DEVELOPMENT: Don’t Let Tsunami Wash Out Millennium Goals – U.N.

Although small, Singapore's response to aid fellow South-east Asian neighbour Indonesia in the aftermath of the devastating tsunami is being hailed by a regional development expert as a pivotal step in the global race to rid the world of poverty.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Conference Reminds World of Lessons to be Learnt

While the occurrence of natural events is largely beyond human control, the consequences are not. And this was the message brought forth at the opening of an international conference on natural disasters with a global reminder to heed the lessons of last month's tsunami that killed over 160,000 in South and South-east Asia.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: The Sea Siren Beckons But Fishermen Only Hear Death

The fishing folk on the coast of Tamil Nadu in southern India are among the most hardened traditional sea-faring communities anywhere in the world, with centuries old respect and reverence for the oceans.

TSUNMAI IMPACT: Comforting Letters to Help Aceh Children

The best form of therapy for children, is sometimes words of comfort from other children. With that in mind, the Indonesian government will soon request all elementary students throughout the country and other nations to write letters to traumatised Acehnese children to help them cope with tragic memories of the Dec. 26 tsunami.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Corruption Threatens Quality of Indian Mercy

India is a country notorious for middlemen who specialise in siphoning away development funds. And voluntary agencies are struggling to ensure that the deluge of monetary aid pouring in for the survivors of the Asian tsunami actually reach the ones most in need.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Politics of Aid Affects Tamils

Political cleavage around the question of aid is threatening to erode the peace dividend that emerged between the rebel Tamil Tigers and the government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga in the immediate wake of the tsunami tragedy.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Ranks of the New Poor Swell

Philip De Vota has joined the ranks of Sri Lanka's poor for the first time in his 54 years. This reality since the day after Christmas last month gnaws at him, leaving him ''depressed''.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Thai Compassion for Burmese Migrants Wears Thin

Underpaid and exploited, Burmese migrant workers are often the hidden face of Thailand. When a killer tsunami lashed the western Andaman Sea coastline of Thailand on Dec. 26, it came as no surprise to Burmese activists that none of the local authorities bothered to account for the bodies of these workers washed up on beaches.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Deluge of Unfocussed Kindness Can ‘Kill’ – Experts

There is a risk that with direct aid, donor nations might run the risk of 'killing' the already fragile tsunami-affected countries with too much kindness. Because of this, Japanese experts want the aid money committed by Japan, to the devastated countries, to be spent wisely.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Narrow Minded Nationalism in Aceh Aid

It began quite mysteriously through mobile phone text messages just days after the Dec. 26 undersea quake and resultant killer waves flattened the province of Aceh in northern Sumatra, killing over 100,000 people.

/ARTS WEEKLY/MUSIC-HONG KONG: Hardcore, Wild and Socially Conscious

King Lychee's music is not for the faint-hearted. This is hardcore punk angry screaming with earsplitting guitar screeches and super fast pounding drum beats coupled with wild stage antics - the kind of stuff rightist Christian fundamentalists would term 'devil' music.

TSUNAMI-IMPACT: Natural Disasters May Yet Flush Out Caste Feelings

India's rigid social divisions based on caste may have taken a knock as a result of intervention by voluntary agencies involved in relief work in areas hit by the Dec. 26 Indian Ocean tsunami which left over 10,000 dead and at least 600,000 either homeless or destitute on the coast of southern Tamil Nadu state.

CHINA-BURMA: At the Border, Sex Workers Take a Gamble

It is a cold winter's night, but the women are out walking in this frontier town in south- western China, near the border with Burma.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: In Tamil Nadu, Ask for Bread and Get a Bakery

An outpouring of national and global sympathy, which has produced an unprecedented inflow of funds and emergency relief supplies to help affected populations in the tsunami- struck southern Indian province of Tamil Nadu, might all go to waste due to the inexperience of local groups in dealing with post-disaster situations.

HEALTH-PHILIPPINES: Doctors Ditching Profession to be Nurses

''Why can't we be called heroes too?" Dr Ramon Santos (not his real name) asked, wondering why this label often used to describe Filipino overseas contract workers in Hong Kong and the Middle East are not being applied to doctors-turned-nurses like him. "They call us selfish, unpatriotic, greedy."

TSUNAMI IMPACT: For Sri Lankans, Return to Coastal Homes Is Hard

Some two weeks after the devastating tsunami that hit countries around the Indian Ocean, the Kalmunai beach in eastern Sri Lanka looks like it has been at the centre of a nuclear explosion. Almost all the structures on the beach are destroyed, in some places as far as 400 metres inland from the coast.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: U.N. Needs One Billion Dollars Fast For Relief Aid

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan Thursday launched a "flash appeal" for nearly a billion U.S. dollars in immediate emergency aid for tsunami survivors in almost a dozen countries, after killer waves wreaked havoc along the Indian Ocean the day after Christmas.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Japanese Loosen Their Purse Strings

While world leaders were meeting in Jakarta to discuss massive tsunami reconstruction and relief programs, ordinary Japanese Thursday joined their international counterparts as they donated generously to relief funds for survivors of the killer waves.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Andaman Tribes Have Lessons to Teach Survivors

Stone age tribes living on India's remote Andaman and Nicobar islands not only survived the devastating Dec. 26 tsunami - triggered by an undersea quake whose epicenter was closest to their homelands - but may actually have a few lessons in reading natural early warning systems for their less perceptive Asian neighbours, say scientists.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: South Africa Reaches Out to Disaster Victims

A South African delegation will be amongst those attending an international donor conference in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, Thursday, to discuss the needs of people affected by last week’s tsunami disaster.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Canada Opens Door to Disaster Victims, Orphans

The Canadian government is offering to allow relatives here to adopt tsunami orphans and bring them to Canada under a programme to fast-track immigration from the disaster areas.