Asia

India has been hit by a wave of student unrest, centred on Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), which has been spurred by government attacks. These attacks include demonising protesters and arresting activists simply for criticising the actions of the Indian state. JNU student union president Kanhaiya Kumar is among several activists charged with sedition.

A new report has found huge tax evasion by foreign logging companies that are running rampant in Papua New Guinea. The Great Timber Heist was released by the Oakland Institute on February 16.

The PNG rainforest is the third largest in the world. It covers about 80% of the country, 60% of which is untouched forest.

A secene from the peoples' power' uprising that ousted the US-backed Marcos dictatorship 30 years ago.

The EDSA Uprising of February 25, 1986, overthrew the Philippine's brutal US-backed dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. The uprising was named after the Manila thoroughfare where events unfolded. It is often known as “EDSA 1” to distinguish it from later uprisings that occurred in EDSA.

Secret documents found in the Australian National Archives provide a glimpse of how one of the greatest crimes of the 20th century was executed and covered up. They also help us understand how and for whom the world is run.

The documents refer to East Timor, now known as Timor-Leste, and were written by diplomats in the Australian embassy in Jakarta. The date was November 1976, less than a year after the Indonesian dictator General Suharto seized the then-Portuguese colony on the island of Timor.

When an all-female army of journalists, dressed as schoolgirls, burst into laughter at a “lunch party” with the Thailand's military junta chief Prayut Chan-o-cha at Government House on January 8, it became the talk of the town.

Commentators took to social media to lament the wretched state of Thai media. A senior Thai journalist, Pravit Rojanapuruk, labelled the journalists as “lapdogs” in a column in the progressive daily Khaosod English.

Students, journalists and teachers protested at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi on February 16, demanding the release of an arrested student leader and denouncing violence by Hindu supremacists.

The dispute has sparked new allegations that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are cracking down on political dissent in the name of patriotism.

A six-year-old boy, Tharshan Kugathasan, was found dead near a navy base at Champoor on the east coast of Sri Lanka on January 26.

The boy's body was found in a disused well. The body had been weighed down with a large stone tied to his body by military-style shoelaces. He had earlier been seen with Sri Lankan navy personnel who used to offer him food and chocolates, according to local residents quoted by the Tamilnet website. Evidence indicates that he was raped and murdered by navy personnel.

Protests erupted throughout Pakistan after the shooting dead on the picket line of three striking workers at Karachi Airport on February 2. The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) employees were part of a nationwide strike against the privatisation of the state-owned airline.

One of those killed, Inayat Raza, was a veteran trade unionist and former leader of the left-wing National Students' Federation (NSF) in Karachi in the 1980s.

Photos (above and below) by Julius Choo Chon Kai.

In 1978, Deng Xiaoping, who Mao Tse Tung called a “capitalist roader”, initiated an economic reform program labelled “market socialism.”

Within two decades, China had managed to transition from a closed communist state to an open centre of dynamic capitalism with the greatest economic growth rates in human history.

After the onset of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008, China immediately injected $US586 billion into its economy in classical Keynesian counter-cyclical stimulus spending. The next year, it began the largest fixed investment stimulus program the world has ever seen.