From the beginning of the H1N1 swine flu outbreak, the WHO’s decisions and pronouncements have been far from reassuring. Most flu and public health experts consider the WHO to have been overly alarmist, and that their decision during the week of April 27 to raise the pandemic flu threat to the penultimate level, Phase 5, “Pandemic Imminent,” far outpaced the data that had accumulated and was unwarranted.
Posted June 29, 2008

Even after Phnom Penh’s recent property boom dwindled, the once-bare capital is developing at breakneck speed, and the city's poor are being displaced at an alarming rate. Activists are calling it the largest epidemic of evictions since the Khmer Rouge emptied all of Phnom Penh in 1975. Last week, local rights group Licadho blasted the government in a report for failing to control land-grabbing, claiming 133,000 people, or 10% of the population, have been evicted in Phnom Penh since 1990. That’s not counting the 250,000 victims of land-grabbing in 13 other provinces.
Posted June 16, 2009

Until recently Pakistan seemed complacent about the rise of the Taliban, and remained mainly unengaged until this month’s operation to wrest Swat Valley from the militants. Assessments range from optimistic scenarios of a cleanup within a few months, to an indefinite effort against the Taliban, which is believed to have designs on controlling all of Pakistan with its Islamist ideology. A skeptical view is that the Pakistan army may be doing just enough to assure continued financial aid from the U.S.
Posted May 31, 2009

Activism can be a good thing. Libertarians and civil-rights advocates lobby for constraints on undue government intrusion into our lives, and professional associations further the interests of its members. We benefit from getting to shop in the marketplace of ideas; but all is not good-faith, constructive activism, and some of the goods in the marketplace are shoddy.
Posted May 29, 2009

When does closing one’s eyes to mass murder become encouragement? The Philippines present that question head-on. An electoral democracy with a vibrant press and competing political parties, the country has moved beyond most aspects of the Marcos dictatorship. But at least one legacy of that dark time remains—a dangerous willingness to use execution as a clandestine tool of government.
Posted May 20, 2009

Every time India votes, analysts marvel how its predominantly poor voters, an embarrassingly large number of whom are illiterate, make up their minds. With its history of sectarian strife and regional disparities, it seems a miracle to many that such a multi-everything country has a unified view about how it should be governed for the next five years. And yet it happens, each time.
Posted May 17, 2009

Speaking from the grave, the former Chinese Communist Party leader uses his memoirs to reveal how he came to believe that China needed democratic reforms, and the events that led up to the bloody crackdown in June 1989. The memoir is bound to anger and embarrass China’s senior leadership, which prides itself on keeping the party’s internal debates shrouded in secrecy.
Posted May 14, 2009

As many as 714 million men and women will end up voting when the five-phase election ends on May 13, but one thing is already clear in this massive exercise: The first, that despite the globalizing power of the fitful economic reforms that have been underway for the better part of 17 years (they began when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was finance minister in 1992), India largely remains inward looking. If the rest of the world is obsessed with the economic downturn, India is still largely consumed with stories as they unfold within.

This article ran in The Wall Street Journal on April 29, 2009 (here).

HONG KONG -- As swine-flu frenzy sweeps across the world, it's worth taking a moment to consider the lessons learned from past brushes with similar epidemics. Attitude counts in a fight against a global pandemic, and governments and corporations have some tough choices ahead of them if the flu continues to spread.
Posted April 29, 2009

Nepal's fragile democracy has been plunged into renewed crisis by the resignation on Monday of the Maoist prime minister, Pushpa Kamal Dahal. Opposition parties have responded positively to the prime minister's resignation, which they see as ending a protracted power struggle between the Maoist-led government and the conservative Nepal Army, but the collapse of the government does not augur well for political stability.
Posted May 7, 2009

The Chinese authorities continue to be among the world’s most repressive when it comes to press freedom. What may come as a surprise, however, is the growing commercialization of censorship in the country, where the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) is creating a 21st century media model that relies on the market to muzzle free expression.
Posted May 2, 2009

Indian bloggers and other online commentators are challenging the status quo in business and politics like never before. And they are redefining attitudes toward the media in a country whose celebrated protection of free speech has often been undermined by the libel laws of its common law legal system.
Posted April 27, 2009