Asia-Pacific

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.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 08 September 2020

Photo: Dr. Palitha Kohona, Former Permanent Representative of UN to Sri Lanka. Credit: NewsinAsia.

Distinguished Diplomat Kohona Tipped to be Sri Lanka's Ambassador to China

By Radwan Jakeem

NEW YORK | COLOMBO (IDN) – A major overhaul of the heads of Sri Lankan diplomatic missions abroad will come into effect in the next 30 days and new ambassadors have already been handpicked to key embassies abroad. These include New Delhi, Washington DC, Chennai, Tokyo, Beijing and Ottawa, reports Sunday Times.

At the same time, several retired diplomats who are over 60 years and heading embassies overseas have been summoned back by October 4 — i.e one month’s notice from when they were recalled. They include Kshenuka Senewiratne, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, Asoka Girihagama in Ottawa, Sudanthaka Ganegamarachchi in Stockholm, Damayanthi Rajapaksa in Cairo, A.L. Ratnapala in Havana and Sumith Nakandala in The Hague. Sumith Nakandala will be given time till October 22 when he turns 60.

: Radwan Jakeem; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 06 September 2020

Photo: President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, are joined by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, and his wife, Mrs. Akie Abe, as they pose for photos Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017, at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, FL. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

Japan's Longest-Serving Prime Minister Failed to Achieve Most of His Goals

Viewpoint by Sven Saaler

The writer is representative of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung in Japan and Professor of Modern Japanese History at Sophia University in Tokyo. This article appeared the web-based International Politics and Society Journal on September 3.

TOKYO (IDN) – On 28 August 2020, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that he would be stepping down after a record term in office of almost eight years. Abe had already been Prime Minister between 2006 and 2007. In his first term of office, he had been barely able to move anything forward and was described in the media as ‘a complete failure’.

: Asia Editor; OPINION; 06 September 2020

Photo: UN ESCAP Executive Secretary Ms Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana against the backdrop of web slider Regional Conversation Series on Building Back Better. Collage IDN-INPS

Financing Economic Recovery in The Midst Of COVID-19

Viewpoint by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

The writer is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific

BANGKOK (IDN) – As the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the length and breadth of Asia and the Pacific, finance ministries are continuing their relentless efforts to inject trillions of dollars for emergency health responses and fiscal packages. With continued lockdown measures and restricted borders, economic rebound seems uncertain.

: Asia Editor; OPINION; 05 September 2020

Photo: Australia's Prime Minister has unveiled new powers that stop foreign governments from making deals in the country without prior federal approval. Credit: Federal Govt. of Australia.

One Nation, Six Governments – COVID-19 Battle Uncovers Australian Federalism

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY (IDN) – China may have one nation and two systems, but in Australia, it looks like there is one nation and six systems. As the second wave of coronavirus spreads across the continent, the State Premiers have taken unilateral decisions to close borders to travellers from other states to the dismay of Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

Speaking at the Bush (Regional) Summit on August 28, Morrison bemoaned “Australia was not built to have internal borders, in fact the very point of federalism was not to have them”. While acknowledging that COVID-19 has touched people everywhere, he added, “We must not allow this crisis, this pandemic, to force us to retreat into provincialism. That’s not the answer”.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 29 August 2020

Photo: Commander-in-Chief Rodrigo Duterte (His Excellency) in full Battle Dress Uniform (BDU). Source: Wikimedia Commons

Four Ways the Philippine Strongman Rodrigo Duterte Could Fall

Viewpoint by Walden Bello *

“This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.” — T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men

NEW YORK (IDN) – The fix that Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is in now illustrates the truth in the saying that the best-laid plans of mice and men are often unravelled by the least expected event.

In the case of the beleaguered Philippine president, the equivalent of the asteroid from outer space that killed off the dinosaurs was COVID-19, which threw him from the high horse he was riding in triumph after the midterm elections of 2019, which his partisans swept at all levels.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 27 August 2020

Photo: Image compiled by the author, public domain

TikTok, Trump and the Need for a Digital Non-Aligned Movement

Viewpoint by Juan Ortiz Frueler*

This article was originally published on openDemocracy. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of IDN-InDepth News

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (IDN) – Recent weeks have seen a dramatic escalation in the US stance towards tech companies from the People's Republic of China (PRC). After hounding the telecommunications company Huawei for years, the social networking app TikTok is the latest Chinese company to enter the firing line.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 23 August 2020

Helping Women Entrepreneurs in Asia and Europe to Thrive Under Lockdown

Viewpoint by UN Women, Bopinc and The DO School

NEW YORK (IDN) – The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the critical role of collaboration in creating gender-inclusive ecosystems where women can emerge and thrive. As the European Union, UN Women and its partners Bopinc and The DO School highlight their commitment to helping more women entrepreneurs on the occasion of the World Entrepreneurs Day this year on August 21, two initiatives should be recognised for their remarkable progress in providing the space and tools these women need: the Entrepreneurship Accelerator and Industry Disruptor.

: UN Bureau; UN INSIDER; 20 August 2020

Photo: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong prepare for a group photo with ASEAN leaders at the ASEAN-Russia Summit in Singapore, 14 November 2018. Source: ASEAN

Russian Influence in Southeast Asia Will Struggle to Be More Than Marginal

Viewpoint by Joshua Bernard B Espeña, UP Diliman *

DILIMAN, Quezon City, Philippines (IDN) – The Russian people have voted in favour of constitutional reforms that give President Vladimir Putin the potential to stay in power until 2036 through a landslide victory in a national referendum on 2 July 2020. While critics complain about voting irregularities, the changes mean that Putin could become Russia’s longest-serving ruler since Peter the Great.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; OPINION; 17 August 2020

5G Is Only One of Many Battle Arenas in U.S. Tech War in Which China Holds the Cards

Viewpoint by Prabir Purkayastha

The writer is the founding editor of Newsclick.in, a digital media platform. He is an activist for science and the free software movement. This article was produced in partnership by Newsclick and Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

NEW DELHI (IDN) – The U.S. tech war on China continues, banning Chinese equipment from its network, and asking its Five Eyes partners and NATO allies to follow suit. It is a market and a technology denial regime that seeks to win back manufacturing that the U.S. and European countries have lost to China.