In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

On October 24, in Nay Pyi Taw, Burma, The Asia Foundation presented a special collection of more than 600 volumes to the Burmese Parliament to help provide information about key democracy and development issues facing the country. The event was attended by U Khin Aung Mint, speaker of the Upper House; Thura U Shwe Mann, [...]

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Last month, local headlines in Vietnam announced the government’s much-welcomed decision to earmark an additional $119 million (VND2.5 trillion) to assist with loans to low-income university students in the upcoming academic year. This is certainly good news, because despite Vietnam’s strong economic growth…

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Dr. Scott Rozelle posed a difficult question during his presentation at Give2Asia’s 10th Anniversary Forum: What caused wages to rise in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea such that these once-booming manufacturing centers relinquished their first-place manufacturing titles in the 1970s and 1980s to China?

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For Sivashankar Krishnakumar, an electrical engineer from California who is placed with the Foundation of Goodness, organizing the Murali Harmony Cup was a stimulating experience, opening vistas hitherto unexplored. Born in Jaffna, Sivashankar left for the U.S. with his family as a young boy…

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The Asia Foundation’s Asian American Exchange unit and Books for Asia are currently conducting a 10-day observation program around northern California for 14 librarians from nine Asian countries. While in San Francisco, In Asia editor Alma Freeman caught up with two librarians from Burma…

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This week, development pioneer Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, founder of BRAC, the largest nongovernmental development organization in the world, is in Washington, D.C., where he concludes his visit to the U.S. as an Asia Foundation Chang-Lin Tien Distinguished Visiting Fellow.

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The industrial zone of Ashulia, just outside of Bangladesh’s sprawling capital, Dhaka, grabbed headlines in mid-June when hundreds of garment workers demanding higher minimum wages shut down over 300 factories. It was the most violent protests the region had experienced since 2010…

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In late August, Lao Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong approved the first-ever national draft strategy on gender; a broad plan designed to increase the number of women in senior positions in government. The strategy is not yet public…

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This International Literacy Day, Sept. 8, 2012, marks the culmination of the United Nations Literacy Decade (UILD), an initiative launched in 2003 to increase literacy levels and develop literate environments worldwide.

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I recently took a trip into the heart of Malaysian Borneo to visit some of the most remote schools that The Asia Foundation’s Books for Asia serves. Borneo is a large island located north of Java, Indonesia. In the spring of 2011, we started a partnership with PACOS Trust…

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