Initiatives For Asia

01/20/2024

Here comes the English version!

In this video, we will provide an introduction to Yunnan, one of the most geographically diverse and colourful provinces in China.

10/19/2020

09/05/2014

Watch this space for information regarding the Burma Roundtable being scheduled for 2015 and beyond. We hope to have a full slate of events announced by late October or before! We'll be pleased to return to offer the views of top-notch scholars, resources, and speakers. Accept no substitutes nor information from fraudulent promoters. We remain the real deal and look forward to seeing you soon. Thanks for all the messages of support, suggestions, and awareness!

09/05/2014

Rivers matter to communities. Read this to see why it should matter to you.

07/04/2014

This is still happening. Can you share this and help for it to stop. Take the time to read and pass on, please.

In Burma, an ultranationalist Buddhist militia is training to "defend the fatherland" against Rohingya Muslims.

07/03/2014

Concern is increasing over backslides in reforms and escalations in human rights abuses in Burma. There has been speculation that the coup in Thailand and the regressing situation there has provided the generals with "proof" that democracy will fail and they must creep back into control. The international community should make it clear that if Burma (and Thailand) wish to remain in conversations with the global community, that respect for the UDHR is a minimum requirement.

Despite high Western praise for reforms, Naypyidaw has done little to end impunity and human rights violations

06/28/2014

Ramadan Mubarak to the world. We're hoping that the coming election in Indonesia sees policy corrections that avoid the nightmare that fires create not just in the country with the world's largest Muslim population, but throughout the region. We are, of course, also hoping that regardless of the outcome that Jakarta strengthens its human rights policies and protections at home and abroad.

Indonesia's disaster agency warned on Wednesday that haze could return to neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia after a huge jump in forest fires in a province at the centre of a smog crisis last year.

06/25/2014

Here is an apparent problem for the "nonpartisan" and "above politics" army and yellowshirt leadership in Thailand. Conspiring for four years? Wow.

Some embarrassing cracks are beginning to emerge among the main players in Thailand’s military coup after a pro-army protest leader said he had been conspiring with the army for years.

06/25/2014

This is not a confidence-building activity in the human rights future for the residents of Thailand.

Just call it the Land of Snitches

06/22/2014

Where is the dividend of long-vaunted freedom in Burma? When will there be movement to speak for the Rohingya and other ethnic nationalities in the country? Who will help the NLD develop stronger capacity for the next generation of leaders and will human rights concerns be a baseline for them?

With parliament disqualifying Aung San Suu Kyi from presidential elections, the constitution could be a winning issue for Burma's opposition, The Wall Street Journal writes in an editorial.

06/22/2014

The more time that passes, the more it seems that Barney Frank might have had a good point. Your thoughts on how to respond to the abrogation of democracy and a freely elected government in Thailand?

We should impose the toughest nonmilitary sanctions.

06/22/2014

Tier 3? Wow, Thailand. The awareness of human trafficking grows larger, but your willingness to support a world free of it seems to grow smaller. Why?

The US State Department downgrades Thailand and Malaysia to its list of the world’s worst human trafficking centers, opening up the countries to possible sanctions.