Asia & the Pacific

Sri Lanka has a long history of discrimination against Tamils.  In 1948 Tamil plantation workers were deprived of citizenship.  In 1956 Sinhalese was made the sole official language, denying the Tamil language equal status, writes Chris Slee.

Hong Kong's government just withdrew the anti–civil liberties bill that set off huge, rolling protests and convulsed the city for months. But the political crisis is bigger than one measure — and protesters could be emboldened to push for even more, writes Kevin Lin.

The Movement Against the Occupation of the Timor Sea (MKOTT), a Timorese activist group based in Dili, condemned the Australian government on August 9 for its ongoing prosecution of Witness K and his lawyer Bernard Collaery, over the exposure of Australian secret service bugging of Timorese government offices, labelling it as an "attack on freedom of expression and democracy".

Ali Wazeer and Mohsin Dawar, members of the Pakistan National Assembly, were arrested in May on trumped up terrorism charges. An international solidarity campaign is calling for their release.

In tandem with its economic war on China, the United States has ramped up its military presence in the Indian and Pacific Ocean regions, extending the “Pacific pivot” that began under former president Barack Obama.