WASHINGTON / AFP President Barack Obama lifted US economic sanctions on the former pariah state of Myanmar, the culmination of years of rapprochement that Obama has worked to facilitate. The Southeast Asian nation, also known as Burma, has pursued political reforms over the last five years following decades of oppressive military rule. Obama had announced plans to lift the …

  Bloomberg The Philippines’ new government plans to court Chinese investment to fund an ambitious infrastructure programme, the latest sign of warming ties between the two nations that have been at loggerheads over territorial claims in the South China Sea. “The last administration hardly spoke to them,” Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said in an interview in the World Bank’s headquarters …

  Hanoi / AFP A Vietnamese court has rejected hundreds of lawsuits filed by fishermen who demanded more compensation from a Taiwanese-owned steel plant responsible for a devastating toxic leak, a leading activist said on Saturday. In a rare case of civic action in authoritarian Vietnam, crowds of fishermen swamped a court house last month to file 506 lawsuits against …