Asia

This article provides an overview of how Russia's war of aggression on Ukraine is being viewed and assessed in various regions and countries in Asia, and how the governments there are positioning themselves and reacting: in the Southeast Asian ASEAN countries, in Northeast Asia, and in India, China, and Myanmar.

The invasion of Ukraine has shocked Japan. The country participates in the sanctions against Russia. Still, people in Japan look at the war in Europe against the backdrop of security threats in their Northeast Asian region, says Akira Kawasaki, a peace activist with the Japanese NGO Peace Boat. He sees opportunities for civil society action even under current war conditions.

This year, Indonesia holds the presidency of the G20. During the preparations for the upcoming summit in November 2022 in Bali, how does Indonesia navigate growing controversies amongst the G20 member states concerning the Russian aggression towards Ukraine?

There are more than 6,000 glaciers in northern Pakistan, including Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). These are clean water reservoirs that actually irrigate Pakistan. But these glaciers are changing rapidly due to climate change. The ecosystem of these areas is changing. Global warming has accelerated their melting and more lakes have been formed as a result. Flooding due to the melting endangers lives and livelihoods of millions of local people and adversely affects the ecology. 

The unexpected ban of secondary school education of girls on 23 March 2022 by the Taliban authority was condemned by the international community. Professor Michael Daxner, who has been actively involved in the higher education sector in Afghanistan for the last several years, gives an overview of challenges currently faced.

The short film “Further and Further Away” is portraying a brother and sister who belong to the Bunong ethnic minority in Cambodia. We spoke with director Polen Ly and producer Daniel Mattes about the process of making the film, youth in Cambodia and the opportunities for independent film making in the country.

Increase in domestic violence, lay-offs, care responsibilities, restrictions on domestic and international movement, economic insecurities, psychological burdens - these are just a few of the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic in Asia in the last two years. The gendered nature of COVID-19 impacts is obvious and has sparked large feminist responses in the region.

This article weaves together an in-depth interview of a journalist and his family’s tribulations of urban flooding in the city of Karachi in Pakistan analysing various dynamics that merge erratic changing climate to faulty urban management. The article further explores the intergenerational loss due to climate change by retelling the protagonist’s experiences with family history and flooding. Socio-political elements are also discussed to shed light on the more sinister and systemic bottlenecks to urban planning and management that is more climate resilient and responsive. Finally, it merges Karachi’s most popular urban myth with climate change projections to show how people use storytelling to either fight against climate change or become complacent to its eventual disasters.

At the age of 18, Natthapan Saengtab crashed her motorcycle into a stranger's car. It set off a chain of events that would see her parents lose their land, sending the family on a downward spiral. But against all odds, the fateful accident set Natthapan on the path to becoming a prominent land rights defender in southern Thailand. 

Alisa, who goes by the nickname Fon, went to a high school located right at the beach, prompting her to develop a deep interest in the coastal communities of her hometown. She then became inspired to pursue a career in law, hoping to bring the voices of local communities into the country's environmental laws and regulations. Today, the young activist is one of the pioneers of encouraging young people in Thailand's South to raise their voices for change. She became one of the few youth representatives in national politics dedicated to community struggles in the country’s coastal areas.