• South East Asia

    Aung San Suu Kyi for President?

    Recent signs point to Aung San Suu Kyi being able to vie for president in the 2015 elections. First, the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) has formally proposed amending a proviso in the constitution that bars her from being a candidate for the top leadership post. Clause 59(f)…

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  • East Asia

    China’s conditions to accept a ‘unified Korea’

    Recent months have seen an unusual amount of noise and a sense of crisis in Northeast Asia, a region in which nationalist passions have not run this high for decades. Sino-Japanese relations have hit a nadir, while US commitments to Japan have been strongly confirmed. While South Korea’s President Park…

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  • South Asia

    Pakistan’s Musharraf appears in treason case as court defers indictment

    Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf appeared Tuesday for the first time in front of a court tasked with deciding whether he committed high treason, a sharp blow for a man who was once the most powerful in Pakistan. The appearance is also a blow to the prestige of the country’s…

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  • South East Asia

    Hasina wins election: political conflict persists

    The Bangladesh Awami League (AL) president Sheikh Hasina has become the prime minister of the government again for the third time, as her party has achieved massive victory in the just-concluded parliament elections. The AL secured 232 seats in the 300-seat unicameral Jatiya Sangsad (parliament). Sheikh Hasina, who was sworn…

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  • South Asia

    Sushil Koirala elected Nepal’s new PM

    Septuagenarian Sushil Koirala was elected new Prime Minister of Nepal on February 2, 2014. Koirala, the president of Nepali Congress and its parliamentary party leader Sushil Koirala was elected to the new prime minister by mustering 73 per cent votes in the 601-member parliament cum Constituent Assembly. Nepali Congress is…

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  • South East Asia

    Thai protesters vow to annul Feb. 2 national election, step up rallies

      Thai protesters vowed Monday to stage larger rallies in central Bangkok and push ahead their efforts to nullify the results of elections that were expected to prolong a national political crisis. Despite fears of violence, voting proceeded peacefully in 90 percent of polling stations. The protesters forced polling booths…

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  • South East Asia

    Haiyan, the agony you left and heroes you brought!

    I have been to Tacloban City many times before, and have also visited other places in the provinces of Leyte and Samar. These are in the Eastern Visayas region of the Philippines. These places are exceptionally beautiful, especially Tacloban City, the major trading and commercial hub in the region. This…

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  • East Asia

    Iranian President Rouhani urges closer economic ties with South Korea

    Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called for closer economic ties with South Korea here on Monday, semi-official Fars news agency reported. “The South Korean private sector and companies should come closer to Iran’s private sector and expand the scope of their cooperation,” Rouhani said in a meeting with the visiting South…

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  • What N. Korea’s peace proposal means

    A train runs on the rail track, which the two Koreas hope to reconnect as part of an agreement reached in 2000, in the fog at the Imjingak Pavilion near the border village of Panmunjom, which has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War, in Paju, South Korea, Saturday,…

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  • East Asia

    De-nuclearization way to prosperity

    Among other negative effects, World War II left the problem of a divided Korea. Despite the fact that it was completely divided into the North and South several years after the end of World War II, the current state of their relations are still a consequence. The situation on the…

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