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 […]
The Commercialization of Thai Buddhism into a Modern Prosperity Cult
By Jan Servaes BANGKOK | 26 January 2024 (IDN) — General and former Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha opened his royalist shirt during a press conference on May 16, 2016 to reveal the dozen amulets on his chest. He explained that these would give him moral support in negotiations with Russian President Putin. Thus, Thailand’s then […]
Is a “Muscular” India Alienating Neighbours?
Analysis by Kalinga Seneviratne SINGAPORE | 16 January 2024 (IDN) — After returning from a week-long trip to China on January 14, the new Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu told journalists in Male: “We may be small, but that doesn’t give you the licence to bully us”. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that he […]
North Korea: Short on Food but Arms Aplenty
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS | 14 January 2024 (IDN) — North Korea, which has long suffered a shortage of food and medicine, has made relatively fast progress in cranking out ballistic missiles and emerging as an arms supplier to one of the world’s major nuclear powers: Russia. A joint statement issued on January 10 by […]