TSUNAMI-IMPACT: Counselling With a Local Sri Lankan Touch

When Carolina Delima walks through a refugee camp set up in the centre of this town in eastern Sri Lanka, a cry of glee pours forth from children with names like Vinod, Subodan and Sivaraj.

TSUNAMI-IMPACT: Weavers Return to Break the Silence of Death

If Sri Lanka needs a symbol of hope and courage for its battered coastal communities to get back on their feet, then Abdul Sattar Sithy Bashira would be a prime candidate.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Phuket Wants Tourists Not Aid Money

This idyllic island on the Andaman Sea in southern Thailand is recovering quickly from the devastating December tsunami seven weeks ago, thanks mainly to the resourcefulness of its people.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Phuket Wants Tourists Not Aid Money

This idyllic island on the Andaman Sea in southern Thailand is recovering quickly from the devastating December tsunami seven weeks ago, thanks mainly to the resourcefulness of its people.

TSUNAMI-IMPACT: Sri Lankan Widowers Share a Common Grief

Ramasamy Rajakumar spends his afternoons in the company of a few men who are united by a common thread of grief. They all lost their wives when the Indian Ocean tsunami struck. Some, like Rajakumar, also lost two children.

TSUNAMI-IMPACT: Tamil Group Offers Alternative to Sauna-Like Tents

For the past week, Thurai Chandrakumar has led a gang of 11 men in a construction spree aimed at building shelters with local conditions in mind. Here, the day gets progressively hotter and by mid-morning temperatures in this village are almost furnace-like.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Conservationists Battle to Save Mangrove Patch

When the Indian Ocean tsunami struck the coastlines of South and South-east Asia, areas with dense mangroves suffered fewer human casualties compared to areas without them.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Alone and Forlorn, a Survivor Pines for His Family

Muhammad Ali finished a plate of fried noodles, sipped a glass of cold tea and lamented about his misfortune in a coffee shop at the market in small town Lamno, about 200 kilometers south of the Acehnese capital Banda Aceh.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Tamil Tiger Killings Jeopardise Relief Aid

The murder of a high ranking Tamil Tiger political leader in eastern Sri Lanka two days ago is likely to heighten tensions between the rebels and government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga. It is also feared that this could cast a shadow over the country's post- tsunami reconstruction efforts.

POLITICS: Washington Warms to Indonesia’s Unruly Army

As U.S. President George W. Bush last week reiterated his strong support for spreading freedom abroad, his administration was preparing to remove a major obstacle to restoring full ties with Indonesia's armed forces (TNI), widely regarded as one of the world's most abusive militaries.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Aceh Children Recall Sea ‘Swallowing’ Their Parents

Around two dozen boys mill around several wooden huts on stilts, which serve as an orphanage here, in this hamlet 20 kilometers south of the Acehnese capital Banda Aceh. Though they play and joke with one another, they share a common fate. All are survivors of the Dec. 26 killer tsunami, and all of them lost either one or both parents to the killer waves.

TSUNAMI-IMPACT: Maldives Needs Tourists, Desperately

Tourism is getting a new coat of respectability as an industry that offers a lifeline to help countries devastated by the Dec. 26 Indian Ocean tsunami.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Indonesian Red Crescent Targets Foreign Doctors

The Indonesian Red Crescent - claiming there is an oversupply of ''do-gooders'' who ''do not speak the language'' - wants all foreign doctors, helping the Indian Ocean tsunami survivors in Aceh, to leave and hand over their emergency medical functions to local doctors instead.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Ethiopia’s Rastas See the ‘End Times’

When news of the Indian Ocean tsunami filtered through to Africa the day after Christmas, Gladstone Robinson was playing Bob Marley's 'Natural Mystic'.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Dos and Don’ts in Visiting Aceh

If one wants to visit Aceh, probably to be involved in humanitarian work or just hang out as a ''tsunami tourist'', which is quite the trend here, there are some dos and don'ts they should consider.

TSUNAMI-IMPACT: Muslim Solidarity Missing in the Aftermath of Killer Waves

If the Islamic world needs another reason to nail Osama bin Laden as more of a monster who thrives on killing than having a heart for the world's victims, then Muslims should listen to the silence pouring forth from the al-Qaeda leader's camp since the Dec. 26 Indian Ocean tsunami.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: When Compassion Takes A Wrong Turn in Malaysia

Even the Indian Ocean tsunami has been unable to make compassion-fatigued Malaysia baulk at its latest order. It wants to deport all undocumented workers back to their tsunami-hit countries on Jan. 31, regardless of whether these migrants end up in emergency relief camps surviving on rations handed out by charities.

POLITICS: Six Million Dying of AIDS Amid Tsunami Largesse

Within three weeks after the tsunami disaster ravaged south and south-east Asia, the international donor community responded magnanimously by pledging an unprecedented 5.5 billion to 6 billion dollars for emergency relief and reconstruction.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Nobel Peace Laureate Calls for Aceh Peace

East Timor's Nobel laureate Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo is appealing for peace to be given a chance in tsunami-hit Aceh as an Indonesian top-level team meets with Acehnese rebels later this week at talks in Finland.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Back to Zero for Sri Lanka’s War Survivors

The stress is beginning to show on Kasumathi Thangamani's face. She hardly smiles while rummaging through the remains of what was once her house in this small coastal hamlet, 60 kilometers north of the main eastern town of Batticaloa.

TSUNAMI-IMPACT: India Shifts Regional Geopolitical Cards

Within a month of the tsunamis battering 12 countries across South and South-east Asia together with East Africa, India has gained a new political foothold in the Indian Ocean region.