If every one of our combined 2.5 billion population buys a new mobile phone, it would blow up the order lists of IT manufacturers and operators in the world,” visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said in New Delhi on Tuesday. The take-home message? The combined power of China and India can be just as productive as it could be damaging to the world.

Bank Indonesia pushed ahead with its demand for reciprocity in banking license with Singapore by rejecting the Bank DBS plan to acquire almost 67.50 percent of Bank Danamon through a US$7.2 billion deal proposed in April 2012.

Gen. (ret) Thein Sein, who won international praise for leading reforms in Myanmar, received a warm welcome from US President Barack Obama at the White House on Monday. It was a reciprocal visit following Obama’s trip to Yangon last November. The general deserves the credit.

M. Chatib Basri — who was installed on Tuesday as the new finance minister to replace Agus Martowardojo, who is to head Bank Indonesia (Central Bank) — had all along been the front-runner and most qualified candidate to lead the fiscal management all along.

The pretty shores of Lecidere in Dili is where young people hang out with their laptops and gadgets, enjoying free WiFi under a roof shaped like a wave.

For the preceding three decades it was almost unthinkable. For the proceeding decade-and-a-half after, it has become almost a forgotten afterthought if not for documentaries and commentaries in the media.

It is obvious that the “virus” of corruption has penetrated all levels and groups in society. While it is common that the amount of money involved in a corruption case is on a par with the rank or position that one holds — a high-ranking official is associated with a huge amount of embezzled money while a low-ranking one usually has a much smaller amount — the recent discovery of a non-commissioned police officer implicated in corruption involving a huge amount of money is, therefore, extraordinary and, at the same time, suspicious.

The confession by a young woman that she was paid Rp 10 million (US$1,050) to have sex with a flamboyant defendant in a corruption scandal that has rocked a political party, which itself claimed to be corruption-free and based on religious ethics, was a startling relevation for millions of television viewers during a broadcast trial hearing on Friday.

Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is now facing an acid test of leadership, dealing with thousands of squatters who are challenging a city program to relocate them from state land in Pluit, North Jakarta, that they have occupied for years.

Alarming segregation among the Chinese, non-Muslim and Malay communities, the rising frustration of the Malaysian people against the government’s slow pace in combating corruption and an increasing demand by young people for democracy marked the installment of Prime Minister Najib Razak on Thursday.