Asean Secretariat must be empowered

(Commentary) – With six months left in his five-year term, Asean Secretary,-General Dr. Surin Pitsuwan is making a last-ditch effort to strengthen his 260-strong staff, including 79 openly recruited from all member countries, at the Jakarta-based organization. 

Commentator Kavi Chongkittavorn Photo: Facebook

The success or failure of Asean integration in years to come – be it in the security/political, economic or socio-cultural pillar – will very much depend on the secretariat's efficiency and overall capability. After all, it is central to the Asean process, and to project management and implementation, as well as other forms of connectivity. 

A better-equipped secretariat would make Surin's job – and that of his successors as the chief administrative officer – in fulfilling the charter's mandate much smoother.

The secretariat was established in 1976, 10 years after the founding of Asean, to serve as a loose coordinating office among the member countries. Indeed, it was not meant to be an effective organization that would be able to seize control of Asean's activities and set agendas, as the foreign ministers and national Asean committees still reigned supreme. 

Indeed, the position of the Asean head was titled "Secretary-General of the Asean Secretariat.” Therefore, whoever served as the Asean secretary general would be the subject of ridicule because the holder was neither "secretary" nor "general." The job was literally to serve as a channel of information, in other words, running errands as a senior postman to deliver messages between capitals. 

After the restructuring and expansion of Asean organs in 1992, the position of Asean chief was created to implement and follow up on the Asean Free Trade Area in the same year. Since then the international staffers, who used to be appointed or seconded, have been openly recruited based on merit. 

However, Asean members in practice prefer their own trusted diplomats, based on rotation in alphabetical order. Only Surin, a former Thai foreign minister, was recruited in Thailand as the secretary-general while other member countries nominated their trusted senior officials. After the enactment of the Asean Charter in 2008, the secretariat's administrative mandate was expanded, and so was the role of secretary-general, who could now speak on behalf of Asean.

Last year, Surin submitted a report, "Asean's Challenge: Some reflections and recommendations on strengthening the Asean Secretariat." He has good insights into the charter – being the first Asean chief to implement it – and what needs to be done to realize the leaders' vision. 

He argued that for Asean to meet the challenges of integrating the Southeast Asian region to create an Asean "community" of 600 million citizens, the secretary-general and his office should be given sufficient trust and latitude to carry out their responsibilities, as they run the only neutral organ in Asean. 

Of course, they also need sufficient financial support, personnel and infrastructure, including modern technology. This year the secretariat has an annual budget of US$15.763 million, which translates into $1,576,300 for each member (based on equal contributions under Article 30, Paragraph 2 of the Asean Charter). That means that in real terms, Asean members spend less than $0.026 per person per year for operating costs in the service of community building. In comparison, the European Union has a budget of well over 147.2 billion euros for this year. 

It is worth nothing that under Surin's leadership, the secretariat has maintained a high profile befitting the new spirit of Asean since its charter came into force at the end of 2008. Asean has been at the forefront of important international initiatives and forums. 

For instance, during the post-Cyclone Nargis rehabilitation efforts in Myanmar, which lasted nearly two years, Surin and the secretariat played a pivotal role in coordinating both local and foreign aid workers to assist in planning and implementing plans for the devastated Irrawaddy Delta. Now, his office has been given an extra mandate by Asean leaders to take care of humanitarian efforts within the region. In the past four years, relief and rescue efforts have become a major responsibility for the secretariat.

Lest we forget, given Asean's longstanding bureaucratic tradition, members of the Committee of Permanent Representatives (CPR), formerly known as the Standing Committee, also have a powerful role to play in accelerating or delaying programmes affecting the livelihoods of its citizens and the reputation of Asean. 

The CPR is a new institution that was established by the charter. It's still wet behind the ears, and the CPR members have now to deal with many, mainly non-diplomatic, issues, especially those involving non-state stakeholders, which they do not properly understand and are insufficiently equipped to handle. Given the fast-changing global and regional environment, Asean as a group needs to ensure that all key policymakers – particularly the secretariat and CPR – are on the same page so that they can make timely decisions and be united in their vision. 

Without such a synergy, consideration and implementation of certain policies would get bogged down, due to the unintended micro-management by CPR's members.

If history is any judge, the quality and quantity of performances of the Asean secretariat and its chief could be improved and expanded, if they are given enough space to take up issues and policies affecting the collective interest of Asean. The Asean chief should be able to use his or her reputation and network to garner support and secure funding for the common good of Asean. 

That helps explain why Surin set out on his very first day on the job to create the so-called "Networked Secretariat," which can tap into the vast pool of intellectuals and local wisdom in member countries. This kind of outreach activity requires bold vision and flexibility. Therefore, the secretariat should be given additional latitude and trust including more respect so that its staff can carry out assigned work and policies without hindrance. 

At this juncture, the Asean charter fails to clearly define the roles of these decision-makers, which sometimes leads to misunderstanding. Quite often, ambiguity rears its ugly head outside the boardroom and turns into a personal vendetta akin to a Hollywood movie. 

Therefore, it is important to clearly define the roles and spheres of authority of each Asean organ. 

When Brunei takes up the Asean chair next year, the empowerment of the Asean secretariat should be on the summit agenda. Otherwise, it |will remain a process-driven |organization without much |attention paid to tangible outcomes. 

With the Asean Community rapidly approaching, it has become a top priority that all Asean leaders need to take heed of; otherwise, the community that we envisage will never become a reality.

Burma to rebuild ‘Death Railway’

In a plan to attract tourists and boost trade with Thailand, Burma plans to restore a 150-mile section of the “Death Railway,” infamous during World War II. The occupying Japanese army used prisoners of war and Asian labourers to constructed the railway. 

map: Wikipedia

Tens of thousands prisoners were forced to work in inhuman conditions to build the 424-kilometre railway through dense jungles and mountains.

The railway connected Bangkok, Thailand, and Rangoon. According to histories of the railway, about 180,000 Asian labourers and 60,000 Allied prisoners of war worked on the railway during its construction. Of these, around 90,000 Asian labourers  and 16,000 Allied POWs died as a direct result of the project, according to some historians. The dead POWs included 6,318 British personnel, 2,815 Australians, 2,490 Dutch, about 356 Americans and a smaller number of Canadians and New Zealanders.

The most famous portion of the railway was Bridge 277, “the bridge over the River Kwai,” in the Thailand section of the railway in Kachanaburi, which is today a popular tourist area.

The construction of the bridge was a major plot feature in the book by Pierre Boulle and the film based on it, The Bridge on the River Kwai.

The restored rail section will run from Burma's Three Pagodas Pass area to Thailand, said railway minister Aung Min.

“We will reopen this (rail)road,” he was quoted as saying by local media. “The other countries said they would also help us, and we will continue working for it. We will do a survey and try to start work after the rainy season with the help of the international community.”

The railway could be expected to attract great interest of Western tourists and others and provide a much-needed economic boost for the impoverished area, which is home to Burma's Karen ethnic group. Karen rebels signed a cease-fire with the government in January, a major breakthrough towards ending the long-running insurgency.

17 May 2012 Last updated at 23:25 GMT

Chess in India: Why is it on the rise?

By Rajini Vaidyanathan BBC News, Mumbai

The world chess championships are under way in Russia, where Vishwanathan Anand defends his title. His success is widely credited for the growing popularity of chess in his home country, India, the nation widely believed to have given the game to the world.

He's been described by some as the Sachin Tendulkar of chess, a role model to thousands of Indian school children and arguably one of the country's most successful sportsmen.
Vishwanathan Anand is India's biggest chess star, and was the first in the country to secure the game's highest honour, by becoming a grandmaster.
Anand gained international acclaim in 2000 after he became world chess champion, a title he has now won four times.
The 42-year-old from Chennai is currently in Moscow, competing against Israel's Boris Gelfand for his fifth title. The score is currently two points apiece after four draws.

Anand began playing aged six and is now ranked fourth in the world

His moves are being watched closely by chess enthusiasts in his home country, where the games are being screened on a national sports channel and large sections of the sports pages are devoted to it.
Chess has a particularly strong following in Delhi, Calcutta and across the south of India. The state of Tamil Nadu, where Anand is from, was even in the bidding to host the current world championships, losing out to Russia.

Chess boom in numbers

• Vishwanathan Anand, men's world champion four times.

• Koneru Humphry, women's world number four

• Eight Indians in the world top 100 (three men, five women)

• 27 grandmasters, a title awarded by the world governing body

• 24,694 Indians have a world rating issued by the chess federation, meaning they play competitively

• 30,000 registered players with the India chess federation

Chess has risen in popularity in the years following Anand's first triumphs, says Bharat Singh, the secretary of the All India Chess Federation.

"The game has really grown in the past six or seven years particularly," he says, highlighting the fact the number of grandmsters (GMs) in India has tripled in that time frame, to 27 GMs today. The number of international chess masters in the country has also tripled (to 76) in the same period, and India is in the world top 10 in rankings.
The latest Indian to pick up the grandmaster title is 15-year-old Vaibhav Suri, who won the accolade last month.
Success has been equal for both men and women in India, Koneru Humpry is the country's most accomplished female player, who holds the world number four spot.
The opening up of India's economy in 1991 enabled more players to travel abroad and play tournaments and achieve rankings, says Devangshu Datta, a chess commentator and journalist.

“Start Quote

Chess helps you take good decisions in your life”

End Quote Shubangi Tekukar Mother of four-year-old chess player

"Increasing internet use is another reason why India jumped several levels so fast and why Anand and his generation broke through. From the early 90s onwards, you had databases where, at the click of the mouse, you could work your way through millions of games."

The game is growing at the grassroots, and is now on the curriculum in the states of Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, and is taught at schools across the country. Chess coaching clubs are springing up at a fast pace too.
"We get as many as 50 calls a day from interested parents," says Dhanajay Ramraje, who runs the Chanakya Chess Club in Mumbai. Ramraje coaches children in the game at their houses and in schools, charging as much as $30 (£19) an hour.
At one such session, a group of children is gathered around a dining room table. Their eyes are fixed in concentrated, accompanied by hard stares at the black and white pieces in front of them. As they take turns to move them across the board, the silence in the room is punctuated with the tapping of clocks, and the occasional gasp.

Asia's first chess champion

Malik Mir Sultan Khan (1906-1996) was a domestic servant to an Indian ruler, the nawab, Umar Hayat Khan. Mir Sultan Khan was a talented chess player who travelled with his master from India to Britain to play the game. He surprised the chess world by winning a number of British championships, beating some of the world's greatest to became known as one of the best chess players of his time. He learnt the Indian version of the game himself when he grew up in the Punjab region, now part of Pakistan, before learning to play the Western variation, which has slightly different rules.

"I like chess because it helps my brains sometimes," says Namya Kumar, who is six years old and one of the three girls in the group. She is competing against four-year-old Aadya Tekukar, who started playing at the age of two and despite being so young, has already won trophies.

Looking on is Aadya's mother, Dr Shubangi Tekukar, who says: "Chess helps you take good decisions in your life.
"It is a game in which there are many moves and out of that you choose one best move. Like that, in your life also chess helps to improve your ability to make the best decisions."
The educational value of the game is why many Indian parents are encouraging their children to play the game, says Singh. Indians place a huge emphasis on their children's learning, and chess is seen as a welcome addition.
"The general perception is that if you play chess it will help with your studies, especially in logical reasoning, mathematics, physics, and there are surveys which prove that chess players are better mathematicians," he adds.
Another reason why some say Indians have an affinity for the game is because it is widely believed it began in the country.
"I think we Indians have some kind of a knack for the game, maybe it's because it originated here," says Manuel Aaron, India's first international chess master, who is writing a book on the history of the game.

One theory is that chess evolved from the Indian game Chaturanga, meaning four units of an army, which began in the country in the 6th Century.

Top 10 chess countries

• 1. Russia (213 grandmasters)
• 2. Ukraine (79)
• 3. China (29)
• 4. Armenia (33)
• 5. France (46)
• 6. Hungary (51)
• 7. US (71)
• 8. India (27)
• 9. Israel (39)
• 10. Azerbaijan (20)

Source: World Chess Federation (FIDE), based on average rating of country's top 10 players

"It was not an ordinary people's game," says Aaron. "It was a game to train people in the art of warfare. The pieces were elephants, horses, camels and foot soldiers, symbols of the army."

Many people also believe the Mughal emperor Akbar played live chess in the courtyard of his palace, Fatehpur Sikri, in Agra.
Legend has it he would sit in a high place, and watch real animals and soldiers move around a giant board, says Aaron.
Today chess is attracting more money and corporate sponsorship, but it is still difficult to make a full-time living from playing the game, says Pravin Thipsay, another chess grandmaster.
Thipsay, who runs coaching workshops, still works in banking and believes more needs to be done to encourage people to take up the game at the top level.
"We've had more world junior champions than any other country... but at a really senior level, aside from Anand, we will struggle to overtake countries like Russia. It'll take 10 to 15 years to do that."

Clubs like Chanakya report increased interest

Thipsay says while India has embraced the game, it still hasn't fully accepted chess as a profession.
"Chess players gets a lot of respect from their colleagues, but you cannot make a living out of it. At a senior level it's hard to find someone who could replace Anand.
"At the grassroots, progress is great but progress at the top is not."
-------------------------------------------------

How do you track a wolf pack?

By Matt Bardo Reporter, BBC Nature

When a team of wildlife experts set out to film the return of wolves to the north west of the US, they first had to find the pack. So how did they track down these elusive creatures?

"When you see a wolf track there's no mistaking it. It's just like bam, now that's a wolf track," said biologist and wolf-tracker Isaac Babcock.
He was working in the Cascade range of mountains with conservationist Jasmine Minbashian and wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan, following the fortunes of the Lookout pack, for a BBC and Discovery Channel co-production.
The Lookout pack recolonised the land after moving south from a grey wolf stronghold in Canada, and were the first breeding pack of wolves in the mountains for more than 70 years.

You're just talking about a needle in a haystack and the haystack is enormous and the needle constantly moves around”

Gordon Buchanan Wildlife cameraman

For 20 of those, Jasmine has been working in wildlife conservation. "It has been that long that I've been hoping that wolves would return to the Cascade mountains, and sure enough they did," she said.

The mountains were a longstanding home to generations of the species until they were wiped out by settlers and hunters.
For the team to film their comeback, they had to track them down - and that was not easy, said Gordon Buchanan.
"You're just talking about a needle in a haystack and the haystack is enormous and the needle constantly moves around," he said.
Human settlements in North America have driven wolves away, with some packs being hunted to the brink of extermination.
But their scarcity makes sightings memorable for local residents and scientists - good leads for a wolf-tracker.

Call of the wild:

• A wolf howl can resonate over six miles.
• The low pitch and long duration of a howl is well suited for long distance communication in forest and across tundra.
• A lone wolf howls to attract the attention of its pack, while communal howling can act as a warning to rival packs to stay away.
• Wolves may simply howl to join in with other wolves.
• Wolves are able to recognise each other through the unique features of an individual's call.

"You're like a detective. You try and get all the evidence you can so the combination of tracks and howls and scat and reports...[and you] gather citizen information and that can also be really helpful in locating wolves and their packs," said Jasmine Minbashian.

The trademark sound of a nearby wolf is their howl. Apart from humans, wolves used to have the largest natural distribution of any mammal and they use their howl to assemble the pack and communicate across their massive territories.
But they also respond to an impersonated wolf howl, emanating from a human tracker. Isaac said wolves were "very forgiving" and that the impression did not need to be perfect.
"When you first get a response it's just magic. You think wow, here they are, I want to keep talking to them, I want to keep howling." But it is a technique to be used sparingly.
"When you're howling you're telling them something and we don't know exactly what," he said.
Wolves communicate in sophisticated ways. Using a combination of growls, barks, whines and howls allows them to convey information, for example when hunting.
This sort of pack behaviour is key to the success of a hunt because it enables the wolves to take down animals much bigger and stronger than a single wolf could manage.
Ungulates, such as deer, are the favoured prey of grey wolves in the Cascades. But where they cannot access their primary diet, wolves are highly adaptable and will eat smaller mammals, waterfowl and fish.
The same characteristics that make wolves such excellent hunters and scavengers, are also what make tracking the pack such a daunting task.

Wolf-tracker Isaac Babcock howls into the undergrowth to find out if there are any wolves nearby

Wolves can smell humans from over a mile away and hear them from even further away than that.
"The main problem is they just cover so much ground. They can run 25km in a single night," said Gordon.
That means before long "the trail runs cold and you have to start all over again".
A wolf pack is a family group with a mated pair at its centre. The alpha male and female are usually the oldest members of the pack and make the key decisions about when to hunt and where to go.
New packs are most commonly formed when junior males move into a vacant territory and find a mate.
The source population behind the Lookout pack live in British Colombia. The move to new territory was not carried out by conservationists - the wolves made their way south on their own.
But the team were reminded why wolves have struggled to maintain a presence in the area when they learned that 10 of the 12 members of the Lookout pack had been hunted down and killed.
The loss of the pack left Gordon searching for their ancestors to the north, while Isaac and Jasmine followed a tip-off from scientists to the south where DNA tests on a captured female showed that she was descended from the Lookout pack. The wolf was fitted with a radio collar and released in the hope that she would lead researchers to her pack.
To maximise the chance of getting pictures of the wolf population, Gordon used motion-sensitive camera traps throughout the trip. He also sprinkled wolf urine on the trees to lure them in.
"It seems ...[like] really clutching at straws when you start sort of anointing branches with the urine of another wolf but it does work," he said.
"Their sense of smell is highly developed and that's really how they navigate their landscape, through smell. So if they smell another dog, or another canine or another wolf, they're curious, they'll come check it out so that really improves your chance of getting a camera image," Jasmine said.

Find out more

Land of the Lost Wolves is on BBC One at 21:00 BST on Thursday 5 April

To see a wolf in the wild, the best bet may be to find a site they return to and stake it out. Den and rendezvous sites are where some of the most intimate moments in the life of a wolf pack happen.

Female wolves build their dens during summer and make use of small openings in rocks or gaps behind thick vegetation. Wolves sometimes adapt a den from the stolen burrow of another, smaller animal. Unless the den is disturbed or collapses, wolves will continue to use the same site for many years, even passing it on to successive generations.
Rendezvous sites can often be found near the den and are used in the summer months once the pups have outgrown the den but before they are big enough to keep up with the pace on a hunt.
The sites are a bit like a pre-school for pups, Jasmine said.
"It's close to the den, it's somewhere where they have safety and can be looked after, maybe by another member of the pack while the other members go off hunting."
In the autumn once the pups are big enough, the sites are abandoned.
It is difficult to know exactly where an active rendezvous site is going to be.

US wolves:

• Wolves were North America's top predator for thousands of years, ranging from the Arctic to Mexico.
• European settlers in the United States exterminated the animals from almost every part of their range during the 19th and early 20th Centuries.
• Washington's "Lookout pack" - which appeared in 2008 - were the first confirmed wolf pack to return to the state in 70 years.
• At present Washington has five known wolf packs.

They tend to be open grassy areas with a ready supply of water nearby and plenty of tree cover in which to hide. Trackers like Isaac know one when they see one.

It was at one of these sites that Isaac made an exciting discovery. Further south in the Cascades than wolves had been for over a century, searching for the radio-collared female, he came across the young descendants of the Lookout pack.
The pups he filmed at the rendezvous site prove that a breeding pack has established itself in the Cascade range.
Isaac said he believed that watching wolves at such sites had the power to change the way the species was viewed.
"It wasn't until I started tracking them, and especially around rendezvous sites, where I suddenly found that I could kind of sit back and hide and watch them a little bit and see this part of the wolf's life that I wasn't that familiar with before.
"I kind-of discovered that they are just extremely social family animals."
The BBC and Discovery Channel co-production Land of the Lost Wolves is on BBC One at 21:00 on Thursday 5 April and will be on Discovery in the US at a future date.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Time running out for Moken way of life

A tragedy is unfolding off the coast of Thailand's sparsely populated Ranong province, but there are attempts to help the marginalised sea gypsies avoid doom and salvage something of their unique culture

• Published: 13/05/2012 at 03:09 AM
• Newspaper section: Spectrum

Village elder and midwife Liya Pramongkit, skin brown and furrowed as a walnut, spent her early life living as a nomad aboard handcrafted wooden boats called kabang. They were fashioned from giant rainforest logs; planking held together with vines.

Moken elder and midwife Liya Pramongkit recalls the former ancient way of life on the sea in the small kabang boats.

The kabang symbolised the human form and elements of the boat were named after body parts such as the stomach and ribs. All around them were the spirits of the sea. Whole families once lived on kabang, often for months at a time. A thatched roof would provide only partial protection from the weather.
Ms Liya still sings a fittingly haunting Moken lullaby about a hungry child. So many Moken children have gone hungry, not least in recent years, as their parents' subsistence way of life has ebbed away.
There was the devastating 2004 tsunami, greater enforcement of the arbitrary maritime Myanmar "border" with Thailand and the commercial depletion of marine life. Many children have died from malnutrition and disease.
If there are sea spirits watching over the Moken, they must be weeping.

WRECK OF THE PAST: An old ‘kabang’ boat lies rotting on a Koh Lau beach. There are plans to bring back old men who can still build these vessels and even larger versions of them.

"All the children you see around here, I helped their mothers give birth," says Ms Liya, who thinks she is in her late sixties.
"If they study, they will be good people in the future. Moken children before did not go to school. And girls still often start having babies when they are aged only 12 or 13. A lot of the women here look older than they are."
Ms Liya had six children, but three died between the ages of 10 and 12 without diagnosis or treatment.
Her Moken clan is one of the few related sea gypsy groups scattered in Thai territory to retain much of their mother tongue. Age-old traditions, though, are floundering.
Rather than criss-crossing the Andaman Sea, navigating by the stars and a knowledge of currents, this group of several hundred Moken cling like barnacles to the small island of Koh Lao, despite their lack of Thai citizenship.
The forested island is 40 minutes by motorboat from the port of Ranong, where the labour force is overwhelmingly comprised of workers from Myanmar.
On Ranong's picturesque wharf, large though still rustic-looking, commercial fishing vessels are provisioned for voyages to as far away as India. These days, Moken men help crew these boats, their own small wooden vessels destroyed by the 2004 tsunami. Many men are away now, but monsoonal weather will soon force most of them home.
Women sit under shanty houses on stilts, playing cards; gambling; some drinking heavily. Dogs abound. Between rows of ramshackle houses, there is a fetid miasma of plastic bags and other rubbish. There was little rubbish to dispose of when people were living according to traditional ways and and new practices in a sedentary alien environment are hard to grasp.

READY TO BLOW: Elder and expert ‘explosives’ fisherman known as Uncle Sri-dhit on Koh Lau. PHOTO: LINDSAY MURDOCH

When the sea "went out" suddenly at Koh Lao and elsewhere in the region on Dec 26, 2004, old Moken knew what was coming. They headed for the hills and survived.
On some of the bigger tourist islands, there were documented cases of sea gypsies warning Thais and foreigners that a tsunami was coming. That brought a certain amount of interest and sympathy from outsiders, but curiosity about the profound links between the Moken and their saltwater domain soon faded.
The tsunami did more than destroy Moken boats. Christian groups came in search of converts among a people previously ignored. There are tales of missionaries telling Moken they would have to "pray to God" to receive clothes, boats and food.
The Moken elders of Koh Lao were relieved when the Catholic Mercy Centre from Bangkok's Klong Toey slums, headed by Father Joe Maier, arrived four years ago and took a more culturally sensitive approach while providing a makeshift school, healthier food and assistance with medical care.
"There is always tomorrow, isn't there?" Fr Maier said. "If we can keep the language alive and the culture alive and their great belief in the spirits of the sea, and their great respect for the oceans, then there is hope."
In the village, there is a modest general store run by a Thai woman, Nawanit Jampit, 47, a Koh Lao native.
She complains that much post-tsunami official assistance was inappropriate or marred by corruption.
Moken said steel hulled boats given to them could not be taken out to sea and promptly sold them. Funding arrangements just resulted in more low-standard housing.
"Sometimes the government assist Moken, but what they give melts like ice-cream in the sun," she said. "Those giving the aid just take pictures so they can put them on their websites."
Some NGOs had done the same thing. Mrs Nawanit did a drawing of a person representing certain NGOs with a fishing line and a Moken figure on the hook as bait to attract donors.

NO ROOM TO MOVE: A Moken fisherman and elder on Koh Lau looks out onto a world in which his culture is being threatened by the forces swirling around it. PHOTO: CRAIG SKEHAN

She believes that education could give children a weapon to defend their interests in wider Thai society.
"Uncle" Sri-dhit does not look like a master bomber. But visitors are assured that he is an expert at rigging explosive charges. Bare chested and grey haired, but lithe and muscular for an elderly man, you may want to avoid Uncle Sri-dhit during one of his regular drinking bouts. However, he is widely known for having a deep understanding of the Andaman Sea and its ways. Life has been hard. One of the seaman's sons was left crippled by severe decompression sickness, a curse among the remaining Moken deep divers.
In Ranong, with its Tesco shopping complex, omnipresent ATMs, plush hotels and discos, as well the grime of a working port and smuggling centre, fortunes are made in the big business of seafood.
From jellyfish to squid and crustaceans, it is a trade that flourishes. The delicious produce can turn up in Taiwan, Korea, Singapore or Hong Kong in up-market restaurants charging what for the Moken would represent earnings from many gruelling weeks at sea. Some scoff at perceived Moken backwardness, but they are more than happy to squeeze a tidy profit from the sea gypsies.
Chinese, Thai and Indian entrepreneurs are known to directly finance environmentally damaging Moken explosive fishing. Coral reefs that have long sustained the Moken are destroyed in the process. Even the money the Moken do get is not always wisely spent. Much of their modest pay can quickly be blown on drink and gambling rather than supporting their families.
As well as fishing with explosives there is deep-diving for sea cucumbers, also known as trepang, in various locations when the water is clear. This involves pumping air down a rubber hose to the face mask of a diver on the sea floor. This has been going on recently on reefs around another island, Koh Tao. While some divers drown, others get the decompression sickness and are permanently disabled _ the fate that befell Uncle Sri-dhit's luckless son.
Then there are the injuries and deaths from the explosions and Moken from Koh Lao have been jailed for up to two years at a time, including for alleged explosive fishing in Myanmar territory.
Others are detained just for being suspected "Thai" Moken.
There have been reports of Myanmar soldiers cutting hoses while divers are on the sea floor or shooting Moken regarded as interlopers. Sometimes the Moken of Koh Lao take women and children with them fishing in Myanmar waters so they can pass as members of local Moken communities over the border who are officially called various permutations of the word Salon. The creation of marine parks and areas reserved for tourism on both sides of the border also contributes to the erosion of the Moken way of life.
Around Southeast Asia _ including Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines _ there are tens of thousands of people going by tags such as Badjau or Orang Laot, widely characterised by the generic term ''sea gypsies''. While there are similarities of lifestyle, there are wide gaps in language and ethnicity.
Sea gypsies are generally seen as coming from Malaysia after originally leaving mainland China thousands of years ago. The loss of a cultural foundation is a common problem throughout disparate sea gypsy communities. Pockets remain where more, rather than less, of the old practices are retained, notably in parts of the Mergui Archipelago extending through Myanmar waters. And therein lies cause for a little optimism.
''We are going to do it,'' said Fr Maier. ''We are going to help them build new kabang boats so young folk can learn about the old ways.''
And, says Ms Liya, ''The Moken in Myanmar can still build kabang. We would like them to come here to teach us how to make them again so we can take the young kids on them into the sea.''
A cultural revival could help stem the sort of social problems evidenced by an incident during Fr Maier's recent visit to Koh Lao.
Villagers carried a heavily inebriated, stocky young woman with bruising and a serious cut just below one eye into the Mercy Centre-run schoolroom. There had been an altercation involving her ex-husband's new wife.
Tensions seemed to have been building for some time. The injured woman had just visited one of her seriously ill children in a Ranong hospital. ''She was beaten with a tree branch,'' an onlooker at the school said.
Others said violence was a serious problem in the village and that alcohol was typically a factor. Broken glass from hurled empty beer and spirits bottles along the rocky shoreline starkly underscores the extent of the problem.
But young women digging for shellfish at twilight at low tide shows a happier, gentler side of the Moken.
There is a small island near Koh Lao where Moken from the area have long buried their dead.
''Now it is full and we bury our dead near the school,'' one Moken elder said.
Time-honoured resourcefulness and survival skills have so far managed to keep these Moken from cultural extinction. Portents, though, are not good. Moken children were once renowned for their ability to see underwater without wearing a mask, able to spot and catch even tiny marine creatures. They can still do that in some places, but such skills are dwindling.
Adult men, in turn, were held in awe for being able to stride along the seabed without weights for several minutes, underwater hunters with homemade spear-guns.
So, it is a great irony that outside volunteers are now helping to teach some of the Moken children on Koh Lao how to swim.
''We need people to explain and give knowledge about the traditions,'' says Ms Liya. ''Even though I don't know so much about many of the very old stories, I can remember it is important to give respect to grandparents and to get permission before ever stepping onto a another person's boat.''
She mourned the loss of powerful spirit masters. ''We don't have shamans any more,'' she whispered.

WHO NEEDS A ROD?: A Moken boy shows off his catch in the coastal waters off Koh Lau near Rayong. PHOTO: BKK POST ARCHIVE

Koh Lau's 'teacher' fights ignorance, poor hygiene to help children
The woman known as "the teacher" on Koh Lau is Phakaporn Kamlungshue, aged 40, from Bangkok's Catholic Mercy Centre. She has been on the island for four years and is widely respected and admired. This is what Ms Phakaporn has to say about her time there:
"The Moken children did not get vaccines and when I came here and they were very malnourished. They just drank canned condensed milk, not proper formula. Many still have weak immune systems and sometimes the mothers don't take care of themselves when they are pregnant.
"In the first year I was here, every month about three children died [mostly] because of diarrhoea. Much of the water here, including the underground water, is not safe. To change things we have to teach the children about hygiene. Most people here don't know about disease and why they die. But now [fewer] children are dying because they have food, medicine and greater access to clean water."
Every few months the children are given medicine for intestinal worms. Staff, though, still regularly extract worms from students and toddlers, the parasites smaller these days than the one-metre monsters encountered previously. The normal diet had been too heavily weighted to raw shellfish. Now a free lunch is provided at the school including meat, fresh vegetables and fruit. Leftovers are sent home with the kids.
"When we came, there was a big problem with malaria," Ms Phakaporn said. "Right now one child has dengue. We are taking this child to a hospital in Rayong."

FISHY FUTURE: These Moken boys from Koh Lau are destined to spend much of their lives aboard commercial fishing boats such as the one here. PHOTOS: CRAIG SKEHAN

Moken children with Father Joe Maier and a Thai teacher at a school funded by the Mercy Centre

Ecuador seeks answer to riddle of Inca emperor's tomb

By Irene Caselli Malqui-Machay, Ecuador

Does the final resting place of Inca Emperor Atahualpa lie here?

The mystery surrounding the tomb of the last Inca emperor - and its reputed treasure - might be closer to being solved.

If Ecuadorean historian Tamara Estupinan is right, Emperor Atahualpa's mummified body was kept in the lush, hilly lowlands, a six-hour drive south-west of Ecuador's capital city, Quito.
While it is still too early to confirm Ms Estupinan's theory, this discovery could shed light on a tumultuous historical period that marked the beginning of the Spanish colonial era in the Americas.
At its height, in the early 1500s, the Inca empire covered most of the Andes, from southern Colombia to central Chile as well as some parts of Argentina.
Inca emperors were mummified because it was believed that their powers remained within their bodies, which were guarded by guards and family members.
Atahualpa governed out of Quito during a civil war against his brother, who was based in Cusco, the seat of the Inca empire.

Some 40 years after the death of Atahualpa the Inca empire had fallen

Shortly after defeating his brother, Atahualpa was captured by Spanish troops under Francisco Pizarro.
It is believed that Atahualpa offered to fill a large room with gold and silver in exchange for his life. The offer did not work - he was executed in 1533.
End of an era The Inca empire began to fall apart after his death, leaving only pockets of resistance against the Spanish conquerors.
Archaeologists and historians have questioned whether his body remained in Cajamarca, the city in northern Peru where he died. No tomb was ever found.

“Start Quote

We have been sleeping with history”

Jorge Yarad Site owner

But Ms Estupinan, a researcher at the French Institute for Andean Studies (IFEA), says historical texts contain clues that indicate that the Inca emperor's final resting place was in what is now Ecuadorean territory.

The historian's work focused on Ruminahui, one of Atahualpa's most loyal generals who led a revolt against the Spanish conquerors after the emperor's death.
During her research, which lasted more than a decade, Ms Estupinan came across evidence that suggested that the Sigchos area in Ecuador's Andes became a base for Ruminahui and his men.
She started looking for locations whose names were connected to sacred rituals.
In 2004 she came across a small farm named Malqui - a word that means "mummy" in Quechua, the language spoken by the Incas.

The shape of the stones suggest a link with the Inca tradition

Polished stone walls and a subterranean water canal indicated the Inca origin of the site.
Six years later, Ms Estupinan led a new expedition some 4km (2.5 miles) from Malqui.
"When we arrived here, I could not believe it," said Ms Estupinan during a recent visit to the site, known as Machay (a Quechua word meaning burial).
A trapezoidal enclosure leading to rectangular rooms that were built with cut polished stone led Ms Estupinan to think that she had reached an Inca monument. The presence of trapezoidal underground water canals served as confirmation.
"I started running around," she says. "It was extremely exciting."
Ms Estupinan believes Malqui and Machay were part of an Inca settlement set up to hide Atahualpa's mummy and his possessions, which were traditionally buried with the emperor, from the Spanish conquistadors.
Machay is aligned with other sacred Inca sites, such as the Quilotoa lagoon, and is surrounded by the Machay River. Running water was important in sacred Inca places.
The site is 1km (3,280ft) above sea level, in the sub-tropical lowlands on the western slopes of the Andes.
Given the humidity, it is unlikely that remains of the mummy could be found intact almost 500 years later.
Excavation works are expected to start in June, partly financed by Ecuador's government, which plans to invest $97,500 (£60,000) in marking and protecting the site.

Historian Tamara Estupinan has been piecing together the evidence

"For now the government cannot yet say whether this is Atahualpa's grave," said Joaquin Moscoso, of the Heritage Ministry.
"If the historian's hypothesis is confirmed, we would be facing one of the largest and most unusual discoveries of the past decades."
Treasure trove 'unlikely' Unlike in Peru, where much attention goes to Inca sites, such as world renowned Machu Picchu, Ecuador's archaeological ruins attract a limited number of tourists, and government spending is limited.
So far a police officer has been deployed to protect Machay from possible looters attracted by the legend of Atahualpa's treasure.
According to Ms Estupinan, it is unlikely that riches would be found.
"For the Incas, the real treasure was the mummy itself," she says.
Ms Estupinan also stresses that more attention should be placed on the site's conservation.
Pictures of Machay from the 1960s show clear deterioration of several walls.
The site was used to raise fighting cocks and to farm fish.

Machu Picchu, rediscovered in 1910, is now one of the "new" wonders of the world

This year's heavy rains have taken their toll, with the destruction of a large portion of a wall, says Ms Estupinan.
Francisco Moncayo, who owns the Machay site, says he is waiting for money from the municipality to help him keep the place in order.
He says the cost of maintaining the site runs to $3,000 (£1,800) a year.
Jorge Yarad, one of two owners at Malqui, says he feels honoured to be in an Inca site, but he is worried about looters.
"It is a great responsibility," he says.
Mr Yarad hopes the government will be able to buy the land to build an archaeological site that would become world renowned.
"We have been sleeping with history," says Mr Yarad. "And only now are we waking up."
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1923 Leica camera fetches 2.16 million euros at auction

• Olivia Coeln, daughter of the owner …

A Leica camera prototype made in 1923 fetched 2.16 million euros ($2.79 million) at auction on Saturday, setting a new world record for a camera.

The camera, an exemplar of the pre-production Leica 0-Series, had been expected to go for between 600,000 and 800,000 euros and bidding started at 300,000 euros at the Galerie Westlicht in Vienna.

The hammer fell at 1.8 million euros, and the final price with tax was 2.16 million euros. The buyer chose to remain anonymous.
Only 25 pre-production O-Series were made to test the market for 35mm cameras before full production began in 1925, and just 12 are known still to exist.
The prices such cameras fetch are a barometer of the growing interest for early photographic materials.

The previous record set last year, also for an O-Series, was 1.32 million euros, more than 800,000 euros below the new record, while in 2007 the first such camera to be auctioned fetched just 336,000 euros.

In a sign that old photographs are also much in demand, a 1855 daguerreotype by French photographer Jean-Baptiste Louis Gros showing a Paris fountain sold for 228,000 euros, while a 1954 photograph from the Studio Visages/Raymond Fabre showing Spanish painter Pablo Picasso went for 24,000 euros.

Three landscape photographs by US photographer Ansel Adams were sold at prices ranging from 21,600 to 33,600 euros.