Asia-Pacific

Photo: Collage of pictures of Prime Minister Rajapaksa and cattle. Source: Sri Lanka Newswire.

Sri Lanka Bans Cow Slaughter, But Has Yet to Pass Animal Welfare Bill

By Kalinga Seneviratne

This article is the 44th in a series of joint productions of Lotus News Features and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship agency of the Non-profit International Press Syndicate. Click here for previous reports.

SINGAPORE (IDN) – The Sri Lankan government will be amending the Animal Act after the Cabinet approved a proposal by Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa to ban the slaughter of cows in this predominantly Buddhist country. However, animal rights activists point out that there are no animal welfare laws in the country, and a bill to enact an Animal Welfare Act has been blocked in parliament since 2006.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 10 October 2020

Photo: A creek in southern New Caledonia. Red colours reveal the richness of the ground in iron oxides and nickel.) CC BY 2.5

New Caledonia Votes to Remain a French Colony, But Indigenous Kanakas Smell Independence of the South Pacific Islands

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY (IDN) – Voters in the South Pacific Islands French colony of New Caledonia have narrowly voted to remain with French rule, but indigenous Kanaks have been celebrating the outcome of October 5 vote as taking a step closer to independence. A third referendum needs to be held in two years' time under the Noumea Accord, and they feel that majority of voters would then vote for independence.

Kanaks are an indigenous Melanesian race that has settled in the islands 3,000 years ago. Ethnographic research has shown that Polynesian seafarers have intermarried with the Kanaks over the centuries.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 06 October 2020

Photo: One of the two Chinese warplanes which briefly crossed the Taiwan Strait median line in August 2020. Source: Alert5 / CC BY-SA 4.0)

China Intimidating Taiwan

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN) – China has decided once again – as it does periodically – to up the ante with Taiwan, the big off-shore island, it claims as its own. Last month China sharply increased its military manoeuvres close to Taiwan’s borders. In return, Taiwan sent its fighter planes aloft every day for two weeks. U.S. diplomats in Taiwan are saying this is the worst escalation of Chinese military activity in two decades.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 06 October 2020

Photo: Virtual International Forum.Credit: The writer.

Forum Calls for New Approach to NE Asian Denuclearization and Economic Development

By Alan Gua

ULAANBAATAR (IDN) – Former Mongolian Ambassador to the United Nations and Chairman of Blue Banner NGO of Mongolia, Dr Jargalsaikhany Enkhsaikhan, believes that “establishing a Northeast Asian nuclear-weapon-free zone (NEA-NWFZ) and providing North Korea with a joint, credible mini-Marshall Plan might be a win-win solution for the Korean Peninsula as well as for overall regional security and development”.

Both the U.S. and North Korea need to adopt “bold conceptual approaches to resolve security threats on the Korean peninsula, including deterrence that excludes nuclear weapons,” he told an international forum.

: Ramesh Jaura; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 02 October 2020

Photo: The first Ethiopian satellite launch by China. Source: SatNews

China Aids Africa to Advance into The Satellite Age

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – An ET-SMART-RSS Earth Observation (EO) smallsat, designed in Ethiopia with Chinese funds, is preparing for launch into orbit as soon as next month.

The satellite is the second to be launched into space by Ethiopia – just months after the launch of the county’s first ETRSS-1 satellite in December 2019.

The satellites analyse weather patterns to extract data and enhance the county’s preparedness in the case of drought, according to a report in SatNews, a provider of satellite news and other industry information in commercial and military enterprises worldwide.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 30 September 2020

Image: Members (dark blue) of the Pacific Islands Forum. CC BY-SA 3.0 Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Fiji’s Tourism Workers Turn to Farming and Fishing As COVID-19 Ravages the Industry

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY (IDN) – The COVID-19 crisis has hit tourism-dependent Pacific Island countries severely. Fiji, the largest of these states, is feeling the impact badly, with laid-off workers of tourism-related industries, such as hotels and travel companies, turning to farming and fishing for survival. Because of its larger land mass and fishing grounds in the sea, Fiji’s population is trying to cushion the impact depending on their natural resources.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; SUSTAINABILITY; Health & Well Being; 29 September 2020

Europe Pivots Towards Indo-Pacific Amid Row with China

By Atul Aneja

The writer is a veteran Indian journalist who reported conflicts from Baghdad, Beirut, Cairo, Benghazi, Kabul, Tehran, and Dushanbe. He is an expert on the Middle East and China political affairs. He was Strategic Affairs Editor of an eminent Indian newspaper, The Hindu.

CHENNAI (IDN) – Enticed for decades by China, which became the fulcrum of its Asia policy, continental Europe has finally broken ranks and pivoted towards the democracies of the Indo-Pacific, in its search for allies.

: Europe Editor; THE WORLD; South Asia; 29 September 2020

Photo: Cover the reviewed book. Credit: Amazon

Colonialism Is Not Dead, it has Acquired A New Face

Sri Lankan Author of a New Book Warns

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY (IDN) – In the 19th century, European powers came to Asia and used gunboats and gunpowder along with doublespeak to intimidate and coerce local rulers to accede their land for the European mercantile elites to establish plantations.

Sri Lankan born American sociology professor Dr Asoka Bandarage’s Colonialism in Sri Lanka: The Political Economy of the Kandyan Highlands 1833-1886’* published originally in 1983 documented extensively how the British used doublespeak to grab land and ultimately the country to establish coffee and tea plantations.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 25 September 2020

Photo: Bhikkhuh Sanghasena, a leading Buddhist monk based in the state capital Leh, led a procession of local spiritual leaders across the town centre. The spiritual leaders included not only Buddhists, but also Muslims, Hindus, Christians and Sikhs.

Ladakh Buddhist Monk Leads A Campaign for Peaceful Resolution of Border Conflict

By Kalinga Seneviratne

This article is the 43rd in a series of joint productions of Lotus News Features and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship agency of the Non-profit International Press Syndicate. Click here for previous reports.

SINGAPORE (IDN) – When India's Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation foreign ministers' meeting in Moscow on September 10, Wang noted that it was "normal for India and China to have differences as two neighbouring major countries".

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 12 September 2020

Collage of the mass grave at the Killing Field of Choeung Ek with the leader of the Killing Fields on the left. Source: Wikimedia.

Death of The Leader Of "The Killing Fields" Raises Questions

Will there be more genocides that the world will ignore until it is too late?

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN) – One of the cruellest men ever to have lived died on September 2 in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Kaing Guek Eav, popularly known as “Duch”, was 77 and had been convicted of mass torture by the UN/Cambodian war crimes court. He was the only one of the five defendants to admit his crimes. In July 2010 in a trial I witnessed first-hand he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

According to Seth Mydans, the New York Times’s correspondent in Cambodia at the time of the rule of Pol Pot who founded the guerrilla movement, the Khmer Rouge, “he was a schoolteacher before the Khmer Rouge came to power. He took his revolutionary name from a children’s book about an obedient schoolboy named Duch. ‘I wanted to be a well-disciplined boy who respected the teachers and did good deeds’, he told the court.