Asia-Pacific Archives

Q&A: Where Abusing Women Is “An Accepted Norm”

Violence, torture and other forms of cruel treatment are on the rise for women in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.

MALAYSIA: Privatisation of Healthcare Turns Election Issue

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 26 (IPS) - A plan by the Malaysian government to privatise its public healthcare system and get consumers to pay for it through salary cuts is rapidly turning into a major election issue.

Rural Women Are Leading the Way – Will the World Follow? – Part 1

By IPS Correspondents

Agriculture currently provides a livelihood for roughly 1.3 billion smallholder farmers and landless workers, of which nearly half – close to 560 million – are women.

Q&A: ‘Malaysians Must Vote Out Corruption, Racism’

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

Malaysia’s charismatic opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim is tapping the spirit of the Arab Spring to end the 55-year unbroken rule of the United Malay National Organsiation (UMNO) and its allies in the Southeast Asian nation.

Despite War Drums, Experts Insist Iran Nuclear Deal Possible

By Jim Lobe

Amid the persistent beating of war drums, an influential international conflict prevention group is insisting that a deal between Western countries and Iran on Tehran's controversial nuclear programme can still be reached.

ECONOMY: Sri Lankan Poor Hit by Triple Whammy

By Amantha Perera

First the government devalued the Sri Lankan rupee by three percent in November. Then interest rates were hiked. And to cap that U.S. sanctions hit Iran, which meets 90 percent of this country’s oil needs.

IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria. Credit: Sarajevo-x.com/publix domain

Iran Holds Up Access to Parchin for Better IAEA Deal

By Gareth Porter

The failure of a mission by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to get Iranian permission to visit a military testing site mentioned in its latest report has been interpreted in media coverage as a stall to avoid the discovery of confirming evidence of past work on nuclear weapons.

Hans Blix warned that all parties in the growing crisis over Iran

Ex-IAEA Chief Urges Talks to Defuse Threat of Attack on Iran

By Jasmin Ramsey

Even as U.N. inspectors expressed disappointment about the results of their visit this week to Iran, a former chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) urged all parties to make greater efforts to defuse rapidly rising tensions over Tehran's nuclear programme to avert war.

Afghan Refugees Hounded in Pakistan

By Ashfaq Yusufzai

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government recently launched a harsh crackdown on illegal Afghan immigrants who have been pouring across the border into Pakistan, going so far as to request federal government permission to deal with the situation, which has deep social and economic implications for the host country.

Afghan Refugees Hounded in Pakistan

By Ashfaq Yusufzai

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government recently launched a harsh crackdown on illegal Afghan immigrants who have been pouring across the border into Pakistan, going so far as to request federal government permission to deal with the situation, which has deep social and economic implications for the host country.

Trust Deficit – Worst Fallout of Fukushima

By Suvendrini Kakuchi

Kazuya Tarukawa, 36, left a secure job in the Japanese capital to tend to his family’s organic farm located 100 km away from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor.

Global Gender Imbalance Poses Critical Problems for Women

By Charundi Panagoda

In 2005, there were 163 million more men in Asia, more than the entire female population of the United States. Asia is now facing serious consequences from sex selection, a situation the West might have inadvertently helped create.

PODCAST: INDONESIA – Community Radio Helps Revive Forests

By IPS Correspondents

Radio Ruyuk hosts a talk show on various environmental issues. Kanis Dursin reports on how farmers and small traders use community radio to save Indonesian forests.

INDONESIA: Community Radio Helps Revive Forests

By Kanis Dursin

Irman Meilandi unhesitatingly attributes the return of birds, wildlife and the forests around his hilly village of Mandalamekar in West Java province to conservation advice streaming in over community radio.

NLD spokesman Nyan Win at a Feb. 20 press conference in Rangoon. Credit:Mizzima

Burmese Hinge Hopes on Free, Fair Polls

By Larry Jagan

As campaigning for the Apr. 1 poll in Burma (also Myanmar) gets into full-swing, there are misgivings on whether the National League for Democracy (NLD) party of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will get a fair deal.

Paper Industry Decimating Indonesia’s Tigers

By Charundi Panagoda

The survival of Sumatra's tigers, elephants, orangutans, rhinos, as well as indigenous communities, is threatened by the "world's fastest deforestation rate", caused by none other than the pulp and paper industry, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

U.S. soldiers dismount from their vehicle and prepare to raid a series of compounds in the Maywand District of Afghanistan on Nov. 22, 2010. Credit: US Army/CC BY 2.0

Karzai Demand on Night Raids Snags U.S.-Afghan Pact

By Gareth Porter and Shah Noori

Nearly a year after the Barack Obama administration began negotiations with the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai on a U.S. military presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014, both sides confirmed last week that the talks are still hung up over the Afghan demand that night raids by U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) either be ended or put under Afghan control.

Q&A: ‘World Bank in Tiger Territory – No Greenwashing’

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Feb 20, 2012 (IPS) - When World Bank president Robert Zoellick steps down in June, the tiger will lose an ally who worked to prevent the decimation of Asia’s iconic animal by a voracious demand for its bones and parts in newly affluent China.

EU Moves on Myanmar Questioned

By Timothy Spence

Extraordinary political changes in the year since former army general Thein Sein came to power in Myanmar have prompted European powers to ease restrictions on the isolated nation, raising questions whether such rewards are too little or too much.

Iran’s Leadership on Edge as Parliamentary Elections Near

By Yasaman Baji

While the general public here is anxious about the increasingly harsh sanctions imposed by Western powers on Iran's financial and oil sectors, the leaders of the Islamic Republic appear more consumed by the upcoming parliamentary elections to be held Mar. 2.

ENVIRONMENT: Weed Threatens Indian Rhino’s Last Refuge

By Ranjita Biswas

While shoot-at-sight orders are now effectively keeping rhinoceros poachers at bay, an aggressive weed is threatening the one-horned ungulate in one of its last retreats - the Kaziranga National Park (KNP) in eastern Assam state.