Category: Asia-Pacific

By David Robie AUCKLAND (APR/IDN) — On a tragic day of mourning, thousands thronged the West Papuan funeral cortège on November 2 for the funeral of Filep Karma, and the banned Morning Star led the way in defiance of the Indonesian military. There have not been so many Papuan flags flying under the noses of […]

By Nandi Jasentuliyana The author is a former Deputy Director-General United Nations and Director of the UN Office for Outer space Affairs. LOS ANGELES, USA (IDN) — An awards ceremony recognizing those in the Sri Lankan expatriate community whose work has had an essential impact on the lives of others has taken place since 2003. […]

By Santo D. Banerjee BANGKOK (IDN) — Ministers and heads of national space agencies endorsed the Jakarta Ministerial Declaration on Space Applications for Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific at the close of a high-level meeting co-organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the Government […]

Buddhism Is Losing Its Voice in Asia By Krishan Dutta BANGKOK (IDN) — The theme of this year’s 30th General Conference of the World Fellowship of Buddhists (WFB) was “Buddhism in the Time of Crisis”, but many disillusioned members of this premier Buddhist organization say it is the WFB that is in crisis. “The conference […]

By Kalinga Seneviratne BANGKOK (IDN) — The massacre of 37 people, 26 of whom were preschool children taking an afternoon nap in their day-care centre, in a remote north-eastern township of Thailand on October 7 has shocked the nation, with many social media postings calling for the extrajudicial killing of those involved in the drug […]

By Sugeeswara Senadhira COLOMBO (IDN) — Though Muslim women have been considered a group that shunned politics for generations, in recent months, there has been a remarkable change in their awareness of political rights. Reflecting this new awareness, a group of Muslim women displayed their desire to take up the cause of Sri Lankan women […]

By Shastri Ramachandran NEW DELHI (IDN) — Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar are all contested sites with both Beijing and New Delhi competing for influence in these countries. There can be no denying the geopolitics involved in bilateral relations in the region. Time was when most of the South […]

By Sheila A Smith The writer, Sheila A. Smith, is John E. Merow, Senior Fellow for Asia Pacific Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN) — Japan has gone all-in with the Western response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The strategic consequences for Tokyo are considerable. Japan’s long-running efforts to conclude a […]

By Hongzhou Zhang and Genevieve Donnellon-May* This article was first issued by East Asia Forum. SINGAPORE | OXFORD (IDN) — Global fish stocks are facing a crisis, with nearly all classified as either fully exploited, overexploited or significantly depleted. China is the largest contributor to this problem as a world leader in both fishery exports […]

By Neville de Silva* LONDON, (IDN) — Never in Sri Lanka’s 74-year post-independence history has a democratically elected leader been forced to flee the country, running away from the economic shambles and social disarray he was largely responsible for creating. Gotabaya Rajapaksa with 6.9 million votes under his belt was elected president at the butt […]