In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

With presidential elections in the island nation of the Maldives approaching in September, anxiety over an increase in gang-led violence is on the rise, despite the Maldives Police Service having successfully reduced crime on the streets of the capital, Male, in recent months.

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The horrific collapse three weeks ago of an eight-story garment factory building in Savar, just outside of Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, took the lives of more than 1,100 people, and was followed just last week by a deadly fire in another garment factory that left at least eight dead. The tragedies have left a nation in mourning, shining a spotlight on the lack of safety for garment sector workers in Bangladesh. These incidents have drawn international attention on the urgent need for better working conditions for workers, starting with safer, more secure buildings.

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Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen announced in late March that the nation was on target to move from the status of a low-income to a lower-middle-income nation by the end of 2013, ranking it the 15th country that obtained high economic growth in the world in the last 10 years.

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Just months before Mongolia prepares for its 6th Presidential Elections on June 26, the capital, Ulaanbaatar, hosted thousands of delegates from over 100 countries for the 7th Ministerial Conference of the Community of Democracies. Among the impressive list of influential guests…

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Nepal has been in a state of transition since 1950. In the ensuing years, a relatively brief, decade-long romance with democracy ended in three decades of single-party, autocratic rule. Since the restoration of multiparty, democratic politics just over 20 years ago, we have had 20 prime ministers…

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Against the background of Mongolia’s famous blue sky, around 1,215 delegates from 104 countries gathered in Ulaanbaatar to participate in the 7th Ministerial Conference of the Community of Democracies (CD) from April 27- 29, 2013, organized under Mongolia’s Presidency of the CD, which started in July 2011.

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Cambodia announced two major bilateral trade agreements last month, with the Philippines and Thailand, that are expected to further expand the country’s rice export sector. Over the last few years, Cambodia has emerged as a major rice exporter in the region, due in large part to the Royal Government of Cambodia’s recent expansion of its agricultural sector.

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The conference in the Asian Approaches to Development Cooperation dialogue series convened in Seoul, South Korea, this month, and brought together development experts and senior government officials to discuss climate change mitigation, green growth, and adapting to and building resilience to natural disasters. This dialogue series, co-organized by The Asia Foundation and the Korea Development Institute (KDI), brings together both “emerging” and “traditional” development actors to discuss international development challenges. This year’s focus on effective cooperation for deterring the impacts of climate change was launched in Seoul, fittingly, as South Korea is playing a leading role in low-carbon development in the Asia-Pacific region.

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As Mongolia makes final preparations to host the 7th Ministerial Conference of the Community of Democracies from April 27-29, 2013, an air of excitement and buzz is palpable here in the capital, Ulaanbaatar. Among the hundreds of high-level delegates from the government…

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Yesterday marked the 18th World Book and Copyright Day, first introduced by UNESCO in 1995, in celebration of books, authors, and the joys of reading. It’s also an occasion to reflect on the importance of education, especially as a driver of poverty reduction.

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