Truth and reconciliation is a project which inevitably needs to balance short term politics against long term justice. There are signs that Sri Lanka's new government understands the challenge
Muscular Sinhalese nationalism was defeated at the polls in Sri Lanka. The dismantling of the security state, started in January, can now continue. And there is hope for progress on the very necessary process of post-war accountability and reconcilliation
The Nepalese earthquake was a product of natural causes. But the full death toll and slow recovery are not.
The prospect of execution of two Australians in Indonesia has caught international media attention, amid Australian protest. But these are part of a wider official spasm, in a country dominated by a ‘tough on crime’ narrative.
‘National security’ is often the card played by states denying human rights. With the North Korean dictatorship next door, in South Korea it is a regular trump.
International constraint and mutual nuclear deterrence may have prevented all-out war with Pakistan in the past over contested Kashmir. With thousands fleeing their homes amid escalating violence, that may not remain a secure wager.
The outworking of the eight-year-old peace agreement in Nepal has embraced the government and its Maoist opponents. The women who were victims of sexual violence from both sides during the conflict have, however, been left out.
The authorities in Nay Pyi Taw are steering the former authoritarian pariah state to open engagement with the world. Well, that’s what they say.
Burma's government and political leaders are now paying a bitter price for allowing the reform process to be undermined by violence, racism and hatred.
The Thai military may think its May takeover has run smoothly but authoritarian dictates and an elite power monopoly will not keep the country together in the longer term.
If madness is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different outcome, the authors of Thailand’s twelfth coup since the absolute monarchy have yet to learn from Einstein’s aphorism.
Behind the crisis in Ukraine lie deeper changes that are transforming the global economic and and political order, say Giovanni Bavia & Ernesto Gallo.
