In late October, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad issued a directive to state officials: raise the minimum age for marriage to eighteen years old. The move came after a huge public outcry earlier this year…
"If the community has to leave the island…they are going to lose their culture.” Few places on earth are as vulnerable to climate change as Ontong Java in the Solomon Islands. [caption id="attachment_9715" align="alignright" width="339"]…
Climate change is already having big effects on southern Asia. Deadly heat waves like one that killed 3,500 people in India and Pakistan in 2015 are becoming more frequent. The summer monsoon rains are changing,…
"The brutality of the drug war is beyond any human witnessing..." New York-based photographer Lawrence Sumulong has a strong connection to the Philippines. [caption id="attachment_9153" align="alignleft" width="183"] Lawrence Sumulong (courtesy)[/caption] The son of a Filipino…
In recent days Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte announced that he would withdraw his country from the treaty governing the International Criminal Court. That move came just over a month after the ICC’s top prosecutor announced…
The Philippines is in the midst of a spectacularly brutal war on drugs. The man behind it is the President Rodrigo Duterte, who took office June 30. In Duterte’s first seven weeks on the job,…
"Most of those who've been killed so far in the drug war come from the very same social strata to whom [Duterte] appealed most... the poor." Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte doesn't like criticism. Since taking office…
Rebalance in U.S. relations yields mix results A key pillar of President Barack Obama's foreign policy has been the attempted "pivot to Asia." The idea was that under President Bush, the U.S. expended enormous resources…
The prime minister of East Timor has filed a criminal defamation suit against a newspaper reporter who wrote an article about potential bid-rigging in a government contract. Prime Minister Rui Maria de Araujo filed a criminal…
A Filipino radio journalist has been found shot to death in his home on the southern island of Mindanao. Elvis Banggoy Ordaniza, a 49-year-old reporter for a radio station in the town of Pitogo, 520…
