Asia

The situation across the Taiwan Straits has drastically escalated as the military deployment from the Chinese mainland, U.S. and the island of Taiwan continues creeping up, after US and Taiwan-based media disclosed that U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected…

The right to survival and development The concept of “taking the right to survival and right to development as the primary basic human rights” has deep cultural and historic roots in China, and has also been the fundamental proposition for China’s…

By Perfecto Caparas The Philippine Department of Education recently issued a policy adopting “rights-based education” as its basic framework for kindergarten to high school students. Titled “Child Rights Policy: Adopting The Rights-Based Education Framework In Philippine Basic Education,” the DepEd…

Chile’s new Constitutional Draft waiting for approval by plebiscite on September 4th 2022 represents the culmination of a long process initiated by the social outburst of October 19, 2019. The draft is the result of a unique, unprecedented and profoundly…

Rawan Bo-khuntod (l) and another farmer planting seedlings (Image by Pattama Kuentak/IPS) Tucked away in Pathumthaini province, on the outskirts of Bangkok, 0.24 hectares of land adjacent to the Seangsan temple became an urban vegetable farm run by members of…

On June 20, 2002, thousands of Rohingya refugees held peaceful rallies in Bangladesh, demanding repatriation to Myanmar with safety, dignity and security. The demonstrations were staged under the banner “Let’s go home.” Refugees among 23 crowded camps in Bangladesh’s southeastern…

In his now classic “The Clash of Civilizations”, Samuel Huntington foresaw in the post-Cold War period a series of potentially explosive conflicts based no longer on the opposition between ideologies, but rather on the opposition between civilizations; the identity factor,…

12 July 2022, Quezon City.  Civil society leaders have identified priority issues that they would like President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. to enunciate during his first State of the Nation Address (SONA), including policies and strategies that will advance climate action…

By Perfecto Caparas     Besieged journalists persevere and persist with their critical reporting amid the government’s clampdown in the guise of anti-communism and anti-terrorism. Cyber libel and anti-terrorism laws hang like Damocles’ sword over the head of independent and…

POEM     A smile on the face Of a young man passing by A bird on a branch Who looks right at you, then at the sky The whisper of the wind On a hot and arid day A…