Asia

The mining sector offers a good opportunity to invite investment and generate revenues for the development of a diversified economy and to work on improving relations between the Afghan state and its citizens.

In this issue, our authors report on conflicts stemming from coal and copper mining in Afghanistan, India, and Myanmar. The articles on Cambodia and on Inner Mongolia in China illustrate how the traditional economic models and ways of life of indigenous populations suffer from the unrestrained exploitation of raw materials.

Publication Series on Democracy 31: The present study by Andrea Fleschenberg shows that in national and international debates about the transition process in Afghanistan women’s voices are seldom present, or taken into consideration.

Despite the tens of millions of dollars in aid and concessional loans being spent in Cambodia, the evidence shows that tenure insecurity, forced evictions and large-scale land grabbing are escalating to alarminglevels. The paper calls on development partners to adopt a ten-pronged framework for a human rights approach to development.

The aim of publishing the manual on environment is raising public awareness on environment and its protection measures.

All over the world, information technologies and the internet have taken an increasingly important role in communication, challenging the conventional means of news consumption. Our office in Thailand has performed interviews with academics, journalists and activists to explore the role of new media in social movements in Thailand, and how it will develop.

The 2007–2008 world food price crisis caused political and economical instability and social unrest in both poor and developed nations. This was only the latest example for a functioning food system being an indispensable pillar of a stable economy and a society capable of reproducing itself. A new study outlines steps how the intergovernmental Committee on World Food Security could be expanded towards a politically relevant international steering committee.

How People Define Violence and Justice is a joint research project of ACSFo and HBS on international crimes, massacres, rapes, murders, destruction of residential areas, homicide and imprisonment of intellectuals, torture and human rights abuses of the past fifty years. The standards for justice and human rights violation in this project are defined by people. Views, beliefs and utterances of respondents constitute the basis of this research.

With their presentation of specific topics and discourses, the media construct specific realities that shape a society’s images of other regions. This comprehensive study analyzes the portrayal of China in German media. Originally published in German, this summary summary shows the essential results.

Nuclear Energy generation is slated to rise in the coming decades from the present 3 percent to upto 20 percent in the energy mix of India. With climate change concerns, nuclear energy is now being brought back and reconsidered as 'clean' and 'zero cost' energy. The amount of waste created will increase manifold.