Full Coverage: East Asia

24.10.2006 BEIJING, Oct 24 (IPS) - Celebrating the success of microfinance as an antidote to poverty has raised some uncomfortable questions here over China's reluctance to allow civil society a bigger role in addressing tough social issues.

18.10.2006 Diplomacy and trade, not military threats or sanctions, provide the best hope for peace on the Korean peninsula, says the East Asian representative of a U.S. faith-based group, tracing the North Korea nuclear crisis back to the Bush administration's post-9/11 refusal to negotiate.

18.10.2006 For decades the United Nations has seemed quite a distant place, remote from daily lives of most Asians, says former South Asia journalist Barbara Crossette. But the election of a South Korean secretary-general could focus the eyes of Asia on the world body.

12.10.2006 UNITED NATIONS, Oct 12 (OneWorld) - North Korea's nuclear weapon test has spawned widespread denunciation but the fallout also includes divergent positions on how to respond.

10.10.2006 Two countries abolished the death penalty in 2006, but two others are considering re-instating the practice, which human rights advocates say is imposed in many countries despite appallingly low court standards.

09.10.2006 The number and variety of civil society organisations in China has "significantly increased" since the 1990s, a new report says, with particularly strong representation in the fields of environmental protection, poverty alleviation, trade promotion, and community development, but very little human rights advocacy.

03.10.2006 A viable diplomatic strategy is urgently needed now that North Korea plans to test a nuclear weapon, said an arms control group Tuesday, noting that the Bush administration's focus on form over substance has allowed Pyongyang to produce enough material for perhaps as many as ten nuclear weapons.