NewsTrust - Asia - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

Renouncing Islamism: To the brink and back again

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Nov. 16 (Opinion) - In the mosques across the city, I hear a fringe of young men talk dreamily of flocking to Afghanistan to "resist". Yet this whisper never has an immigrant accent. It shares my pronunciations, my cultural references, and my national anthem. Beneath the beards and the burqas, there is an English voice.

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To Catch a Tiger

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Atlantic Monthly - By Fred Kaplan - Jul. 02 (Opinion) - Though it was only a one-day news story in the United States, a momentous event occurred last spring, with worldwide military significance. After 26 years of heavy fighting, the Sri Lankan government decisively defeated an ethnic insurgency, killing all of its top leadership, whose bodies were displayed on national television. Massive victory parades followed.

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North Korea blast is a test for U.S.

Tue, 26 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - By Paul Carroll - May. 26 (Opinion) - ... it is important to focus on two things in the aftermath of the test. First, what does this mean for the threat that North Korea poses to international security? Second, what should our next moves be?

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The Poor Get Poorer

Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Newsweek - By Rana Foroohar - May. 20 (Opinion) - While Americans are worried about dips in their 401Ks, Asians are increasingly worried about more important things, like feeding their families, as the global recession continues to play out. I’m currently on my way to Asia (first Japan, then China and Hong Kong) with members of the Honolulu based East West Center, where I’m going to be studying the effects of the financial crisis here, and already, its clear that one major challenge is increased poverty.

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What Burma Needs From President Barack Obama

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Desmond Tutu - Apr. 20 (Opinion) - there is another issue on which America's moral leadership is desperately needed, and here, it must be acknowledged, President Bush was on the side of the angels: the struggle for human rights and justice in Burma.

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Barack Obama, and America's place in the world

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Christian Science Monitor - By Helena Cobban - Dec. 15 (Opinion) - Most Americans have been watching the presidential transition here in Washington very closely. But another, much broader political transition has also been accelerating in recent weeks: the shift from the US-dominated world we have lived in since 1989 to one in which global power has become significantly more diffuse, more networked, and more Asian.

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One Day in Bangkok

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Atlantic Monthly - By Jarrett Wrisley - Dec. 04 (Opinion) - Some in the U.S. media have labeled Barack Obama the first celebrity politician. But those commentators have never been to a Thaksin rally.

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Terrorists in Bangladesh?

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - By Selig S. Harrison - Jul. 08 (Opinion) - While the CIA and the Pentagon search in vain for Osama bin Laden in the mountains of Pakistan, an Al Qaeda affiliate has been quietly building up terrorist bases in the jungles of Bangladesh under the protective aegis of a new military regime in Dhaka allied with Islamist forces.

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The End of Intervention - Why We Can't Help in Myanmar

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Madeleine K. Albright - Jun. 11 (Opinion) - THE Burmese government's criminally neglectful response to last month's cyclone, and the world's response to that response, illustrate three grim realities today: totalitarian governments are alive and well; their neighbors are reluctant to pressure them to change; and the notion of national sovereignty as sacred is gaining ground, helped in no small part by the disastrous results of the American invasion of Iraq. Indeed, many of the world's necessary interventions in the decade before the invasion -- in places like Haiti and the Balkans -- would seem impossible in today's climate.

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Is It Time to Invade Burma?

Sat, 10 May 2008 19:15:02 -0700

Time - By Romesh Ratnesar - May. 10 (Opinion) - The disaster in Burma presents the world with perhaps its most serious humanitarian crisis since the 2004 Asian tsunami. By most reliable estimates, close to 100,000 people are dead. Delays in delivering relief to the victims, the inaccessibility ...

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Singapore materially rich, spiritually poor

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Agence France-Presse - Apr. 19 (Interview) - Singapore is materially rich but spiritually poor -- and the government is partly to blame, one of the city-state's most prominent authors says. Catherine Lim, also a political commentator, is one of a very few to publicly criticise the government in Southeast Asia's most economically advanced society. Lim said that while Singapore is consistently ranked high in various surveys on material measures, such as business friendliness and economic achievement, the standings are reversed when other factors are considered. "Press freedom, happiness and even love life and romance and so on, Singapore is ranked very low," Lim said in an interview with AFP.

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U.S. policy shifts in Central Asia

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

International Herald Tribune - By C.J. Chivers - Feb. 03 (Review) - Late in the afternoon of Jan. 24, a U.S. military plane landed in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, carrying Admiral William Fallon, the commander of the U.S. Central Command. Fallon, who oversees the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, had arrived for an introductory meeting with the Uzbek president, Islam Karimov, one of the post-Soviet world's durable strongmen.

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Soldier, Savior, Strongman, Crook

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Newsweek - By George Wehrfritz, Natasha Tampubolon - Jan. 27 (Comment) - He ruled with an iron grip for a generation then spent the last decade of his life dodging prosecution for alleged human-rights crimes and corruption. On Sunday, Indonesia's former strongman Suharto, once one of Asia's most influential leaders, died peacefully in a Jakarta hospital from multiple organ failure. He was 86.

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Will war lead to peace in Sri Lanka?

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0800

The Hindu - By Ram Manikkalingam - Jan. 22 (Opinion) - Sri Lanka's phoney peace is over. By abrogating the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the Sri Lankan government has finally proclaimed what has been a reality for two years -- the effective end of the ceasefire brokered by the Norwegians six years ago.

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The Pakistan Mess

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 09:57:09 -0800

New York Times - Nov. 06 (Editorial) - By imposing martial law, Gen. Pervez Musharraf has pushed nuclear-armed Pakistan further along a perilous course and underscored the failure of President Bush's policy toward a key ally in the war on terrorism. The events should not have come as a surprise to administration officials. This is what you get when policy is centered slavishly on a single, autocratic ruler rather than more broadly on his country.

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Stop the Terror in Burma

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 09:06:56 -0700

Opinion Journal (WSJ) - By Laura Bush - Oct. 10 (Opinion) - Whatever last shred of legitimacy the junta had among its own citizens has vanished. The regime's stranglehold on information is slipping; thanks to new technologies, people throughout Burma know about the junta's assaults. The public mood is said to be "a mixture of fear, depression, hopelessness, and seething anger." According to reports from Rangoon, "The regime's heavy-handed tactics against the revered clergy and peaceful demonstrators have turned many of the politically neutral in favor of the recent demonstrators."

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Accounts from inside Burma

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 11:08:11 -0700

BBC News - Sep. 28 (Opinion) - Police are everywhere in Yangon (Rangoon). They are arresting demonstrators on the streets, searching houses and arresting innocent people. They don't want the UN envoy to see the truth of the demonstrations in Burma. The foreign media is not getting the number of deaths right, I am sure that there are many more killed than the BBC is reporting.

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Why We'd Miss Musharraf

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 08:55:13 -0700

Foreign Policy - By Sameer Lalwani - Sep. 18 (Opinion) - But observers can count on a couple of time-honored truths remaining true. Despite all the talk of elections and civilian rule, meaningful democracy will not emerge in Pakistan anytime soon, nor will the military abandon its grip on government. Pakistan's military possesses much greater staying power than most U.S. analysts assume, and it will remain the most potent and important political institution in the country for the foreseeable future.

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APEC meeting fizzles to inconclusive end

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 08:32:18 -0700

International Herald Tribune - By Tim Johnston - Sep. 09 (Opinion) - The much-anticipated Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Sydney limped to a close Sunday, with a heavily compromised agreement on tackling climate change, few answers on how to push the global trade agenda forward and a huge security operation that ended up a laughing stock. At the top of the agenda at this year's meeting of the Pacific Rim grouping - whose 21 member countries include the United States, China, Russia, Australia and Indonesia - were global warming and the stalemate that has paralyzed the Doha round of trade negotiations. On both fronts, there was only limited success.

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Microchip plan reveals ignorance

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 11:55:32 -0700

The Jakarta Post - By Sudirman Nasir - Aug. 01 (Opinion) - The effort of the Papua legislative council to draft an ordinance that would require microchips be implanted in people living with HIV/AIDS so the authorities could monitor their personal activities is hard proof of the common ignorance among Indonesia politicians of the HIV epidemic. A recent HIV-risk behavioral surveillance survey in Papua found HIV is potentially spreading in the province at a rate 15 times above the national average and tragically nearly half of the population of the province have never heard of HIV/AIDS. Now it is quite clear ignorance is found among ordinary people in remote areas in Papua, but ignorance is also rife among local political elites.

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