In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

“If you clean up the river, we will be forced to buy chemical fertilizers.”

The leader of the village’s Party work unit smiles, and settles back in her chair, waiting to hear what we will say. She knows we are hoping to build on the early successes of an Asia Foundation program focused on water safety and food security, but she wants us to know that life is not always linear. We ask if the farmers in her village have trouble with skin rashes or stomach illnesses, and she nods. Water pollution is bad, but it is also a way to deliver fertilizer to poor farmers. Outside the open community center where we are sitting are ponds full of morning glory and cress and lotus, growing lushly green on a liquid bed of what is, essentially, sewage.

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In 2007, both Mongolia and Canada improved their corruption-fighting performance by the same nominal amount, two tenths of a point, according to the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index. And this is almost where the parallel ends: Canada ranks number 9, and Mongolia ranks number 99.

According to numerous polls, Mongolians believe that corruption is among the most important challenges facing the country, after soaring inflation and high-unemployment.

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ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan, who also serves as a Trustee of The Asia Foundation, spoke recently about the importance of East Asian countries forging closer ties with its Southeast Asian neighbors. To read his full speech, click here. To read an article about the speech in the Korean JoongAng Daily, click here.

It’s happening slowly, but it’s happening: Mongolian writers are taking steps toward forming a branch of International PEN (Poets, Playwrights, Essayists, and Novelists). International PEN, the only international organization of writers, is dedicated to literary fellowship and freedom of expression around the world. It was founded in 1921 by Mrs. C.A. Dawson Scott, a Cornish novelist, based on her conviction that “if the writers of the world could learn to stretch out their hands to each other, the nations of the world could learn in time to do the same.”Today PEN has over 140 Centers in about 100 countries, but Mongolia, a place where schoolchildren memorize poems and the Mongolian Writers’ Union has around 700 registered members, does not yet have a PEN center of its own. Without a PEN center, Mongolia cannot send representatives to the annual PEN World Conference, participate in any PEN programming and fellowship activities, or link in to a sound and talented network of literary translators that would help put Mongolia on the world’s literary map.

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Rangoon, Burma – One month has passed since Cyclone Nargis hit Rangoon and the Delta region of Burma. Electricity is back on at the house where I am staying in Rangoon, though the phone-line is still down. Monsoon season has begun and it rains heavily almost every day ” dark and angry storms that threaten to drown the city in a daily deluge as murky waters rise up from the overburdened sewage systems.

Solid information about the situation in the Delta area is still frustratingly hard to come by due to restricted access.

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Six years after emerging from 25 years of conflict, Afghanistan continues to face tremendous challenges to stability and growth. The increasing strength of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, based across the border in relatively safe havens in Pakistan, threatens security and reconstruction, and robust economic growth is threatened by the effects of a burgeoning drug economy and near-total dependence on foreign aid.

Despite daunting challenges, the government has made important achievements in recent years. Unfortunately, as underscored in several recent studies, these achievements may prove short-lived if significant progress is not achieved on a range of tough challenges over the next few years. Over 75 percent of adult Afghans remain illiterate and about 80 percent of women and children can neither write nor read and 70 percent survive on less than two dollars per day. Afghanistan’s poppy and opium production still represents over a third of the country’s GDP and supplies over 80 percent of the world’s heroin.

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On Wednesday, May 28, I was at the Constituent Assembly (CA) until just before midnight when Nepal was declared a federal republic and the king was given 15 days to vacate the palace. The CA was initially supposed to convene at 10:30am, then 3:15 pm. It wasn’t until after 9:00 p.m. that proceedings finally got underway. Throughout the day, party leaders were at the Prime Minister’s residence debating the leadership structure of the new government and the composition of the 26 nominated seats. The motion that passed last night provides for a president to be elected by the house, a vice president, and an executive prime minister. We assume that Girija Koirala will be the president and Prachanda the executive prime minister. What remains unclear is whether the army will report to the president instead of the PM, and which party will fill the post of vice president. There was no resolution on the nominated members. That should be decided before the CA reconvenes next week.

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