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Friday, September 18, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
BURMA: Rights Record Grim, Says UN Envoy
As he bade goodbye to Burma, the United Nations envoy appointed to investigate human rights abuses in that military-ruled country evoked an image of a people trapped in a nightmare of Orwellian proportions.POLITICS-ASIA: People Power Fizzling Out?
She was pregnant with her first child, and a woman on the run. She was on a ''wanted list'' for her human rights campaigns. She had little choice but to go ''underground'' to escape the brutal clutches of the dictatorship.THAILAND: ‘Clean Coal’ Meet Under Dirty Smokestacks
For Maliwan Naaviroj, coal is anything but a clean source of energy. As a resident of Thailand's northern Lampang province and a victim of the toxic pollutants that spew forth from the coal-fired Mae Moh power plant, she can say this with authority.CAMBODIA: Major Political Reform on the Cards
The return of Cambodia's opposition leader, after a year of self-imposed exile in France, is setting the tone for a new and possibly less acrimonious political culture in the months ahead.HEALTH: Lifestyle Diseases Overtake Asia’s Infectious Killers
Mounting evidence that more people in Asia and the Pacific will be dying of chronic diseases rather than infectious ones by 2015 will force the region's governments to redraw their public health budgets, say United Nations officials.ENVIRONMENT: Irrawady Dolphins Bowing Out
You can see them entertaining crowds at dolphin shows in theme parks or, even better, these friendly mammals can be glimpsed cavorting in their home waters, the Mekong River.ASIA: Bleak Future Awaits ‘Stateless’ Children
While in South-east Asia's capitals there is talk of regional integration and easier movement of people within the region, the border towns are home to thousands of stateless children with little expectation from such stirrings of regional solidarity.POLITICS-THAILAND: Thaksin Not Buddhist Enough Say Critics
He may have enough votes to back his claim to be the legitimately elected head of government, but beleaguered Thai Prime Miniser Thaksin Shinawatra is now being charged by his critics with lacking in qualities that befit a Buddhist leader.POLITICS-THAILAND: Thaksin Gov’t in Trouble Over Ethics
A year after his government was re-elected to power with an unprecedented mandate, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is facing a political storm that has the potential of bringing his administration down.BURMA: Karens Isolated but Fight for Autonomy Stays
An anniversary marked along the remote Thai-Burmese border should offer little comfort to rebel groups who settle for the long haul to achieve their political ends. They are ignored by the international community and only appear as a blip on the world media's radar.THAILAND: Free Trade With US Will Hurt Health Care
Will the hands that save the lives of Thailand's sick be tied once a free trade deal between this country and the United States is signed, later this year?SRI LANKA: Peace Hinges on Talks With Tamil Rebels in Geneva
Another February promises a period of hope for Sri Lankans struggling to reclaim normalcy after over 20 years of civil war. This time, government negotiators and Tamil Tiger rebels are to meet in Geneva to help breathe life into a faltering ceasefire agreement.SRI LANKA: World’s Patience with Tamil Tigers Ebbs
A reluctance to eschew violence and a failure to grasp prevailing political currents have earned Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels a place in the world's doghouse, rather than be accorded international legitimacy. Nothing conveys this better than a harsh statement this week, by a senior U.S. government official about where the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), as the rebels are formally known, stand in the eyes of the world's sole superpower.CAMBODIA: Hun Sen, Still the ‘Political Thug’
To many, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen comes across as a man in a hurry to prove his critics right, when they refer to him as a ‘political thug'.ECONOMY: Thai Farmers Fear Free Trade Deal With US
When United States negotiators fly into Thailand to thrash out a bilateral free trade deal next week, they will be greeted with jeers rather than this country's famed smile of welcome.ECONOMY: Thai Farmers Fear Free Trade Deal With US
When United States negotiators fly into Thailand to thrash out a bilateral free trade deal, next week, they will be greeted with jeers rather than this country's famed smile of welcome.RIGHTS: Justice Can End Thailand’s ‘Dirty War’ in Muslim Areas
Human rights activists are calling on the Thai government to place more faith in justice to end what is shaping out to be a ‘dirty war' in the Buddhist country's Muslim-dominated, southern provinces along the Malaysian border.RIGHTS: Khmer Rouge Trials, a Test for Cambodian Judiciary
The credibility of Cambodia's judiciary will come under international scrutiny in 2006 as plans to set up a special tribunal to prosecute the surviving members of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime gather pace.THAILAND: Grudging Flood Relief Further Alienates Muslim Areas
Lukewarm efforts by the Thai government to get relief to predominantly Malay-Muslim provinces in the south, badly hit by recent rain and floods, may obstruct efforts to find a solution to escalating insurgency in the area.TSUNAMI IMPACT: Tourists Return to Thai Coasts, in Remembrance
Antonio Da Mata Coelho was among the hundreds of foreigners who flew into southern Thailand over the weekend to be part of a pilgrimage to mark a year since last December's Asian tsunami.TSUNAMI IMPACT: Child Survivors Carry Scars
Her drawings of the sea offer a window into the mind of a nine-year-old child whose life was shattered when the Asian tsunami flattened her coastal village on the morning after Christmas Day, last year.« Previous Page — Next Page »
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