Ear to Asia

While non-violence and detachment may be central to Buddhist teachings, there are growing accounts of human rights abuses – often along ethnic lines – in Buddhist-majority countries like Myanmar and Sri Lanka, often carried out in the name of Buddhism...

Taiwan and Korea were colonised by Imperial Japan for much of the first half of the 20th century, and liberated only after Japan surrendered to allied forces in 1945. While North and South Korea continue to share a deep resentment towards Japan, Taiwan exhibits a more positive attitude towards their former coloniser...

Since the 1950s but peaking in the 1980s, an estimated 200,000 South Korean babies and children have been adopted into mainly white families in western nations, leaving a trail of fractured identities...

After the Taliban wrested power from Afghanistan’s democratically-elected government in August 2021, almost overnight, life for millions of Afghans changed radically and possibly irrevocably. Notably, the rights of women and girls to be educated and to participate in the workforce were stripped away. But the nation was also plunged into a terrible humanitarian crisis with more than a million severely malnourished children, massive unemployment, and runaway inflation...

Sri Lanka recently found itself caught in a diplomatic tussle between China and India over the planned visit of Chinese naval vessel the Yuan Wang 5, to the port of Hambantota. India opposed the visit because it considers the vessel a spy ship, while China maintains that it’s just a research vessel. And that saga is but one example of how Sri Lanka must walk the line between Asia's two largest powers...

In August 2021, the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan after a 20-year hiatus and promptly replaced the nation’s legal system with their own austere version of Islamic law or Sharia. While the impact of the new government on women and girls has been well documented outside the country, the Taliban's interpretation of Sharia is making itself felt across Afghan society as the country is in the grip of possibly its worst ever humanitarian crisis...

Muslims in Indonesia are increasingly seeking to align their consumption with their religious beliefs. The push comes from a growing urban middle class who have greater access to global products and services. At the same time, Indonesia’s halal product assurance law, which came into effect in 2019, is being phased in across a wide range of goods and services...

Although Indonesia's presidential elections take place in February 2024, it's already game on for the lineup of presidential hopefuls, and the nation's political machine is already in high gear...