By Thalif Deen* UNITED NATIONS | 8 April 2024 (IDN) — Just after a group of mercenaries tried to unsuccessfully oust the government of the Maldives in 1979, I asked a Maldivian diplomat, using a military jargon, about the strength of his country’s “standing army”. “Standing army?”, the diplomat asked with mock surprise, and remarked […]
Mekong Delta Adopts Water-Saving Irrigation
By Le Thanh Binh HO CHI MINH CITY | 28 March 2024 (IDN)—The Mekong Delta region in South Vietnam is a major food production base for the country. Approximately two million hectares of land are allocated for rice and fruit farming, and about a third of this land is regularly affected by drought and salinity […]
No China Railway as Marcos Tilts Towards the US
By Kalinga Seneviratne DAVAO, Philippines | 22 March 2023 (IDN)—After being elected to the presidency in a landslide vote in June 2016, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte visited China in October and declared that his country was realigning its foreign policy to move closer to China. He was accompanied by 400 Filipino business executives and returned […]
India-China Geopolitical Battle Intensifies in the Indian Ocean
Analysis by Kalinga Seneviratne SINGAPORE | 17 March 2024 (IDN)—China and the Maldives signed a military assistance agreement earlier this month. Indian troops have started withdrawing from the Islands. Simultaneously, China, Russia, and Iran are holding war drills in the Indian Ocean. Though the geopolitical battle in the Indian Ocean is intensifying, it could assist […]
Online Activism in China
By Jan Servaes BANGKOK| 15 March 2024 (IDN) —There are already more than 1 billion netizens in China, more than 3 times the population of the USA and almost one and a half times that of Europe. This means that about 20% of the world’s internet users, or almost 1 in 5, live in China. […]
UN-ANDI’s Work on “Making the Charter a Reality” Within the UN
By Shihana Mohamed* NEW YORK | 2 March 2024 (IDN) — The UN Asia Network for Diversity & Inclusion (UN- ANDI) commemorated the 78th UN Day virtually on 27 October 2023 with a Panel Discussion on “Making the United Nations Charter a reality: focusing on the UN-ANDI Recommendations in the report of its survey on […]
The US Should Negotiate with China in Better Faith Than in Recent Past
By Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden | 27 February 2024 (IDN) — In Munich, recently, at the important annual Security Conference, we heard yet again that the West must not allow itself to be penetrated by Huawei’s 5G phone technology (which is cheaper than any Western counterpart). But there was no intelligent response to a former […]
Is Thailand the “Most Unequal Semi-Democratic” State In SE Asia?
By Jan Servaes BANGKOK| 18 February 2024 (IDN) — On January 31, 2024, the Constitutional Court in Bangkok ordered the kingdom’s most popular political party to end its campaign to amend the country’s infamous defamation law – the lèse majesté law or Article 112 of the Criminal Code. Thailand has one of the strictest lèse […]
Asia-Pacific Will Not Achieve SDGs Before 2062, Says a UN Report
By Jutta Wolf BERLIN | 15 February 2024 (IDN) — The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) has projected a delay until 2062 to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the region, missing the schedule by a staggering 32 years. The world leaders adopted the 17 Goals in 2015 […]
MYANMAR: Three Years After the Coup, Hope Remains
By Jan Servaes BANGKOk | 7 February 2024 (IDN) — Myanmar’s military junta has increasingly carried out unlawful airstrikes killing civilians in its military operations against a coalition of the People Defense Force (PDF) and ethnic armed groups (EAOs), Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on January 30, 2024, on the eve of the anniversary of […]