Development Issues

By Stanislaus Jude Chan

SINGAPORE, Jul 30 (Asia Media Forum)  – "Chewing gum is banned in Singapore?" a curious friend in Bangkok asks. Encouraged by my nod, she cautiously probes: "What happens when you get caught, death sentence?"

By Wai Moe

Burmese authorities denied on Saturday that there has been an outbreak of the plague in areas east of the Pegu mountain range, saying that the National Health Department has found no evidence of the disease in dead rats taken from areas considered at risk.

By Chularat Saengpassa - 'The Nation'

Using the emergency decree, authorities have recently shut down 26 community-radio stations in nine provinces and pressured six others to discontinue their services.

By Lynette Lee Corporal

PATHUM THANI, Thailand, Jul 8 (IPS) — Teenage boys gape at a coloured photograph of a vagina, while girls give embarrassed smiles as they watch a cartoon that showed penises 'talking' about masturbation. Young girls crowd around a display panel on love and relationships, as a boy embraces a female mannequin with all his might in order to measure the strength of his hug.

   These scenes greet many a visitor to the National Science Museum located just outside the Thai capital Bangkok, where 'The Story of Love', an interactive exhibit on human sexuality, is underway.

By Lynette Lee Corporal

BANGKOK, Jun 28 (Asia Media Forum/IPS)Buy a hairpin and the sales clerk has a microscopic plastic bag for it. A soda purchase from a corner store may end up having the liquid poured into a plastic bag, and then topped off with a plastic straw. There isn’t a plastic bag yet that could fit a car, but if there is one country that could come up with one, Thailand would probably be it.

By Zofeen Ebrahim

KARACHI, Pakistan, May 31 (IPS) - The continuing debate on the purported audiotape implicating Pakistani television anchor Hamid Mir, popular and controversial in equal measure, has raised serious concerns about the media amid calls for an impartial investigation to uncover the truth behind the recording.

By Gordon Ross

BEIJING, May 31 (IPS) - Last June, when thousands of Iranians – many organised through social networking websites such as Twitter – took to the streets to protest the outcome of the country’s presidential election, a Chinese English-language newspaper, ‘Global Times’, published an editorial critical of the Western media’s coverage of the protests.

Despite a phenomenal growth in the media, journalists here have to put up with poor wages and working conditions, and the hazards of working in an insurgency troubled state.  Journalists' organisations are now no longer willing to stay silent, says 'The Hoot's' Nava Thakuria.

Malaysian authorities seized more than 6,000 copies of a pro-opposition newspaper amid a dispute over whether it flouted the country's strict publication laws, 'The Straits Times' quoted officials as saying on May 25.

By Teresa Rehman*

SHILLONG, India (AlertNet) - Climate change issues are reaching a remote new audience in Meghalaya, a hilly state in northeast India, via 'Mawsawa,' a popular FM radio music show.