Asia-Pacific

Kazakhstan Aims at a Global Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone

By Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN | NEW YORK (IDN) - Both Japan and Kazakhstan have suffered from nuclear weapons: Japan through the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and Kazakhstan through the fallout from 456 nuclear test explosions conducted at the Semipalatinsk, the former Soviet nuclear test site near what is now the village of Semey.

The two countries are therefore committed to realizing a world free of nuclear weapons – for example through entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) – and consider it a main goal of humanity in the 21st century. This was reaffirmed during the first session of the UN conference to negotiate a nuclear weapons prohibition treaty, from March 27 to 31 at the UN headquarters in New York. The second session is scheduled for June 15 through July 7.

: Ramesh Jaura; UN INSIDER; 31 March 2017

Children await the arrival of King Norodom Sihamoni on the streets of Siem Reap. Credit: Neena Bhandari

Education & Jobs Crucial As Cambodia Records Pro-Poor Growth

By Neena Bhandari

SIEM REAP/BATTAMBANG, Cambodia (IDN) - The once conflict ridden, impoverished country of Cambodia has made significant strides towards stability and progress, but it is still facing several socio-economic development challenges.

In 2016, it became a lower middle-income country after recording an annual average economic growth of seven percent over the past decade. “The country’s economy has trebled and the number of people living in poverty has halved in the last 15 years. We have to set development issues in the context of those successes,” says Nick Beresford, United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Cambodia Country Director.

: Neena Bhandari; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 30 March 2017

Photo: Second Chittagong Hill Tracts Rural Development Project in Bangladesh. Credit. Asian Development Bank.

The Asian Poor Should Not Be Neglected

By Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - The Asian economies are picking up speed again. After the big hit from Wall Street when the bank, Lehman Brothers, collapsed in a heap in 2008, sending shock waves everywhere, a recovery is now in the works.

How many child deaths in the Third World did these bankers cause? Another question is will future growth be like the past – fast but severely inequitable? The same growth before 2008 that reduced absolute poverty created a widening gulf between the haves and have-nots.

But isn’t that sufficient for the day, many ask? Absolute poverty must be the key mark of progress – raising incomes, giving people more money to seek education for their children or medical care or filling the coffers for the state so that it can fund bore holes in the countryside and sewers in the urban slums.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 28 March 2017

Photo credit: Nava Nalanda Mahavihare (NNM

Bringing Science, Ethics & Buddhism Together To Save Humanity

By Kalinga Seneviratne

This article is the14th in a series of joint productions of Lotus News Features and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship of the International Press Syndicate.

RAJGIR, India (IDN) – Participants at a conference convened in this historic capital of the Magadha kingdom of the Buddha’s time by the Nava Nalanda Mahavihare (NNM) shared the view that, for humanity to survive, science, ethics and Buddhism’s mind-centric approach to understanding nature and society could help.

Funded by the Indian government, the March 17-19 conference brought together Buddhist leaders, scholars and scientists to discuss the role of Buddhism in addressing the challenges of the 21st century and, ignoring protests from China, the Indian government invited His Holiness the Dalai Lama to give the inaugural address and also launch NNM’s new Department of Buddhist Sciences.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 27 March 2017

Photo: A conservationist holds a remote controlled drone at the Kalpitiya beach, Sri Lanka. The drone is used to study and protect Dugong, world’s only vegetarian sea mammal. Credit: Stella Paul

In Sri Lanka’s Deep Waters, Marine Conservation Goes Hi-Tech

By Stella Paul

KALPITIYA, Sri Lanka (IDN) – As the midday sun rises higher over Gulf of Mannar, a drone hovers over the blue mass of sea water. Below, a motley crowd of fishermen gathers, straining their eyes at a drone.

A few metres from the crowd, conservationist Prasanna Weerakkody operating the drone raises it to 500 metres, before moving it slowly in different directions, allowing the device to film a large swathe of water.

One day, he believes, the roving camera of this drone will send images of one of the most elusive sea mammals in this ocean: the dugong.

: Stella Paul; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 27 March 2017

Photo: IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano discussing cooperation between the Agency and India's Atomic Energy Commission with Commission Chairman Sekhar Basu. Credit: Atomic Energy Commission, India.

India and UN Agency Agree To Train Nuclear Professionals

By Devinder Kumar

NEW DELHI (IDN) – International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), set up in 1957 as the world’s 'Atoms for Peace' organization within the United Nations family, and the Atomic Energy Commission of India have agreed on an extended cooperation to the benefit of nuclear professionals from across Asia.

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano and Sekhar Basu, Chairman of India’s Atomic Energy Commission, achieved the agreement during the former's three-day visit to India from March 13 to 15.

: Devinder Kumar; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 25 March 2017

Photo: Yogi Adityanath. Credit: Singhrps2 | Wikimedia Commons.

India’s Yogi Chief Minister May Rewrite Democracy Textbooks

Analysis by Kalinga Seneviratne

NEW DELHI (IDN) – From across Asia to Europe and the United States voters have shown their dismay at corrupt political systems by voting in unconventional politicians who promise to “clean the swamp”.

So the election mid-March of a Yogi Chief Minister in Uttar Pradesh – India’s most populous state – may well herald in a new era for Asian politics, where religion could step in to clean up the corruption in politics.

Asia’s ancient religious philosophies – Hinduism and Buddhism – have a strong secular streak where their values could be practised by anyone without converting to a religion. The global spread of Yoga and Mindfulness as lifestyle choices bear witness to this.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 25 March 2017

Photo: The close China-DPRK relationship is celebrated at the Mass Games in Pyongyang. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

China Should Keep Squeezing North Korea

By Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - Rocket launches galore in North Korea. Colours and flames in the sky. It’s all a bit like a peacock spreading his tail.

Murders abound. Is this a butcher’s shop – an uncle, a half-brother and a couple of high-placed generals and no doubt others?

Kim Jong-Un, the president, is no Hamlet and murder seems not to give him doubts. The day after he is photographed at some event, smiling the smile of a psychopath who ditched his conscience somewhere at the top of the Alps when he was out for a hike organised by the school in Switzerland he was sent to.

: Jonathan Power; ARMAMENTS; 14 March 2017

Photo: The United Nations Security Council and the UN mission in Afghanistan condemned March 8 terrorist attack on a military hospital in Kabul for which the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da'esh) claimed responsibility. Credit: Photo: UNAMA/Fardin Waezi

UN Urges Afghan-Pak Cooperation in Combating Terrorism

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – While Afghanistan is accusing Pakistan of launching an “undeclared war” through proxy forces and more than 20 terrorist networks, with Pakistan rejecting this as a "baseless" claim, Security Council delegates are concerned about the recent surge in “abhorrent” terrorist attacks across Afghanistan – including one that killed 30 people at a Kabul military hospital on March 8, 2017.

As the Security Council, United Nations' most powerful body, held its quarterly debate on the long-troubled nation on March 10, many speakers urged that country’s international partners to deepen their cooperation, target terrorist sanctuaries and help to build up the capacity of the National Unity Government.

: J Nastranis; UN INSIDER; 13 March 2017

Photo: India's Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi (left) and Sri Lanka President JR Jayawardene (right) signing the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement of July 29, 1987.

Sri Lanka: Multi-Ethnic East Cannot Meet Tamil-Majority North

By Sugeeswara Senadhira*

COLOMBO (IDN) - Immediately after announcing the temporary merger of the North and East in July 1987, the then Sri Lankan President J. R. Jayewardene, in a surprising policy dichotomy, declared that he would canvass against the merger during the proposed referendum to be held in the East by December 31, 1987. Fortunately or unfortunately, the said referendum was never held, and it was routinely postponed annually by gazette notifications.

The issue of merger of the Northern Province and Eastern Province surfaced once again in February 2017 when Indian Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar reportedly rejected the suggestion made by the Sri Lankan Tamil politician Suresh Premachandran of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) for Indian intervention in re-merging the two provinces.