Even Discussion

"I don’t know what’s going to happen to our people … what our future will be?"

A year after coming into office, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is finding
some parallels between the challenges of governing this divided South-east
Asian kingdom and one of his favourite books, the ‘Myth of Sisyphus’ by French
existential novelist Albert Camus.

Greater interaction and integration are crucial to easing social tensions in countries that are host to a growing number of migrants, experts say.

The string of events involving the Sri Lankan press over the past week has once
again brought the embattled Fourth Estate into the limelight. This comes into
sharp focus as the country eagerly awaits the upcoming presidential elections.

An ambitious plan to establish a chemical industry complex in an ecologically fragile coastal zone of India’s eastern state, West Bengal, has snowballed into a debate, with the ruling communists facing resistance from environmental groups and political rivals over the project.

As India’s central government begins a series of public meetings across the
country this month on the commercial release of genetically modified (GM)
brinjal – or eggplant -
in this country, activists and farmers’ groups are mobilising to oppose such a
plan.

Every day Yang Hongwei takes the bus home from work, staring silently at the European-style villas, luxury sedans and twinkling lights from the plazas that he sees through the window.

One of Cambodia’s oldest languages – S’aoch – appears headed for extinction in the next decade. Other languages spoken by its minority people are lining up to take the place of the 6,000-year-old language in the most endangered category.

Ten years after its founding, the World Social Forum (WSF) has come to represent
a rallying point for activists and grassroots groups committed to shaping an
alternative world view.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is traveling in the South Pacific this week on a trip to strengthen the longtime U.S. alliances with Australia, work to improve relations with New Zealand and to bring some forward momentum to U.S.-Japanese negotiations over the controversial relocation of the U.S. air station in Okinawa.