Full Coverage: East Asia

27.02.2006 Prime Minister Tony Blair has been urged to step up diplomatic pressure on Japan to halt its drive to overturn the ban on commercial whaling.

26.02.2006 There is a renaissance of short for hundreds of colorfully attired Tibetans who congregated at the Main Square of Mcleodganj in this Buddhists pilgrimage town of Dharamsala today. The reason was to rekindle an era for conservation of endangered animals by boycotting clothes made from animal skins.

23.02.2006 Google, the US-based Internet giant, has once again landed in a controversy in China, with the government on Wednesday saying it has completed a probe into charges that the company operated in the country without proper licence.

23.02.2006 American companies are under attack from Congress for helping the Chinese government suppress free speech but it's the U.S. government that really has the power to affect change, argues former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

22.02.2006 Several Chinese activists who have supported or participated in a series of protest hunger-strikes since 4 February have been arrested or gone missing.

21.02.2006 Nestlé admits to targeting 'pregnant and lactating women' with nutritional supplements, baby foods and milk at 'Nutrition Centres' in Chinese stores, says a leading campaign group.

21.02.2006 Choosing profits over principles, Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have foolishly embraced the dragon of censorship, says Rebecca MacKinnon.

20.02.2006 The giants of the internet were hauled before Congress yesterday, accused of colluding with China's secret police and censors to wield a "cyber sledgehammer of repression".

20.02.2006 One day, perhaps, censorship will no longer make good business sense anywhere, says former CNN Beijing bureau chief Rebecca McKinnon, but for now, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google are succumbing to Chinese government pressures...at the expense of their customers' rights.

16.02.2006 Mounting evidence that more people in Asia and the Pacific will be dying of chronic diseases rather than infectious ones by 2015 will force the region's governments to redraw their public health budgets, say United Nations officials.

16.02.2006 Lawmakers in the US Congress on Wednesday accused US Internet providers of putting the quest for profits ahead of ethics in cooperating with China's censorship of online information. The stinging criticism came at a hearing in the House of Representatives, where senior officials from Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Cisco Systems were the star witnesses.

16.02.2006 WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb 16 (OneWorld) - Global warming watch out: Ice hockey fans are out to get you.

14.02.2006 KATHMANDU, Feb 14 (IPS) - Thirteen thousand -- plus Asmina Chapagain. The former is the estimated number of Nepalis killed since Maoist rebels hurled their first homemade bombs at the state, 10 years ago, this week. Chapagain was one of the latest innocents caught in the crossfire.

13.02.2006 In apparent response to a recent appeal by the Dalai Lama to ban the use of endangered species’ skins for garments in Tibet, a popular campaign has been launched in the north-eastern area of Rebkong.

13.02.2006 The Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, also known as the AP6 - after its six member countries - is being looked upon as a corporate clique rather than the environmental protection and sustainable development group it claims to be.

13.02.2006 from Transmaterial:
Called Eco-Curtain, it's made up of hundreds of vertical-axis turbines. This is just one of dozens of examples of new materials which employ waste, renewables and advanced technologies to cut energy consumption. If you're an architect, you'll be sure to get plenty of inspiration on this site.

13.02.2006 Each village or soum in Mongolian is usually surrounded by baghs. A bagh is a remote ‘homestead’ usually defined by its portable Ger (traditional felt and wood home). Some soum and bagh communities are semi-nomadic and require a portable telecom solution.

10.02.2006 WASHINGTON, Feb 9 (IPS) - The escalating crisis over Iran's nuclear programme appears to have persuaded the U.S. public that Tehran now poses a greater threat to the United States than any other country, or even al Qaeda, according to recent surveys.

10.02.2006 With just two years left for the 2008 Olympics, Beijing is struggling to live up to its pledge of hosting the 'green games' while also meeting the demands of its increasingly affluent residents and their consumerist ways.

10.02.2006 The clouds in China have been replaced by the smog, one that has made the country significantly darker than it was some 50 years ago. A team of researchers led by Yun Qian studied records from more than 500 weather stations across China between 1954 and 2001 and found that solar radiation has decreased by two per cent per decade since 1954.