Others are famous singers or actors who are using their star power to promote their favorite causes. All are leaving the region a powerful legacy—whether it’s museums, symphony orchestras, a global project to eradicate polio, rural kindergartens, free health clinics or help for war refugees.
* Norodom Sihanouk’s wonderful, horrible life—New Mandala
The way he crushed the 1967 Samlaut Rebellion—torching villages, the summary executions, severed heads as trophies–was straight out of the French rulebook, particularly the Nghe-Tinh Rebellion chapter. Though the survivor memoirs usually depict the Sihanouk and Lon Nol periods as an idyllic time, “paradise” even ...
* Indonesia hoteliers eye emerging middle class—Hotel News Now
Mobile ownership is “virtually universal” among Indonesian adults, said Kapoor, and Indonesians are far more likely to access the Internet by mobile phones than Filipinos, Malaysians, Singaporeans or Thais.
* 2012 Southeast Asian Philanthropists
... donated more than $50 million to universities in China, Indonesia, Singapore and the U.S., primarily for scholarships. This year gave $24 million to the National University of Singapore for medical research. Plans to donate 10,000 laptops to needy Indonesian students at the top of their high school classes.
* Deals and developments in Sri Lanka—Hotel News Now
With nine hotels and more than 800 rooms, Aitken Spence Hotels ranks as the nation’s second-largest hotel owner after John Keells Hotels. It plans to build four additional hotels during the next few years that will result in a total 2,132 rooms.
Susan J Cunningham 