Recent promising reports of talks between the Burmese military junta and the Aung San Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy (NLD), which convincingly won the country’s 1990 elections but was prevented from taking its role in the government, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1956562.stm , have been overshadowed by questions of Aung San Suu Kyi’s health and status. A letter […]
Amnesty International (AI) recently called on the European Union (EU) to step up pressure on Japan to abolish the death penalty at an April 24th Japan-EU Summit Meeting. The London-based human rights organization released the statement the same day it issued its annual report on the death penalty. http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/document.do?id=ENGIOR610112006 While, according to the report, the […]
Stakeholders in the Indian healthcare system contend that the government has been drawing foreign tourists to India for medical procedures at the expense of adequately funding the public health system. In an article published in the British Medical Journal in November, a doctor and an activist wrote that India is among the top 20 countries […]
The ruling military junta of Burma is moving the country’s governing headquarters to a remote compound in the northern jungle. Media reports in mid-November confirmed that civil servants in the capital city, Yangon (Rangoon), are rapidly being transferred to a site called Pyinmanaa that permits limited unsupervised communication with or from the outside world. The […]
Botswana’s government recently initiated a new round of forced evictions and human rights violations against the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert, according to Survival International (SI), a London-based NGO that advocates for indigenous rights. The Bushmen have lived in the Kalahari for thousands of years. During the 1980s, the Botswana government designated part of their […]
Logging and the development of an ecotourism resort threaten Australia’s Recherche Bay, where one of the earliest known meetings between Tasmania’s Aboriginal people and European explorers took place. According to historians, archaeologists and ethnologists, Recherche Bay has significant cultural and historical value. French expeditions landed there in 1792 and again in 1793, staying several weeks […]
Bulgaria’s coastal tourism industry may be thriving at the cost of irreplaceable environmental resources. The buildup in recent years of high-rise hotels, roads and other tourism infrastructure around the popular Sunny Beach resort along Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast has some environmental advocates concerned about the impact of development on natural resources and regional aesthetics. Sand, […]
C. RAJA MOHAN Indian Express 13 June 2005 LHASA, JUNE 13 As its internal transport infrastructure expands rapidly, Tibet is looking forward to eventual rail and road links with India and other neighbouring countries to promote greater cross-border trade and tourism. Once it develops tourist facilities near Kailash Manasarovar, Tibet will be ready to receive […]
The United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) will allow developing countries whose populations suffer heavily from malaria to continue spraying the controversial insecticide DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) until an effective vaccine is found. UNEP’s decision, which was announced in early May, is seen as acknowledging a need among developing countries to use DDT to fight malaria, while urging […]
