The Economist: AsiaEconomist.com Asia Corruption in South Korea: Rotten shot pA football scandal fouls South Korea#8217;s modernising image/pp#8220;THE entire nation is rotten,#8221; said President Lee Myung-bak earlier this year. His frank outburst, in a country where the level of corruption has not fallen nearly as fast as economic and social indicators have climbed, was prompted by civil servants: the number of officials found to have broken the public-service ethics code almost doubled between 2008 and 2010./ppThe corporate sector is little better. Heads of chaebol (conglomerates) have been locked in a cycle of graft, conviction and the inevitable special pardon. Lee Kun-hee, chairman of Samsung Electronics (who was pardoned in 2009 for tax evasion), recently denounced corruption within part of his empire. .../p Kashmirs future: Fleeting chance pA brighter mood brings an opportunity. Expect India to squander it/ppTHESE are unexpectedly happy days in conflict-torn Kashmir. Tourists flock from India#8217;s sweaty plains to gasp the mountain air. Srinagar#8217;s hotels, houseboats and cafes are crammed. Jetskis roar over the once-tranquil Dal lake. Hordes of Hindu pilgrims trek, unmolested, to a sacred penis-shaped lump of ice at Amarnath, a cave temple. And on roadsides Indian migrant labourers, mostly Biharis, line up to work in fields and on building-sites./ppAmid the bustle there is glee. A father tells of his young children playing in streets that last year flew with stones and bullets. A man in Bandipur, a town north of Srinagar, previously protested against Indian occupiers but now worries more about cash: #8220;tourism was gone last year, so now we need to make some money.#8221; .../p Indonesias middle class: Missing BRIC in the wall pA consumer boom masks familiar problems in South-East Asia#8217;s biggest economy/ppTHE hoardings on the slow car journey out of the centre of Jakarta are advertising just two items at the moment: smartphones and scooters. Banks occasionally intrude, but only to offer cheap loans to buy one or the other. Lucky customers. And at the moment, what#8217;s good for the customer is good for Indonesia./pp The country is in the middle of a consumer boom, which is fuelling growth in South-East Asia#8217;s giant. With a population of 238m, Indonesia has long had the potential to become one of the world#8217;s biggest economies#8212;if it could get the economic fundamentals right. Can it? .../p The Philippines and remittances: The house that Saud built pIt may soon fall down/pp#8220;IT#8217;S hard to find a job here,#8221; says Sheryl Lozano, a chubby mother of two. Her husband, a scaffolder, is working on a building site in Saudi Arabia and sending money home. He is part of a mass exodus of Philippine workers. Their remittances pay the food bills, school fees and for new clothes. Ms Lozano#8217;s one-room shack, a tin roof on breeze blocks, is literally the house that Saud built. /ppRoughly one Filipino in ten works overseas, an unusually high rate. Their combined remittances hit a record $18.7 billion in 2010, up by 8% on 2009. But the Arab spring has thrown sand in the works. Some 10,000 Filipinos had to be evacuated from Libya when war broke out. Though remittances have not fallen much yet, an uprising in an oil-rich Gulf kingdom would be serious. Saudi Arabia employs over 1.3m Filipinos, second only to America. Although the Philippine economy is less reliant on Middle Eastern wages than are South Asian countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh (see Banyan), the region is still a vital source of jobs: almost half of Filipinos who got jobs abroad last year went to the Gulf. .../p Banyan: Diminishing returns pWhat South Asia#8217;s diaspora can do for the lands of their forefathers/ppLIKE the alumni of a cash-strapped college, ethnic South Asians living abroad are constantly being pestered to fork out a bit for the dear old place. After all, South Asia remains poor, and they, collectively, are loaded. According to a 2009 estimate, Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans and Nepalis living abroad were worth $1 trillion, with another guess the following year suggesting that non-resident Indians own a further $500m-worth of gold, property and art. The hope has long been that the South Asian diaspora might do for the region back home what the overseas Chinese did for China and pour in investment to fuel rapid growth. A first-ever #8220;South Asian Diaspora Convention#8221; held this week in Singapore had an even more ambitious aim: to use overseas South Asians to foster regional economic integration./ppEven the first hope seems almost forlorn. There are fewer South Asians overseas than there are Chinese#8212;some 25m Indians compared with 60m Chinese. But they send home huge amounts of money. India receives more remittances from expatriates than any other country#8212;over $50 billion a year. Pakistan took in over $11 billion in the most recent fiscal year, not counting the money still seeping back through informal hawala networks. Last year Bangladesh got over $10 billion, and Sri Lanka more than $4 billion, an increase of a quarter on 2009, when its 26-year civil war ended. Yet despite all these remittances, there is little evidence that overseas South Asians are mimicking the Chinese by investing huge sums in productive projects. .../p Chinas population: Only and lonely pChina#8217;s most populous province launches a public criticism of the one-child policy/pp CONTROVERSIAL when it began a generation ago, China#8217;s one-child policy is stirring yet more contention. Until recently most discussion in China has been confined to academic demographers. Many of them argue that the policy did little good when it began and is increasingly damaging now that the fertility rate is below the replacement level and China#8217;s population structure#8212;the balance between young, middle-aged and old#8212;is becoming so skewed. /pp This month the debate became political. A provincial official went public with a request to let Guangdong#8212;China#8217;s most populous province, with 104m people#8212;loosen the rules. Speaking to newspapers, Zhang Feng, director of Guangdong#8217;s Population and Family Planning Commission, said he had applied for #8220;approval to be the leader in the country in the relaxation of the family-planning policy#8221;. .../p Bombings in Mumbai: Terror, again pThe commercial capital is blasted/ppON A sodden evening in Dadar, a middle-class corner of central Mumbai, one end of a bus stop displays an advert for probiotic yogurt. The other end is blown to bits. A tarpaulin, gathering water, has been hastily laid over the pavement next to it and a crowd has gathered, including a man who offers to trade gruesome photos. A local says he heard an explosion and saw bodies dragged away./ppUnknown assailants showed grim skill in setting off three near-simultaneous explosions by jewellery markets and near a train station in different parts of the city on July 13th. By striking in the evening rush hour, they killed at least 17 people and injured over 130. Yet the assault was far less prolonged or bloody than one in November 2008, when ten jihadist gunmen, infiltrators from Pakistan, assaulted a series of landmarks in the city over several days, killing some 170, including foreigners. .../p Pushing for a carbon tax in Australia : An expensive gamble pThe prime minister stakes her future on a divisive scheme/ppA RARE moment of triumph settled on Julia Gillard, Australia#8217;s prime minister, on July 10th when she unveiled a plan for a carbon tax to fight climate change. Few issues have divided Australians more bitterly. Earlier plans to curb carbon emissions had toppled at least two political leaders, including Kevin Rudd, Ms Gillard#8217;s Labor predecessor. She justly boasted that she had knocked down the brick walls others had hit. But then political reality kicked in. An opinion poll two days later (conducted before the carbon plan#8217;s details were disclosed) gave the Labor government record low support of 27%. With the next election due in two years, Ms Gillard faces the task of rescuing her government by selling her bold carbon plan to a sceptical public (see chart)./ppAustralians have not always been so cynical on the subject. Four years ago, Mr Rudd#8217;s promise to tackle climate change helped him defeat a conservative Liberal-National government. Voters seemed to respond to a central argument: that Australia#8217;s credibility as a clean-energy advocate in the Asia-Pacific region would count for little unless it cut its own relatively high carbon emissions first. .../p Pakistan and America: In a sulk pRelations grow yet worse between Pakistan and the superpower/ppEVEN at the best of times it would have seemed unusual for America#8217;s embassy in Islamabad to organise its recent gathering for #8220;gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender#8221; people. Given the grim state of bilateral relations, the meeting looked downright provocative. Some in Pakistan#8217;s religiously conservative society promptly accused America of conspiring to attack them by spreading outrageously liberal sexual views. One Islamic political party called it #8220;cultural terrorism#8221;./ppThough the United States remains, by far, Pakistan#8217;s biggest financial benefactor, it is reviled among Pakistanis, many of whom genuinely believe that Americans are set on their country#8217;s destruction. What little trust existed before the killing in May, by American special forces, of Osama bin Laden, is disappearing fast. The Americans gave Pakistan no warning; Pakistanis, especially the armed forces, felt humiliated. On July 12th Pakistan#8217;s spy chief went to Washington, DC, for the first time since Bin Laden#8217;s death. .../p Political affray in Malaysia: Taken to the cleaners pAn overzealous government response to an opposition rally/pp MALAYSIA is one of South-East Asia#8217;s stabler nations; but a rally in Kuala Lumpur on July 9th in demand of electoral reform turned surprisingly nasty, leading to the arrest of more than 1,600 people. The police fired tear gas and water cannon into the crowd, and one man died of a heart attack. All those arrested were released fairly quickly, but Amnesty International, a London-based human-rights group, called it #8220;the worst campaign of repression in the country for years#8221;. The government#8217;s reaction showed a lot of nervousness about how much opposition it can tolerate./pp In fact the crackdown started a few weeks ago after #8220;Bersih 2.0#8221; announced that it was going to stage the rally. Bersih, also known as The Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections, is a loose alliance of NGOs and activists (bersih means #8220;clean#8221;). It argues that all candidates should be given access to the mainstream media and that indelible ink should be used to stop people voting more than once. It all sounds uncontroversial, but not to the government. Bersih was declared illegal on July 1st and about 200 activists were rounded up. The march itself was then banned, although the authorities offered Bersih a stadium to meet in#8212;and then withdrew the offer. .../p Japans nuclear crisis: A question of trust pJapan#8217;s nuclear crisis is eroding deference to authority/ppTWO weeks after Japan#8217;s trade minister gave the all-clear to restart nuclear-power plants that had been shut for maintenance, Naoto Kan, the prime minister, ordered on July 6th that they should first undergo rigorous stress tests. The inverted sequence showed that only a cursory examination had taken place. Hideo Kishimoto, a mayor in southwestern Japan who had earlier given his local power company permission to restart the Genkai nuclear-power plant, retracted his approval. #8220;I can#8217;t trust the government,#8221; he said. /ppIt is a refrain heard throughout Japan, aimed not only at national politicians but also at the power companies, bureaucrats, academics and the media who had given assurances that the country#8217;s nuclear plants were disaster-proof. A country that has long been governed by informal bonds of trust is seeing them start to fray. The meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant is forcing a re-examination of Japan#8217;s most influential institutions. .../p Assassination in southern Afghanistan: A roguish operator pIn Kandahar the president#8217;s power-broker kinsman is killed/ppEVEN in Afghanistan, where murder and assassination have lost their power to shock, the killing of Ahmed Wali Karzai, the half-brother of President Hamid Karzai, caused a deep intake of breath. The loss of AWK, as he was known, shot on July 12th at point-blank range by Mohammad Sardar, for many years his security chief, is almost bound to disrupt the task of pacifying the south of Afghanistan. But just how much is hard to judge. For AWK was such a divisive figure that, in the long run, his death may solve as many problems as it creates./ppThe Taliban immediately claimed responsibility for his murder. On the backfoot militarily in the south, they have waged a campaign of assassinating high-placed officials in Kandahar. But AWK had many enemies#8212;including tribal and business rivals. Like any leading Afghan, power made him vulnerable. On July 14th there was a deadly suicide-attack at his funeral. .../p Cricket in Sri Lanka: More than just a game pStar batsman, smart operator/ppCRICKET is supposed to uphold the virtue of fair play. The preamble to the Laws of Cricket talks about #8220;the spirit of the game#8221;; their English custodians even hold an annual #8220;Spirit of Cricket#8221; lecture at Lord#8217;s in London, the game#8217;s home. In Sri Lanka, cricketers have long been a source of inspiration for a troubled island: not just for their sporting prowess (the national team punches far above its weight) but also for their capacity to unite. During the years when Tamil Tiger terrorists fought a bloody war against the Sinhalese-majority state, the national team#8217;s most successful player#8212;the most successful bowler the sport has ever seen#8212;was a joyful Tamil, Muttiah Muralitharan. /pp But in Sri Lanka, it seems, politics can spoil anything, even cricket. On July 4th, giving the annual spirit of cricket lecture, Kumar Sangakkara, captain of the national side until April and still a test player, said #8220;a mad power struggle#8221; was destroying the accountability, transparency and credibility of Sri Lanka#8217;s cricket administration, called Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC). He said the solution might lie in a proposal by the International Cricket Council, the sport#8217;s governing body, to suspend national boards where there was direct political interference and allegations of corruption and mismanagement. As SLC has been run by government-appointed committees since 2004, Mr Sangakkara#8217;s criticism will hurt. .../p Protest in Hong Kong: Monsoon of their discontent pAn annual ritual turns into an expression of grievances/ppON JULY 1st 2003 half a million people took to the streets of Hong Kong, forced the government to give up on a reviled law and ended the career of the territory#8217;s chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa. This is not a Tung Chee-hwa moment, but the kettle is boiling again. On July 1st throngs of angry Hong Kong people rallied between Victoria Park and the government buildings in Central#8212;more than 200,000, according to organisers#8212;shouting, singing, whistling and waving banners demanding democratic rights, great and small. It was the largest popular demonstration on Chinese territory in several years. The people of Hong Kong, so often quiescent, are angry again: at their local government and at meddling by the national authorities in faraway Beijing./ppOn the next business day, July 4th, the government blinked, postponing a controversial revision to Hong Kong#8217;s electoral law, which would have banned by-elections for vacated seats in the Legislative Council (Legco). The government had wanted to do this to prevent its opponents from repeating a stunt from last year, when they engineered by-elections to improvise a kind of straw poll on democracy itself. .../p Non-profit organisations in Japan: Charity at home pJapan, long hostile to non-profit groups, is easing up/ppAFTER the earthquake and tsunami on March 11th, volunteers flooded north to the stricken area. One group from Tokyo struggled to find an evacuation centre willing to accept its offer of food because, coming from out of town, it lacked the local government#8217;s imprimatur. Another complained that centres turned it away because it did not have enough food for everyone. Prefectural police refused to recognise special passes that were meant to let aid groups use the deserted expressway, forcing them on to congested side-roads. /ppThe disaster brought about a surge of volunteerism in Japan, as did the Kobe earthquake in 1995. Around 480,000 volunteers from non-profit organisations (NPOs as they are known) streamed into the Tohoku region. Yet the figure might have been higher had the government not advised people to keep away and made life hard for those relief organisations that showed up anyway. .../p