Asia

Dr. Mahfuz Amed of the Asian Development Bank said that shrinking natural resources, degrading environments, climate change and disaster risks, financing gaps, poor logistics and infrastructure deficits are among the major constraints to realize the objectives of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end hunger by 2030. Photo: ADB

Asia-Pacific region aims at hunger-free goal

by Thalif Dean Inter Press Service June 10, 2016

Poor countries in the region including Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, and Cambodia have some of the highest levels of food insecurity in the world....

A woman laborer carrying cement is silhouetted against the setting sun at the site of a commercial complex on the outskirts of Jammu November 22, 2012. Photo: Reuters/Mukesh Gupta

Why land means hope for India’s vulnerable single women

by Manipadma Jena Reuters June 2, 2016

When her husband died seven years ago, leaving her to fend for herself, 37-year-old Kuni Majhi survived hunger, illness, drunk men hammering at the flimsy tin door of her thatched hut - and very nearly lost all hope. Recently however, Majhi was off...

A woman laborer carrying cement is silhouetted against the setting sun at the site of a commercial complex on the outskirts of Jammu November 22, 2012. Photo:Reuters/Mukesh Gupta

Hunger, child marriage, prostitution – India drought hurts women, low-caste Dalits more

by Rina Chandran Thomson Reuters Foundation June 2, 2016

India's worst drought in decades is hurting women and lower-caste Dalits disproportionately, with impacts ranging from malnutrition to early marriage to prostitution, activists say. The government estimates the drought has affected more than 330 mill...

A small part of the vast Mangar Bani forest in Mangar, Haryana. Photo: Enrico Fabian/ For The Washington Post

Villagers just protected a sacred forest outside India’s polluted capital

by Rama Lakshmi Washington Post May 1, 2016

The schoolchildren enter the forest at dawn on a bird-watching field trip. They step softly on crisp fallen leaves and speak in hushed whispers....

Taya Quezon was displaced by fighting between the military and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF). Photo Jared Ferrie/IRIN

The Philippines: Militancy rising as peace talks stall

by Jared Ferrie IRIN News April 28, 2016

Mindanao is rich in resources as well as population diversity. It is also home to a violent patchwork of sometimes-overlapping armed groups. These include Islamist revolutionaries as well as extremist militants, communist rebels, paramilitaries, clan...

In this April 12, 2016 photo, a boy who migrated from drought hit areas of the western Indian state of Maharashtra, carries water to his family’s makeshift hut in Kukse Borivali, 85 kilometres (53 miles) north-east of Mumbai, India. Decades of groundwater abuse, populist water policies and poor monsoons have turned vast swaths of central and western India into a dust bowl, driving distressed farmers to suicide or menial day labor in the cities. Photo: Rafiq Maqbool/Associated Press