Category: Asia-Pacific

By Kalinga Seneviratne SYDNEY (IDN) — Each year on January 26, Australians celebrate “Australia Day”, a national holiday that marks the day Captain Arthur Phillip sailed into Sydney Cove in 1788, planted the Union Jack and proclaimed the continent for the British Crown. Later it was enshrined in the Australian constitution that it was “terra […]

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. DUBLIN, Ireland (IDN) — Iran’s Islamic Republic continues to violently suppress ongoing pro-democracy protests, which broke out in September in response to the killing of a young woman who had been arrested for not wearing a proper head covering. According to the NGO […]

Viewpoint by Jan Servaes* BRUSSELS (IDN) — A crashed Ferrari, a dead police officer and a fugitive heir to a multibillion-dollar fortune—ten years later, Thailand is no closer to solving one of its most infamous hit-and-run crimes. Red Bull’s story, according to the Indian news channel WION (World Is On News), is again “a reminder […]

By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS (IDN) — The United States, which has failed in its attempts to move a divided UN Security Council to adopt a resolution restricting arms sales to the military regime in Myanmar, has been left with only one alternative: continue to hit Myanmar with unilateral military sanctions. With two veto-wielding permanent […]

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 […]