What’s next for India’s Communist Party?
The distrust of the Communist Party, once a powerhouse in parts of India, could signal a major change in Indian politics. Here’s what its leaders plan to do to keep their old mission alive.
Corruption hobbles Russia’s Far East
Moscow is looking to Russia’s Far East as a region poised for better times, and a building boom aims to make Vladivostok an investment hub. But young residents are still leaving the city in droves.
Cambodian NGOs under the gun
PHNOM PENH – These are tough times for Cambodia’s embattled non-governmental organizations (NGOs). As the government gears up to pass controversial legislation regulating the country’s estimated 2,000 civil society groups, it has drawn strong criticism for a coordinated crackdown on land rights groups working on a foreign donor-funded railway renovation project.
Bangladesh’s Troubling Death Squad
The Rapid Action Battalion has enjoyed strong public support for routinely killing alleged criminals. But is it always acting within the law?
The walking dead
Convicts in Myanmar are used as disposable pack-horses by the military, facing terror and death on jungle battlefields
Land rights acrimony in AusAID Asian project
By Rebecca Puddy & Sebastian Strangio A TAXPAYER-FUNDED development project is mired in controversy after the Cambodian government launched a crackdown against land rights organisations critical of the compulsory resettlement of families.
In the media
Recently I was interviewed by the Kiev-based news weekly Ukrainian Week, discussing the “underground railroad” bringing defectors out of northeast China to safe-havens across Southeast Asia. The interview followed on from my previous reporting on the issue from Seoul and Phnom Penh. The interview discusses how the number of refugees arriving in Thailand has spiked...
Fraying at the seams
Cambodian garment workers uneasy as factories shift to shorter-term contracts that increase pressure, while a labour standards group reports excessive hours and banned solvents that contribute to fainting
North Korea’s New Friend?
A rare visit by a North Korean official to Cambodia raises the faint prospect of more engagement with Southeast Asia. But ties with Phnom Penh are complicated.
All aboard North Korea’s refugee railroad
PHNOM PENH – In late November 2006, after a long, perilous journey from northeast China, a North Korean national crossed the Vietnamese frontier into Cambodia’s northeast Mondulkiri province. The man, identified only as Ly Hai Long in local media reports, was promptly arrested by Cambodian police, who told a reporter from the Cambodia Daily that...
Portrait of a North Korean propagandist turned protest artist
Before fleeing North Korea, Song Byeok was a propaganda artist, creating portraits of ‘Dear Leader’ Kim Jong-il. Now he uses his art to criticize the regime from South Korea.
