In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

Notwithstanding media images of demonstrators in Seoul angrily denouncing North Korea’s launch of a long-range rocket, the reaction among the general public in South Korea has been generally calm. The demonstrators in Seoul numbered in the hundreds (in a country where ten thousand is a modest turnout) and mostly represented small far-right groups. This is [...]

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North Korea’s launch of a multi-stage rocket has been assessed by international experts as a technical failure, but the test has been at least a partial success in hitting four political targets: North Korea’s domestic audience, exploitation of international divisions among members of the six party talks, testing of the newly-established Obama administration, and exploitation [...]

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How to define a “good” election? Obviously everyone wants a peaceful, free, and fair election process. To strengthen accountability and make sure voters know what choices they have, they must also have sufficient information about the candidates in order to be able to make an informed choice on Election Day. In Indonesia, the big question [...]

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As red-shirted protesters continue to block access to the Government House, just as their yellow-shirted foes did a few months ago, one wonders where democracy is headed in Thailand. A dozen years ago, Thailand drafted a constitution through a participatory process seen as a model for other emerging democracies. Thailand was a rising star, the [...]

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Significant global trends are combining to make transparency and disclosure regulation one of the most important and exciting areas in which government and civil society can be working to transform and strengthen local governance structures. Not only are advances in electronic and digital communications enabling people to access information that governments may not want publicized; [...]

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Karl Inderfurth, a member of The Asia Foundation’s Board of Trustees, was published in the New York Times in an op-ed offering a strategy for Afghanistan to become a permanently neutral state via a multilateral process. Read the full op-ed “Ultimate Exit Strategy”.

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The global economic crisis is having far-ranging effects, as we hear every day. One place that might be impacted severely is ODA, or official development assistance. ODA is financial assistance provided by the world’s wealthiest countries to the world’s poorest. Those recipient countries might soon feel more pain As of 2008, ODA totaled U.S. $80 [...]

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A decade ago, when Indonesia launched an ambitious program to place a midwife in every one of Indonesia’s 70,000 villages, the country got international recognition for its bold programming move. But how quickly is Indonesia making progress on health, particularly as related to its commitment to the United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to reduce [...]

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On the heels of releasing its recommendations for the new U.S. administration – America’s Role in Asia – The Asia Foundation is co-sponsoring the World Affairs Council’s 63rd Annual World Conference, “Global Priorities: Critical Choices for the Obama Administration.” On April 2-3, 2009, in San Francisco, political leaders, policymakers, scholars, and diplomats will gather to [...]

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Challenged by ongoing social unrest and marred by violence in 2006 that left 37 dead and displaced close to 150,000 people, Timor-Leste just signaled a positive step forward. Last Friday, the government announced plans for the district-by-district transition of policing authority from the United Nations security forces to the Policia Nacional de Timor-Leste (PNTL), which [...]

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