Asia

India’s Poorest Women Coerced Into Sterilization

"When it comes to family planning, women are on the front lines in India, which has carried out about 37 percent of the world’s female sterilizations. Government-imposed quotas and financial incentives for doctors mean 4.6 million women were sterilized last year, many for cash payments and many in the unsanitary and rudimentary conditions that greeted Devi. In neighboring China, the government has since 1979 used the threat of fines and the loss of social services to enforce rules that bar many urban couples from having more than one child. It now is beginning to ease the policy as the population ages and coastal regions face labor shortages." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingIndia’s Poorest Women Coerced Into Sterilization

India’s Poorest Women Coerced Into Sterilization

"When it comes to family planning, women are on the front lines in India, which has carried out about 37 percent of the world’s female sterilizations. Government-imposed quotas and financial incentives for doctors mean 4.6 million women were sterilized last year, many for cash payments and many in the unsanitary and rudimentary conditions that greeted Devi. In neighboring China, the government has since 1979 used the threat of fines and the loss of social services to enforce rules that bar many urban couples from having more than one child. It now is beginning to ease the policy as the population ages and coastal regions face labor shortages." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingIndia’s Poorest Women Coerced Into Sterilization

India’s Poorest Women Coerced Into Sterilization

"When it comes to family planning, women are on the front lines in India, which has carried out about 37 percent of the world’s female sterilizations. Government-imposed quotas and financial incentives for doctors mean 4.6 million women were sterilized last year, many for cash payments and many in the unsanitary and rudimentary conditions that greeted Devi. In neighboring China, the government has since 1979 used the threat of fines and the loss of social services to enforce rules that bar many urban couples from having more than one child. It now is beginning to ease the policy as the population ages and coastal regions face labor shortages." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingIndia’s Poorest Women Coerced Into Sterilization

Tech-savvy Vietnamese coffee farmers brew global takeover

"From high-tech Israeli irrigation systems to text message updates of global prices for the commodity, coffee farming in Vietnam’s Central Highlands has come a long way since the French first introduced the bean over a century ago. By texting 'CA' to the number 8288 from any Vietnamese mobile phone, farmers almost instantly receive a message with the London prices of Robusta coffee beans and the New York price of Arabica beans. In 20 years, Vietnam went from contributing less than 0.1 per cent of world production in 1980 to some 13 per cent in 2000 – staggering growth that has been partially blamed for the collapse of global coffee prices in the 1990s. There is no tax on coffee exports." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingTech-savvy Vietnamese coffee farmers brew global takeover

Nick Turse Describes the Real Vietnam War

"Journalist Nick Turse describes his personal mission to compile a complete and compelling account of the Vietnam War’s horror as experienced by all sides, including innocent civilians who were sucked into its violent vortex. Turse, who devoted 12 years to tracking down the true story of Vietnam, unlocked secret troves of documents, interviewed officials and veterans — including many accused of war atrocities — and traveled throughout the Vietnamese countryside talking with eyewitnesses to create his book, Kill Anything That Moves. 'American culture has never fully come to grips with Vietnam,' Turse tells Bill, referring to 'hidden and forbidden histories that just haven’t been fully engaged.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNick Turse Describes the Real Vietnam War

Great is the Guilt of an Unnecessary War – Vietnam Edition

"The Vietnam War ended forty years ago, but its toxic legacy lives on in children born decades after the conflict came to a close. One of them is 12-year-old Thi Ly, whose head is unnaturally large and visibly misshapen and her eyes are separated by an unusual distance and out of alignment. From the time she was an infant, Ly has been repeatedly hospitalized for numerous ailments. Her 43-year-old mother, Le Thi Thu, has similar deformities. Both of them are second- and third-generation victims of exposure to dioxin as a result of the U.S. military’s use of a defoliant called Agent Orange that was used extensively over parts of southern Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingGreat is the Guilt of an Unnecessary War – Vietnam Edition

Dennis Rodman heads back to North Korea to see ‘friend’ Kim Jong-Un

"Korean-American Kenneth Bae, 44, has been held prisoner in the North since November, and Rodman had said last week that he might seek the man’s release. But speaking to reporters at Beijing airport en route to the North Korean capital, Rodman said 'I haven’t been promised anything' on Bae. 'I’m just going to meet my friend Kim the marshal to start a new basketball league going,' Rodman said. 'I’m just trying to keep the communication job going.' North Korea, which bans religious proselytising, said Bae was a Christian evangelist who brought in 'inflammatory' material." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDennis Rodman heads back to North Korea to see ‘friend’ Kim Jong-Un

Fukushima leak is ‘much worse than we were led to believe’

"They are worried about the enormous quantities of water, used to cool the reactor cores, which are now being stored on site. Some 1,000 tanks have been built to hold the water. But these are believed to be at around 85% of their capacity and every day an extra 400 tonnes of water are being added. 'The quantities of water they are dealing with are absolutely gigantic,' said Mycle Schneider, who has consulted widely for a variety of organisations and countries on nuclear issues. 'What is the worse is the water leakage everywhere else - not just from the tanks. It is leaking out from the basements, it is leaking out from the cracks all over the place. Nobody can measure that.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFukushima leak is ‘much worse than we were led to believe’

Fukushima Radioactive Plume To Hit The US By Early 2014

"The first radioactive ocean plume released by the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster will finally be reaching the shores of the United States sometime in 2014, according to a new study from the University of New South Wales — a full three or so years after date of the disaster. Many researchers, and also officials from the World Health Organization, have argued that the radioactive particles that do make their way to the US will have a very limited effect on human health — as the concentration of radioactive material in US waters will be well below World Health Organization safety levels. But needless to say, there is some debate on this matter." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFukushima Radioactive Plume To Hit The US By Early 2014

North Korean spy’s memoir details ‘enemization’ training by abducted South Koreans

"After graduation, the focus switched to training the agents to pass as locals. South Koreans abducted and smuggled back into the North were among those who instructed them in mastering the right accents and understanding the social and political culture of the capitalist South. This 'enemization' process gave them their first real taste of life outside the isolated North, as they consumed a daily diet of South Korean TV shows, movies, magazines, newspapers and books. Popular songs and dance moves were memorised, along with the names and careers of prominent TV celebrities and sports stars." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNorth Korean spy’s memoir details ‘enemization’ training by abducted South Koreans