Around Asia: Facebook bans, student gang rapes and DVD raids

• Southeast Asian pact exposes rifts [NY Times]
  Southeast Asian leaders signed a charter here today that was drafted as a watershed document to bind the region together as a European-style economic community but has instead exposed the sharp divisions over Myanmar and other issues among the signatories.
• Malaysia busts DVD lab in its biggest raid in 2007 [Reuters]
  Malaysia has raided a laboratory capable of churning out $52 million worth of pirated DVDs a year in the nation's biggest such raid this year, a group representing major U.S. studios said on Tuesday.
• Courts give Thai teachers 50 years for student gang rapes [AFP]
  Two Thai teachers were each sentenced to 50 years in prison Tuesday for gang raping six of their students, who were as young as six years old, court officials said.
• Facebook is now banned in both Iran and Syria. [Global Voices]
• Neighbors catch Japanese baby thrown from third floor [Asian Offbeat]
  A Japanese baby girl escaped injuries in a fire that broke out here Monday after her parents tossed her from the third story of a burning home to residents below, moments before jumping to safety themselves.
• Relief begins to reach victims of Bangladesh cyclone [Channel News Asia]
  Urgently-needed supplies of food, water and medicine were Tuesday nearing people in remote areas of Bangladesh where a devastating cyclone has left millions homeless and thousands dead.

Photo from dc_cowgirl