Australia’s Home Affairs Minister has continued to stress that this situation should not be politicised, wary of the political repercussions of this latest people trafficking incident. It all stems from several tragedies off Australia’s north coast in 2001, when the last large-scale arrival of asylum seekers occured - swinging whole elections.

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The island of Bali has historically been isolated from much of what happens throughout the larger Indonesian landmass. But as most small islands thoughout the world have found, globalisation and transport does not just bring tourists and business, dollars and tasty new foods - it can also bring disease.

With two deaths last week from an outbreak of rabies, authorities in Bali are racing to educate, vaccinate and control its spread.

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While most of the world’s economies come to terms with the massive crash of the international finance system, Japan instead finds itself in a familiar situation. The world’s second-largest economy had just pulled itself out of fifteen years of stagnant growth when the global financial crisis hit, and its central bank had tried almost everything just to achieve that aim. With the global crisis worsening, some members of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party - having lost confidence in the Bank of Japan - have suggested the government print its own money from its vast reserves. Professor R. Taggart Murphy of Japan’s University of Tsukuba is the author of Japan’s Policy Trap: Dollars, Deflation, and the Crisis of Japanese Finance. He says that while the Bank of Japan is not viewed favourably in some circles, the idea of the government releasing a second currency sounds like desperation.

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At the start of this year, India was rocked by revelations that the huge software and outsourcing group Satyam had overestimated its profits to the tune of around $US1 billion. Before his arrest, chairman and IT poster-boy Ramalinga Raju said he had been “riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten”. But while the massive fraud threw India’s name-brand outsourcing industry into disrepute, analysts say the industry’s fundamentals remain strong.

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In every industrialised nation across the world, a country’s automotive industry continues to be a massive driver of the economy, employment, technological advancement and even self esteem. Some nations have perfected design and development, some have perfected manufacturing, and all share their relative strengths with each other to make great cars. So as South Korea’s fifth-largest carmaker Ssangyong went into receivership, which was owned by China’s largest, and supplied by Australia’s smallest component manufacturers, a classic example of the flow on effect followed.

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Human rights group Amnesty calls on Thailand’s security forces to halt the use of torture in the country’s south; the Sri Lankan military takes control of the Jaffna peninsula from the Tamil Tigers; and India’s Slumdog Millionaire wins four Golden Globes, becoming a contender for the Academy Awards.

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Large Western media organisations could do nothing but shake their heads this week as reports came out of China that $US7 billion dollars was to flow into state media. While newspapers, television, radio, and even internet properties in the Western world were being gutted by their parent organisations, China spoke of expanding its reach in an aggressive global drive to improve “brand China”.

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While there are many stated differences between Thailand’s competing political parties, their one constant — as with all Thais - is a reverence for the Thai royal family. But with new charges facing academics, and censorship being suggested for community radio stations and internet conversations on the king and monarchy, the reasons behind legally imposing this reverence are being questioned.

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Fighting between Israel and the Palestinian territories force Indonesians and Thais onto the streets; Pakistan admits for the first time that the surviving gunman from the Mumbai attacks is a Pakistani citizen; and the US president signs-off on the creation of new marine reserves in the Pacific.

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2008 was a landmark year for Taiwan - the small but incredibly wealthy island just south of Japan, nestled alongside its massive neighbour and frequent agitator, China. With its fourth direct democratic presidential election, the self-governing island that China considers part of its territory saw its second fully democratic change in power. This time though, instead of the need for allied warships to be parked offshore to ease tensions, China let democracy take its course across the strait - and the Taiwanese people obliged by installing a China-friendly leadership.

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