Asia’s key annual security meeting opens this week amid the backdrop of North Korea’s nuclear threat and increasing regional frustration over Myanmar’s failure to restore democracy.

Poverty, profits and old farming traditions combined to spark massive Indonesian fires that have choked parts of Malaysia, in what officials describe as Southeast Asia’s worst ecological crisis in years.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has urged Myanmar’s military government to free pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a rare intrusion into the internal affairs of one of its members.

MYANMAR’S military government yesterday said detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi had not been harmed in last week’s clashes between her supporters and pro-government groups, rejecting rumours she had been injured.