Via India Uncut, a Hindustan Times item on defeating Maoists with pizza and Pepsi:

The extremist Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist), which has virtually ruled the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh in southcentral India for 15 years, is fighting to save its fiefdom against a gastronomic offensive by the state government.
For the first time since the early 1990s when Maoists gained ground in Kanker, Bastar and Dantewada districts, the rebels have been facing a serious revolt thanks to the pizza and Pepsi showered by the home department in poverty-stricken Maoist bastions.
And it is working far better than the various strategies and millions of rupees invested in tackling the menace. So much so that the home department is trying to increase the supply of these fast food favourites heavily in the forest belt.

Imagine, Danwei is a Beijing based blog that covers media and advertising in China. A few decades ago there wouldn’t even be advertising in China. I guess that means that the Cultural Revolution is finally over.

Ian lamont at Harvard Extended steps away from media content research to muse about history.

“In every decade since the communist victory in 1949, China has been shaken by an unforeseen political upheaval.”- Robin Porter’
As a student of modern Chinese history, I have long believed that a similar pattern has existed, but for far longer: Since the late Qing, China has experienced local or widespread upheavals caused by a variety of domestic and external factors. Starting in 1900, and up until 1989, China has experienced a major upheaval affecting multiple urban areas and/or provinces about every 10 to 25 years. In 1900 it was the Boxer Rebellion. In 1911, the Republican revolution. In 1930s, civil war and the Japanese invasion. In the late 1940s, the Communists coming to power. In 1958, the Great Leap Forward and its aftermath. In the mid-1960s, the Cultural Revolution. In 1989, student protests in Tiananmen and other major cities.

A joint truth commission for East Timor and a pullout of troops in Aceh, perhaps Indonesia’s military is finally slipping into peace mode. Or perhaps not.

Tom Legg has good coverage of the situation surrounding Ching Cheong, the Straits Times journalist charged by China for alleged spying.

The Haze has prompted Malaysia’s government to declare states of emergency in select areas. Jeff Ooi says AFP seems to have jumped the gun.

points to a chasity campaign that seems to involve kidnapping.:

Concerned social organizations have announced a campaign to guard the chastity of teenagers at holiday resorts along Korea’s East Coast. The conservative groups including Hwalbindan, the Korea Dokdo Green Movement and the Senior Citizens Association of Jumunjin, Gangwon Province have been prowling beaches and entertainment places since Aug. 6 with the slogan, "Lose your virginity in a moment’s carelessness and immoderate merrymaking, regret it for the rest of your life."
At night, they plan to snatch girls seen drinking with strangers in the entertainment districts of downtown Sokcho and Gangneung from the teeth of disaster.

A true rarity, a protest in Singapore. (UPDATE 21:35) That didn’t last long:

SINGAPORE, (AFP) - Riot
police broke up a rare demonstration by four people demanding greater
transparency and accountability in Singapore’s state-managed pension
fund and other government-linked agencies.
A
dozen anti-riot police wearing helmets and knee-high protective gear
and carrying shields and batons formed a phalanx outside the offices of
the Central Provident Fund (CPF) as a commanding officer approached the
demonstrators.

Could there be a potential military alliance between India and Taiwan in the cards?

"Apart from its manufacturing and
hardware might, Taiwan is strategically important for India as it
controls the Itu Aba otherwise called the Taiping Island. The island
can have military installations and forward bases. The Indian Navy can
only operate with the help of Taiwan to conduct exercises", says Dr
Kondapalli.
Indian strategic experts feel Taiwan has the best intelligence on
China. "India doesn’t know anything about China. There may be a handful
who know about China in India. And Taiwan is the only way through which
we can know about China. This realization has dawned on the Indian
establishment", says a retired senior intelligence officer.

Via the Tanuki Ramble an insightful Spiegel interview with Asia’s smartest statesman Lee Kwan-yew, touching on the coming collapse of North Korea, the coming collapse of Germany’s social contract and China’s military threat to the US.:

Their modernisation is just a drop in the ocean. Their objective
is to raise the level of damage they can deliver to the Americans if they
intervene in Taiwan. Their objective is not to defeat the Americans, which
they cannot do. They know they will be defeated. They want to weaken the
American resolve to intervene. That is their objective, but they do not want to attack Taiwan.