Full Coverage: Asia and the Pacific

30.11.2006 Mercy Corps is assisting impoverished families caught in the latest crisis in Gaza by providing short-term jobs in the community to 2,600 residents.

30.11.2006 United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan has added his voice to the growing concern about a possible coup against the government of Fiji. Pacific states fear the ramifications of a coup both for Fiji and the region as a whole.

30.11.2006 Executive Director of the World AIDS Campaign, Marcel van Soest speaks to UNAIDS about the history of the World AIDS Campaign, how people can become involved in this year’s events and why ‘accountability’ is such a crucial theme for World AIDS Day 2006.

29.11.2006 Greenpeace has criticised the Indian government over its e-waste - waste from electronic and electrical equipment - policies for ignoring international laws and for putting the burden of handling e-waste on consumers and not producers. The organisation has said that the policy will "open the floodgates for dumping e-wastes in the country."

29.11.2006 Radio Sagarmatha, the pioneering Kathmandu-based community radio broadcaster, has been awarded the AMARC International Solidarity Prize 2006 in recognition of its outstanding work in defence of human rights and democracy in Nepal.

29.11.2006 Nirantar, a New Delhi-based NGO that works on gender and education, has announced its Annual Course on Participatory Material Production, to be held in two phases in November 2006, at Chitrakoot in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, and March 2007 in Indian capital New Delhi.

29.11.2006 India-based Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) is organising the Asian Telecentre Forum 2007 conference from 6-8 February 2007 at the Palace of the Golden Horses, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The last date for submission of abstracts is 15th December 2006.

28.11.2006 SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 28 (OneWorld) - Rural communities are experiencing a disproportionate amount of U.S. military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new study by the Carsey Institute, a think tank at the University of New Hampshire.

28.11.2006 Pashtun traditional values are "being drowned out in a sea of blood," warned hundreds of political leaders and tribal chiefs at a peace jirga last week, calling forcefully for an end to Taliban violence in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

28.11.2006 Indymedia activists report from Tonga, where riots broke out this month calling for democratic reforms. The demonstrators argue that the monarchy and current economic system only benefit the country's top 1 percent.

28.11.2006 Peace in Sri Lanka depends on recognizing and taking pride in the country's diverse identities and cultural melange, writes Sri Lankan professor Nira Wickramasinghe.

28.11.2006 Shi Tao, the Chinese journalist who was imprisoned after the American search engine company Yahoo provided information to the Chinese authorities that led to his arrest, has been awarded the 2007 Golden Pen of Freedom, the annual press freedom prize of the World Association of Newspapers.

28.11.2006 The decision by the Indian government to allow civil society organisations and community groups to own and operate radio stations will give an additional tool to the civil society to empower people it works with.

28.11.2006 Papiya Sarkar from the Media and Communications group of the India Social Forum (ISF) writes about the seminars on globalisation and fair trade that she attended at the recently-concluded ISF. The discussions were on overcoming barriers to fair trade and making it work for the socio economic development of the marginalised sections of the population.

28.11.2006 Exiled political leaders from Burma have expressed their anguish at the Indian government’s policy of appeasing the Burmese military junta that has internationally been seen as committing gross human rights violations and suppressing its own people.

28.11.2006 The UK-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has urged governments to take a new approach to intellectual property rights (IPRs) to reflect the needs, customs and views of indigenous communities in developing nations.

28.11.2006 Sri Lanka's first outdoor wireless computer network is now up and running. Surprisingly, it is not in Colombo. It is not even in any of the other key places. It was installed in Mahavilachchiya, a little known village, 40 km from the nearest town Anuradhapura, and surrounded three sides by the Vilpattu jungle.

27.11.2006 The New Delhi based Center for Science and Environment (CSE) has laid out an agenda for the recently set up Tiger Task force that says that the government will have to involve local people and tribals in protecting the tiger and will have to tackle the menace of poaching at the international level.

27.11.2006 Indian civil society organisations from one of India's most backward states Madhya Pradesh joined hands with people and the government to participate in the global event - Stand Up Against Poverty on 15-16 October, 2006. They joined some 23 million people across the world in the event.

27.11.2006 On the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of
Violence against Women, the Dalit Networks around the globe orgainsed International Conference to discuss the issues of discrimination and violence against more than 100 million Dalit women in South Asia. Dalit women from South Asia are determined to ‘’transform their pain into power’’ and the Hague Declaration on the Human Rights and Dignity of Dalit women’’ the participants urged the governments of Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka as well as the international community to support their struggle.