By V. Bruce J. Tolentino

On Earth Day 2010, Asia has much to be thankful for. While the recent global financial crisis hit Asia hard, most of Asia’s governments acted swiftly and decisively and succeeded, against prevailing expectations, to limit the impact of the financial debacle. They had learned the hard way from the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

Intertwined with the global financial crisis was the food price crisis of 2007-2009: long-term global trends in population growth, rising incomes, competing non-food use of crops, falling investments in agricultural productivity, and lower food stocks were jarred by sudden supply shocks in key producing countries. The panicky procurement and knee-jerk trade bans hurriedly implemented by several governments, particularly India and the Philippines, sparked a food price spiral – that spiraled out of control.
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By Gretchen Kunze

The Mekong River, the longest in Southeast Asia, is at its lowest reported water level in 20 years. The river runs through six countries – China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam – but the highest percentage (35 percent) of the river’s overall water flow runs through Laos. The dramatic effects of the low water level here are palpable. In past weeks, downtown Vientiane businesses and homes have experienced reduced water pressure and even the stoppage of water supply during business hours. Boats in Luang Prabang and northern Laos that daily ferry tourists and cargo along the river and make up a significant part of the economy are currently beached for the first time in memory because it is too dangerous or just impossible to navigate the now-shallow waters. The hospitals in Vientiane are without water supply at peak hours and are busy brainstorming stop-gap solutions such as building larger holding tanks or drilling more artesian wells. The maternity and surgery wards are the biggest users of water, so they are the most affected. Recognizing the severity of the issue, the Prime Minister urged ministries and government offices last week to actively address the impact of this water shortage crisis.

As the country that holds the largest percentage of the Mekong River, Laos' industries, such as fishing, have been dramatically affected by current low water levels.

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By Carol Mercado

At the 15th ASEAN summit, held this past October, ASEAN inaugurated its Inter-Governmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR).  The announcement was met with criticism from some quarters, but ASEAN called it a “historic milestone” in its 42-year history of community-building in the region.

During the summit’s concluding statement, ASEAN said that the AICHR “gives concrete expression to the implementation of Article 14 of the ASEAN Charter and ASEAN’s commitment to pursue forward-looking strategies to strengthen regional cooperation on human rights.” The Commission is mandated to support and protect human rights by promoting public awareness and education, and providing advice and capacity-building to government agencies and ASEAN bodies, among other things.
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By John J. Brandon

On November 15, after the APEC Leaders meeting, President Barack Obama will meet with the leaders of all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for the first-ever U.S.-ASEAN summit. For the past 12 years, both the Clinton and Bush administrations resisted calls for a U.S.-ASEAN summit over concern that because Burma is a member of ASEAN, such a summit would amount to acceptance of bilateral talks with Burma. The Obama Administration has said they are not going to punish the other nine ASEAN members simply because Burma is in the room, and has been careful to say this is not a bilateral. Since taking office in January, the Obama administration has shown from the start that it wishes to engage Southeast Asia in a more comprehensive manner, through ASEAN, rather than as a set of 10 bilateral relationships. This is both significant and welcome.
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By Chris Plante

Chris Plante is The Asia Foundation’s Director of the Environment Program. He can be reached at cplante@asiafound.org. Recently, he participated in a panel discussion titled “Water Worries: Balancing the Water We Need with the Water We Have” aired on City Visions Radio.

Thinking about World Water Day this Sunday, March 22nd, and the 2009 World Water Day theme of Transboundary Water, “sharing water, sharing opportunities,” I am reminded of “Mending Wall,” Robert Frost’s 1914 poem in which he asks why two neighbors must rebuild the stone wall dividing their farms each spring. Today, the unwritten rule – that good fences make good neighbors – makes plenty of sense to most of us. Our cities and suburbs, farms and factories, power plants and parks, and roads and rivers share common geography, boundaries, and neighbors.
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Special to In Asia, by an on-the-ground contributor in Burma to The Asia Foundation.

There is a phrase I hear over and over as I travel around the Irrawaddy delta in Burma (also known as Myanmar): “We have nothing left.”

Six months ago, Cyclone Nargis made landfall in this region and roared across the flat and vulnerable lands of the delta, bringing with it a massive storm surge of sea water. The wind and the water combined into a fatal and catastrophic force that wiped entire villages off the map. People drowned. Houses were demolished by the storm. Personal possessions washed away. Farms animals were killed. Fishing boats sank or were smashed to pieces in the waves. Survivors in the worst-hit areas were left with nothing.
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Special to In Asia, by an on-the-ground contributor in Burma to The Asia Foundation.

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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Special to In Asia and Give2Asia, by an on-the-ground contributor in Burma to The Asia Foundation.

Rangoon, May 20. I am staying in a house without electricity, and at night I write by candlelight, the battery on my laptop dwindling, draining. In the mornings, I go to one of the city’s high-end hotels for the Internet connection. I want reliable information about the ravaged fishing villages and rice farming communities in the Delta. I seek people out for their stories”executives, aid workers, doctors.

A businessman who has just returned from the worst-hit south-western part of the Delta in a private boat loaded with supplies, shows me film footage of villages that are nothing more than piles of water-logged timber. Shocked survivors huddle under make-shift shelters, with no access to relief supplies or medicine. Pointing to villages further south, in areas not yet reached by any aid two weeks after the storm, they say blankly into the camera, “Down there, it is even worse.”
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Ten days ago, Cyclone Nargis hit Burma. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies recently estimated that the resultant death toll is between 68,833 and 127,990. The surviving Burmese citizens have been deeply affected by widespread destruction including power and telecommunication breakdowns, with some villages being completely destroyed. According to the World Food Program, vast acres of standing rice crops have been wiped out and flooding and road damages have cut off food supplies. More than a million people have become homeless and are suffering from an acute shortage of food and water.

On May 6, 2008 the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued a general license to help facilitate the flow of funds for humanitarian assistance to the Burmese people in the wake of the cyclone.

With your support, the Give2Asia Burma Cyclone Relief Fund will work with organizations based in Southeast Asia to facilitate recovery programs. So far, Give2Asia’s partners include
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