Category: Asia-Pacific

By Ramesh Jaura

This is the second in a series of articles from Kazakhstan which being geographically located both in Asia and Europe, considers itself a Eurasian country. The articles are based on information gathered during a visit from June 7 to June 15 on the occasion of the opening of EXPO 2017 in Astana. Video clips accompany the articles in this series. – The Editor

ASTANA (IDN) – Within days of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit and opening of the ‘EXPO 2017: Future Energy‘, Roman Vassilenko, Kazakhstan’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, proudly refers to “25 achievements of Kazakhstan’s diplomacy in 25 years” and speaks of a “truly historic moment” in the country’s “modern history”.

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY (IDN) – In 1967, in a historic referendum, some 92 percent of Australians voted for the original inhabitants to be recognized as “people” to be counted in the census.

Exactly 50 years later, over 250 Indigenous Australians met in a historic summit overlooking the sacred Uluru rock in Central Australia May 24-26 and called upon the Australian government to change the constitution to give them a voice in parliament and a treaty to recognize their relationship to the land.

Australian Aborigines have come a long way since the 1967 referendum that allowed them to be considered as people like the rest of the Australians.

Analysis by Kalinga Seneviratne

BANGKOK (IDN) – When China hosted a two-day conference in May to help revive the ancient trade routes from Asia to Europe and Africa it was greeted with scepticism by most of the western media. But in much of Asia the mood was more of optimism and opportunity.

CNN reported that “some countries raised concerns over the project seen as boosting Beijing’s global clout on trade and geopolitics” – a reoccurring theme in many of the western media reports. While pointing out that the U.S., Japan, India and most of the European leaders had boycotted the meeting BBC described it as a Chinese bid for global leadership. Australia’s ABC said that China wants its ‘new Silk Routes’ to dominate world trade.

Analysis by Kalinga Seneviratne

This article is the 15th in a series of joint productions of Lotus News Features and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship of the International Press Syndicate.

BANGKOK (IDN) – The May 11-12 visit to Sri Lanka by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the UN Day of Vesak festival as a special guest was designed to woo Sri Lanka’s Buddhist majority, but reactions in the Sri Lankan media indicate that it has not succeeded in dispelling their suspicions about “Indian colonialism” of their small neighbour.

“Mahindra and Sanghamitra, the worthy children of King Ashoka made their journey from India to Sri Lanka as Dhamma-doot to spread the biggest gift of Dhamma,” said Modi in his keynote speech to hundreds of international and Sri Lankan delegates at the Chinese-built BMICH convention centre on May 12, referring to the bringing of Buddhism to Sri Lanka in the 3rd century BCE.

By Janaka Perera*

COLOMBO (IDN-INPS) – Sri Lanka is celebrating the 2561st year of Vesak on an international scale starting on May 10. The question however is whether the organizers and the foreign participants in the event will pay sufficient attention to the facts highlighted in a recent report of the Bangkok-based World Buddhist University (WBU) on the socio-economic and cultural challenges facing Asian Buddhists with a case study in Sri Lanka.

Designed to give an insight to the challenges facing Sri Lanka’s grassroots, the study was undertaken by Communications & Media Specialist Dr. Kalinga Seneviratne assisted by Samanmalee Swarnalatha.

By Kalinga Seneviratne

BANGKOK (IDN) – The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) Global Summit, held for the first time in Southeast Asia, pivoted on how Asia-fuelled tourism would impact the industry worldwide. The discussions also centred around whether tourism could be an enabler of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) if it were heritage-focused offering community experiences – rather than “exotic” sites – so that significant leakages of tourism revenue could be tapped.

Financial leakages in tourism occur when revenues arising from tourism-related economic activities in destination countries are not available for re-investment or consumption of goods and services in the same countries. Financial resources ‘leak away’ from the destination country to another country, particularly when a tourism company is based abroad and when tourism-related goods and services are being imported to the destination country.

By Neena Bhandari

Ha Noi/Hoi An, Viet Nam (IDN) – Pham Thi Kim Viet is up before the rooster heralds the crack of dawn.The rice on the cooker is beginning to boil as she tosses freshly chopped vegetables and fish in a wok. She then hurries to wake her two daughters, 12 and four-years-old. At 7 a.m., dressed in laundered uniforms, she takes them to school on her trusted old scooter and proceeds to Hoi An, 30 km from her home in the mountains of Dai Loc district in central Vietnam, to report for work as a freelance tour guide.

By Naimul Haq

BHOLA, Bangladesh (IDN) – In Bangladesh, as in many other parts of the developing world, the barbaric practice of underage marriage is still widespread.

Now, in what Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called a “devastating step backward for the fight against child marriage”, the Bangladesh government has approved a controversial provision allowing child marriages under “special circumstances”.

The ‘Child Marriage Restraint Bill 2017’, passed on February 27, defines any marriage involving one or both parties below the legal age (21 for boys and 18 for girls) as ‘child marriage’, and recognises that girls under the age of 18 can be married off with permission from their parents and a court in undefined special circumstances, without specifying a minimum age.

By Dr Palitha Kohona

Dr Palitha Kohona is former Ambassador & Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations in New York. This article first appeared in Ceylon Today on March 19, 2017 and is being reproduced courtesy of the daily newspaper. – The Editor

COLOMBO (IDN-INPS) — Sri Lanka commemorated a dark day in its long and proud history last month. We recalled the cession of our sovereignty to King George III of Britain following the signature of the Kandyan Convention on March 2/3, 1815 in the historic Audience Hall.

On March 1, 2017, in the same Audience Hall, President Sirisena made the much belated pronouncement to remove from the list of traitors in the government Gazette those who valiantly but vainly struggled against the troops of George III three years later to recover the sovereignty that we had lost through a combination of factors well beyond our control.