Category: Asia-Pacific

BANGKOK (IDN) – While a ‘Mindful Communication’ fad is currently sweeping across the United States, a group of Asian scholars and media practitioners gathered here to examine how this traditional Asian way of communication could be adopted to train 21st century journalists to create a media that would promote harmony rather than conflict.

Phuwadol Piyasilo Bhikku, a communication arts graduate from Chulalongkorn University and a former journalist, who is now a Forest Monk in northern Thailand, in an opening speech to the symposium noted that mindfulness practiced in the West is “a bit problematic”, because it is used mainly on an individualistic level to de-stress.

By Wang Yan* | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis

BEIJING (IDN | UNDP) – As China prepares to launch a nationwide carbon cap-and-trade program to try to slow climate change, experts are warning of a long list of flaws in seven pilot programs that are already operating throughout the country.

Major issues ahead of the planned 2017 launch of a national carbon trading program include a lack of openness, transparency and fairness; a flawed system of allowance allocation which does not reflect real industry conditions; and an inadequate monitoring, verification and reporting system.

By Robert Johnson | IDN-InDepthNews Feature

BERLIN | MILAN (IDN) – “To safeguard the future of the planet and the right of future generations everywhere to live healthy and fulfilling lives. This is the great development challenge of the 21st century,” declared the Human Development Report 2011, an independent publication commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme.

By Shailendra Singh* | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis

SUVA, Fiji (IDN) – Discussions about the concept of ‘Global Citizenship’ are gaining momentum in various international forums, but remain largely unexplored in the Pacific Islands.

According to Ron Israel, co-founder of The Global Citizens’ Initiative, Global Citizens think beyond communities based on shared group identities, and see themselves as part of a larger, emerging world community.

In the Pacific, the late Tongan academic and philosopher, Professor Epeli Hau’ofa, had gone as far as proposing a common regional identify he called the “new Oceania”, comprising of people with a common Pacific heritage and commitment, rather than as members of diverse nationalities and races.

By J Nastranis | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis

NEW YORK (IDN) – As part of the U.S. “rebalance to the Pacific”, the growing convergence of their respective countries’ interests in the Indo-Pacific region, and with an eye on China’s increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea, Washington has initiated a trilateral dialogue involving both India and Japan.

By Shastri Ramachandran*  | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis

CHENNAI, India (IDN) – The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is a regional forum where India may not be able to have its way against Pakistan. To the contrary, Pakistan – which also became a full member of the SCO along with India on July 10 in Ufa (Russia) – may be better placed in the six-member regional grouping dominated by China and Russia.

By Kalinga Seneviratne* | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis

NEW DELHI (IDN) – When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived on May 14 in the historic city of Xian, at the start of his three-day visit to China, he was almost immediately taken by Chinese President Xi Jinping to the Wild Goose Pagoda that symbolise the two countries’ umbilical cultural ties, thus setting the tone for the important visit. Xian is where the ancient Silk Route began.

This Buddhist temple which is today a major tourist attraction in China, and where the Chinese Buddhist scholar monk Xuanzang spent many years of his later life translating some 35 volumes of Buddhist scriptures into Chinese that he collected during 16 years he spent at Nalanda University in India in the 7^th century. It is these volumes that helped to spread Buddhism across much of East Asia and later helped Indian scholars to find out about Nalanda University after Muslim Turkic invaders burned Nalanda into ashes in the 12^th century.

Thus these two-way civilizational exchanges are significant milestones as Asia’s two leading civilizations led by two visionary leaders embark on building a new economic and cultural relationship that could transform the world.

By Kalinga Seneviratne* | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis

COLOMBO (IDN) – It was a well-spelled out 100-day program to rid the country of endemic political corruption presented to the electorate by challenger Maitripala Sirisena that helped to topple Sri Lanka’s powerful president Mahinda Rajapakse in a shock vote on January 8 this year.

By Taro Ichikawa | IDN-InDepthNews Report

TOKYO (IDN) – The 34-nation Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has called for narrowing “gender inequality” as part of “reforms for more inclusive and stronger growth” in Japan. Presenting the OECD’s 2015 Economic Survey of Japan, the influential economic bloc’s Secretary-General Angel Gurría also pleaded for boosting productivity that, he said, was “key to unlocking stronger growth”.