Burma is becoming ever more baffling. Its decision to bite the usually friendly hand of Beijing by ditching plans to construct a massive dam flies in the face of everything the ruling elite had stood for in recent decades.

The Sunday Bangkok Post best summed up the prevailing mood at the weekend, writing: ‘It’s hard to tell what exactly is happening with our neighbours at the moment – and academics, journalists and professional Burma watchers seem just as bamboozled as the rest of us. Are we seeing real change under the newly “elected” civilian government, or is it the old wolf slipping seamlessly into sheep’s clothing?’

To be fair to Burma’s leadership, President Thein Sein has pushed his country in directions few would have thought possible prior to last November’s poll, which was widely condemned as a sham in the West.

Much has been made in recent years of the potential of microloans and the positive impact they can have on the economies of Southeast Asia. For example, The Diplomat ran a story a few months back on Indonesia, a country suffering from staggering levels of unemployment among its young people, a group that often has difficulty in obtaining the necessary capital to build and expand small businesses.

Certainly, there are plenty of positives associated with microfinance, despite the growing shadow over the industry over the past year. Microfinance promotes social mobility and gives even the poorest of individuals a small chance to break out of the cycle of poverty. In addition, the payback rate of the loans is remarkably high.

Still, it would be naive to believe that the reason for the boom in the industry is based solely on altruistic objectives – lending institutions have cashed in on microloans. The primary reason for the high payback rates is because private lenders usually step in to prevent the borrower from defaulting with microfinance institutions directly. This is an under-reported phenomenon, but was the subject of an article on microfinance in Cambodia in the Asia Sentinel. The article noted:

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Eleven years ago, I took a boat ride from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh. Hot and stifling inside, the rear of the boat was uncovered and afforded a strong breeze and extraordinary views of the Tonle Sap amid the biggest flood on record. The water line stretched beyond the horizon. Never had so much water been seen there. In the capital, where the Tonle Sap and Mekong rivers merge, their banks were near bursting and the big fear was the city’s dilapidated water works and sewerage pipes would back-up as the city submerged.

That didn’t happen. But slightly more than a decade later, and floods across Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam have again struck the levels reached in 2000 – and they deserve far more attention than they are getting with hundreds of people killed so far.

A decision by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to repeal controversial laws that significantly curtail civil liberties has been greeted with both relief and cynicism among members of the public.

Under Najib’s proposals, the widely detested Emergency Ordinance and the Internal Security Act (ISA) will be abolished. The 51-year-old law was initially designed to combat a communist insurgency and, more recently, to detain terrorism suspects. However, thousands of people have been detained under the act, whose mandate critics say has stretched to include those simply critical of the government.

Najib’s administration will also amend publishing laws that require newspapers and other media outlets to seek a license that must be renewed annually. Critics argue the renewal requirement has stifled the media's independence in Malaysia, although such restrictions have given rise to a thriving online publishing industry.

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According to human rights group Licadho, prison occupancy in Cambodia is alarmingly close to 180 percent, making the country’s prison system among the 25 most overcrowded in the world. The group warned that if reforms aren’t immediately implemented to curb the prison population boom, Cambodia’s prison system could end up being the most overcrowded in the world as soon as 2019.

Licadho said that as of April this year, Cambodia's total prison population stood at 15,001, which was a 12.6 percent increase compared with last year. The records of Cambodia’s General Department of Prisons showed that they processed 6,836 new admissions last year, which represented almost half the prison population.

Seven years ago, Licadho notified authorities that the 18 prisons monitored by the group were already filled to capacity and called for drastic judicial reforms to reduce the number of inmates in dilapidated prison cells. But it seems their petition went unheeded because the number of prisoners has continued to rise, despite the absence of programmes to expand and improve the country’s prison facilities.