Freedom House Report: Asia Sees Some Significant Progress

VOA News 11/01/2010

The U.S.-based human rights monitoring group, Freedom House says Asia still struggles with the basic issues of rule of law and freedom of expression.

William Ide

Washington 12 January 2010

The U.S.-based human rights monitoring group, Freedom House says that while Asia saw the most significant improvements in freedom last year, it still struggles with the basic issues of rule of law and freedom of expression. The group says situations in China, Tibet, North Korea and Burma are worrisome.

In its latest annual survey, Freedom House says that Asia received a mixed rating in 2009, a year marked by political progress and repression. Even so, the continent's modest improvements were the most significant worldwide.

Freedom House Asia researcher Sarah Cook says this was largely the result of gains in political rights in several countries in Asia.

Cook notes that the small south Asian island-nation of the Maldives held its first democratic parliamentary elections last year, furthering its dramatic political transformation during the past few years.

Other bright spots were peaceful elections in Mongolia and voting in Bangladesh, which allowed an elected civilian government to replace a military-backed administration.

But not all elections were bright spots. Freedom House says the massacre of journalists and civilians in the Philippines as they made their way to register a political candidate was a sign of possibly more electoral violence to come ahead of elections this year.

Sarah Cook says that Afghanistan's political rights rating saw a decline as a deeply flawed presidential election worsened the country's already unstable security situation and exposed government corruption.

Asia's changing dynamics

The Japan Times Online 13/01/2010

By BRAHMA CHELLANEY

With Asia in transition and the specter of a power imbalance looming large, it has become imperative to invest in institutionalized cooperation to reinforce the region's strategic stability. After all, not only is Asia becoming the pivot of global geopolitical change, but Asian challenges are also playing into international strategic challenges.

Asia's changing power dynamics are reflected in China's increasingly assertive foreign policy, the new Japanese government's demand for an "equal" relationship with the United States, and the sharpening Sino-Indian rivalry, which has led to renewed Himalayan border tensions.

All of this is highlighting America's own challenges, which are being exacerbated by its eroding global economic pre-eminence and involvement in two wars. Such challenges dictate greater U.S.-China cooperation to ensure continued large capital inflows from China, as well as Chinese political support on difficult issues ranging from North Korea and Burma to Pakistan and Iran.

But, just when America's Sino-centric Asia policy became noticeable, Japan put the U.S. on notice that it cannot indefinitely remain a faithful servant of American policies. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's government is seeking to realign foreign policy and rework a 2006 deal for the basing of U.S. military personnel on Okinawa. It also announced an end to its eight-year-old Indian Ocean refueling mission in support of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

Asia - Medical tourism are booming

Phnom Penh Post Healthcare industry fuels surge in demand for nursing colleges

The healthcare industry is booming across Southeast Asia. Private hospitals in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and even Ho Chi Minh City are flooded with patients from around the region and increasingly from the Middle East, Europe and North America.

They come for annual checkups, heart bypasses, hip replacements, kidney transplants, laser eye surgery and every other kind of medical treatment conceivable, including sex change operations.

And they do it because the quality of treatment is as good, if not better, than they can get in their own countries, and because it costs much less than at home.

The thriving ‘medical tourism’ industry is expected to continue to boom for the foreseeable future because of a heightened awareness of the benefits of quality healthcare and because the world’s ageing populations will require more frequent medical checkups and treatments.

Ten years ago, consumer expenditure on healthcare services and goods by Asians stood at US$90 billion. Today, it is estimated that it will more than double to $188 billion by 2013.

Malaysia, which has focused on markets in the Middle East and China, expects medical tourism to generate revenues of $650 million next year.

Thailand, another thriving healthcare centre, already treats more than 1 million foreign patients every year – and even tiny Singapore hopes to hit that target by 2012 and generate $3 billion in revenue in the process.

Most nursing graduates choose to work in private hospitals because of better pay and work conditions.

But there is one potential hiccup to this wonderfully rosy picture: Where will all the trained nurses and ancillary staff to look after this massive influx of patients come from?

Step forward Malaysia’s Masterskill University College of Health Sciences.

This organisation, which has several nursing college campuses, astutely spotted the boom in medical tourism and robustly stepped forward to provide training courses for medical staff and thus fill a seemingly ever expanding and lucrative market.