Asia

I and Oliver Stone both spoke at Hiroshima on the anniversary of the first nuclear bombing in human history and we are slated to speak in two days at Nagasaki on the anniversary of the second nuclear attack. My speech…

Photo: Film director Oliver Stone shakes hands with priests and brothers Moon Jeong-hyun (right) and Moon Kyu-hyun at a concert supporting the opposition to the construction of a naval base in Gangjeong Village, Jeju Island, August 3.  Acclaimed director is…

Sunday 21st July 2013 at Narhi Park of Study and Reflection, Bihar, India; a gathering of around fifty humanists meeting on an all-India, plus Asia guests, occasion who jointly took the opportunity to scatter ashes of Silo at the site.…

Tragedy of poisoned school children in India provides another reminder The tragic incident in Bihar, India, where 23 school children died after eating a school meal contaminated with monocrotophos, is an important reminder to speed up the withdrawal of highly…

Jiangmen, about one hundred miles up the Pearl River from Hong Kong, has been the scene of thousands taking to the streets in protests against a proposed uranium mining and manufacturing project in that area. Authorities backed down over the…

Masao Yoshida has died of cancer of the oesophagus. He was 58. He had led the efforts to stop the radioactive leaks at the Fukushima nuclear power plant after the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami induced a triple meltdown.…

Japan will hold elections of the Upper House of the Diet on 21 July 2013. Several parties, notably Prime Minister Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, have made constitutional revision a priority. If they obtain a majority – and they are in…

Success in free elections held after the “Arab Spring” protests in Tunisia and Egypt has brought Islamists to power through democratic means, and Islamist influence is on the rise throughout the Arab world. Much of the debate about liberal democracy’s…

Over 100,000 demonstrators filed along the streets of Hong Kong 1 July this year in the annual protest march that is on every activist’s agenda in this vibrant city. The march marks the handover of the British colony to Beijing…

When Muhammad Yunus won a Nobel Prize in 2006, in conjunction with the now renown micro-credit organisation Grameen, it was a great day of jubilation in Bangladesh. Since that day, the organisation has continually got better and its methods were…