule in emulation of such entities that flourished in the past.

This is to be attained by changing Muslim mindsets to think beyond national borders, then pressing the message among political leaders, the armed forces and other power brokers until governments crumble.

Taquiddin an-Nabhani, a Palestinian lawyer who founded the movement in 1953, didn’t rule out violence during the last stage of creating the caliphate, or the possibility of fighting Western nations to protect it or expand it into non-Muslim countries. In earlier days, Hizbut staged failed coups in Jordan, Syria and Egypt, and it is now largely banned in the Middle East.

In Indonesia, Jones said, Hizbut appeals to those who believe that neither the country’s earlier dictatorship or present democracy has worked.

She said it has been able to infiltrate the top cleric body, the Indonesian Ulema Council, and local governments and exercises some clout on issues such as introducing sharia law, banning non-mainstream Muslim sects and opposing the operations of Western companies in Indonesia.

Unlike many Islamist groups, it welcomes women, who make up about a third of the membership, according to Ratu Erma, the head of its women’s organization. It also enjoys a following among parts of the elite.

“Some of them work by day in Jakarta’s main business district making the wheels of capitalism turn and after work talk about overthrowing the country’s infidel system. It’s one of the conundrums about the HT,” says Greg Fealy, an Indonesia expert at Australian National University who is adamant that at least in Indonesia the group is nonviolent.

In Malaysia, young hard-liners disillusioned with the moderating stances of mainstream political parties have turned to Hizbut because “they feel it is sticking to Islamic principles more closely,” said Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman of Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.

Nawab, an expert on the group in Asia, said that Hizbut, which barely filled a meeting room in Malaysia in 2004, recently drew more than 1,000 to a conference and is present in every state but one.

Leaders and followers interviewed in both countries dodge questions about their numbers and inner workings, even the whereabouts of the current global leader, Ata Khalil Abu-Rashta, except to say he is based in the Middle East.

Behind its public face, Hizbut is built along Marxist-Leninst lines with secretive cells as key building blocks. Nawab says “students” may go through up to five years of arduous training and indoctrination to prove their commitment and become members. Some 60 percent don’t make the grade.

Hizbut members have been imprisoned in Russia, Central Asian nations and elsewhere, but some experts say the broad definition of terrorism in these countries — rather than any acts committed — landed many of them in jail, and sometimes before execution squads.

Within the U.S., opinion is divided. The State Department doesn’t name Hizbut as a terrorist group, but the New York City Police Department, in a document obtained by The Associated Press, identified it as a “tier one extremist group” in 2006.

The British government came close to banning the group after the 2005 London bombings, and government officials say membership has shrunk to fewer than 2,000 members. But Britain remains an important base for fundraising, propaganda efforts and recruiting senior members. Many leaders in Indonesia and Malaysia were once asylum seekers in the U.K. who got an education and made connections and then returned home.

Ed Husain, who described his time as a British member in the 2007 book “The Islamist,” said that globally the movement is “strong, robust, growing.”

“I still believe that the message and ideology of Hizbut Tahrir is as potent as ever,” he said in an interview. “Their antidemocratic, anti-West, anti-Israel and anti-Muslim governments stance remains firm. As such, they implant confrontational, radical ideas and thus attitudes among young Muslims.” — AP

“This type of move was inevitable. Traders are now facing up to fact that central banks could be coming to the bottom of the rescue measures barrel,” said Kara Ordway, a currency strategist at City Index in Sydney.

The G-20 pledged to take “strong and coordinated” action to stabilize the global financial system, with shares also getting a boost from reports that China’s national pension fund received approval to inject more than $1.56 billion into the stock market.

Still, “there appeared to be nothing in the way of concrete new action and markets were generally underwhelmed,” said Sue Trinh, a senior currency strategist at RBC Captial Markets

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index ended down 1.6% at 3903.20 after briefly trading in positive territory, while South Korea’s Kospi lost 5.7% to end at 1697.44. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index ended down 1.4% at 17668.83, after trading down as much as 3%, and the Shanghai Composite Index was 0.4% lower at 2433.16. India’s Sensex was down 1.2% in afternoon trade. Japan’s markets were closed for a holiday.

DJIA futures were up 49 points in screen trade.

Indonesian shares ended up 1.7% after plunging 8.9% Thursday. Among other Asean markets, Philippine shares ended down 5.1%, the biggest one-day percentage drop in nearly three years, while Thai shares fell 3.5% in afternoon trade.

Growth-sensitive commodity plays continued to bear the brunt of the selling amid sharp drops in metals prices. Heavyweight BHP Billiton dropped 3% in Sydney and Posco shed 6.2% in Seoul. In Hong Kong, Jiangxi Copper dropped 2% and its Shanghai-listed shares fell 3.3%.

“The triple-whammy of weak [manufacturing purchasing managers' index] in China and the euro zone, plus a downbeat assessment from the Federal Reserve about the long-term economic outlook has sparked sharp falls in commodity prices in the last 24 hours,” said economists at Capital Economics.

In Hong Kong, Swire Pacific was the worst performer among blue chips, falling 6.4% after it said late Thursday it is reconsidering spinning off its property arm by listing it in Hong Kong by way of introduction, meaning it won’t raise any money through the listing. — The Wall Street Journal

The world is facing a big economic storm. The US and Europe are saddled with massive debt burdens, and many observers believe their economies will struggle to grow for years to come.

In contrast, Asia has a positive outlook as its economic growth is far better than in developed countries. Moreover, Asian financial institutions have a solid status and corporate earnings of listed companies are expected to grow healthily this year. Fund inflows have driven up local currencies, including the Thai baht.

For all these positive reasons, Thailand and other emerging countries in Asia are today’s investment destination of choice. Domestic factors are also supportive, including growing political stability with the formation of a new government following a peaceful election.

And while the Pheu Thai-led government is expected to spend heavily to keep its campaign promises _ some of them at least _ there is optimism that its economic strategists have a plan for keeping inflation under control. As a result, some foresee tough monetary policy will come to an end in the third quarter.

Analysts say the Bank of Thailand’s policy interest rate is likely to rise by an additional 50 basis points by year-end to 3.75% _ not high compared with other countries in the region _ and bond investors should thus focus on short-term maturities to reduce rate risk.

A lot more money is expected to become available for investing in Thailand, not all of it from abroad. One significant development on the horizon is the maturing later this year of a number of Korean bond funds. These funds were a runaway success two years ago with small and large local investors, helped by aggressive marketing by local asset management companies, as the rate differential between Thailand and Korea at the time was quite wide. Now the gap is narrowed, and fund investors ready to redeem as much as 90 billion baht may be ready to keep the money at home.

The economic environment at home appears to be supporting investments in any type of asset, but risk acceptability is still the key factor for investors to consider. Since July of this year, it has been mandatory for investors to complete a suitability test provided by their broker, fund manager or bank in order to determine their investment preference and risk profile.

Wiwan Tharahirunchote, the chairwoman of the Thai Financial Planners Association, classifies investors in three groups, based on different risk profiles (see table).

She recommends that investors adjust their portfolios when the market is volatile. At the moment, the guideline for stocks is to take profits when the SET Index rises above 1,100 points, and accumulate good shares when the market is below 1,000 points.

SCB Research also expects fund flows to continue into gold, stocks and bonds in Asian countries to avoid the risk of economic crises in Western countries. It forecasts the SET index to reach 1,200 points this year. Target investments are stocks in the finance, telecom and consumer sectors.

The trading strategy for investment in commodities and other alternative investments is different. Mrs Wiwan says the concern about gold is its price, which is expected to decline from its record highs once signs emerge that economic conditions in developed countries are improving.

Thipa Navawattanasap, the president of YLG Bullion & Futures, puts the new target price for gold at $1,850 per ounce after it crossed $1,800 last week amid worsening economic problems in the US and Europe that could take a long time to solve. So demand for gold, which is defined as a low-risk asset, is expected to increase.

Mrs Wiwan notes several choices of investment in gold. A gold exchange-traded fund (ETF) is an easier way to get exposure, and its return will be related to the spot gold price.

Investors can also buy gold bars, but they have to think about maintenance and a place for safekeeping.

Investment in gold stocks, based on global gold prices and individual company operations, could be more volatile.

Investors should not worry about the short-term situation affecting prices, she says. But if the trend changes, investors should modify their portfolios to reflect the trend.

Source : Bangkok Post
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Oil prices, meanwhile, soared to near $93 a barrel Tuesday in Asia as Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi struggled to keep power of the OPEC nation amid violent protests.

The Nikkei 225 stock average shed almost 2 percent to 10,644.38, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost 1.7 percent to 23,077.27, and South Korea’s Kospi was down 2.2 percent at 1,960.15.

Japan’s ability to tackle its massive debt came under scrutiny again after Moody’s Investors Service downgraded its outlook for Japan’s credit rating. The rating agency on Tuesday changed its outlook for Japan’s Aa2 rating from stable to negative.

Moody’s cited “increasing uncertainty” over Japan’s ability to implement effective measures to rein in rising debt in its decision, which comes less than a month after Standard & Poor’s cut Japan’s sovereign debt rating.

Stock markets in Australia, Taiwan, Singapore and mainland China also retreated. New Zealand’s benchmark lost 0.9 percent to 3,351.1 after a powerful earthquake hit the city of Christchurch. The temblor collapsed buildings and buried vehicles under debris as police tried to confirm reports of multiple deaths.

Growing political unrest in Libya unnerved investors across the region. Sectors vulnerable to oil price volatility, such as airlines, were hit by intense selling.

Korean Air Lines Co. plunged more than 9 percent, and rival Asiana Airlines fell 9.9 percent. In Hong Kong, Cathay Pacific Airways was down 4.5 percent.

U.S. markets were closed Monday for a national holiday.

In currency markets, the dollar rose slightly to 83.16 yen. The euro was down at $1.3608 from $1.3645. — AP

Admiral Robert Willard, head of the 300,000-troop Pacific Command, voiced exasperation at years of naval efforts to stem the flow of pirates from Somalia — which has been effectively without a central government for two decades.

“It’s remarkable that 28 nations combining their maritime forces together in the Gulf of Aden have not been able to defeat this challenge,” Willard said at the Asia Society on a visit to Washington.

Due to the naval campaign, “the pirates are just ranging farther out into the Indian Ocean — hundreds of miles, quite literally,” Willard said.

Willard said the pirates posed particular problems for Maldives, a sparsely populated Indian Ocean archipelago of 1,192 tiny coral islands best known for its upmarket beach resorts.

Willard said he recently visited Maldives and President Mohamed Nasheed told him that “his problem was that either abandoned pirates or pirates that were lost in the middle of the night in their activities, or otherwise detached from their motherships, were now landing in the Maldives.”

The commander also saw problems with piracy in southern India and as far away as the South China Sea.

But he said that joint action by Southeast Asian nations has all but eliminated the piracy that once plagued the Strait of Malacca — a vital route for oil that powers Asia’s largest economies.

Foreign navies have stepped up operations off the Gulf of Aden since 2008. But Willard said that there was ultimately not a naval solution.

“I don’t think you’re ever going to defeat this threat at the far extremes of their operations on the sea lanes,” Willard said.

“But rather you have to go to the centers of gravity — the source on land in the Horn of Africa — and put a stop to that,” he said.

According to the Malaysia-based International Maritime Bureau, Somali pirates are holding 33 vessels and 712 hostages. The captives come from a diverse array of countries.

Willard said that Somalia’s scourge also presented legal quandaries as sailors wondered what to do with captured pirates.

A US federal court on Wednesday sentenced a teenage Somali pirate, Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, to nearly 34 years in prison after the US Navy caught him in a clash at sea. The judge rejected pleas to be lenient due to his young age.

And in a first in Asia, a Malaysian court last week charged seven suspected Somali pirates for firing at Malaysian forces. They face the death penalty if convicted.

While failing to end piracy, the naval operations have spurred international cooperation. China sent warships, the first time in modern history that it has deployed on a potential combat mission far from its territorial waters.

Willard praised the coordination between the US and Chinese navies over piracy, saying: “We’ve been impressed with the effort that China has made.”

Military relations between the United States and China have seen sharp swings, with Beijing last year snapping off contacts to protest a $6.4 billion arms package to rival Taiwan.

Willard voiced confidence that military ties with China were becoming steadier.

“I’m cautiously optimistic… that we will continue to progress, even slowly, in the military relationship,” he said. — AFP