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Category: Asia
Asia

Medical Tourism Strains Health Systems

From hip replacements to hysterectomies, Southeast Asian countries have seen a rapid growth in medical tourism, with about two million international patients a year seeking bargains there. But according to the World Health Organization (WHO), medical tourism is leading to some highly-skilled specialists, as well as other trained medical staff, leaving public health facilities for private ones. Further down the medical hierarchy, unemployed or undertrained staff end up filling chronic shortages in remote areas.

Irin News
Asia

Key Facts About Rice

Rice-producing countries, farmers and scientists from around the globe have gathered in Vietnam for the third International Rice Congress. Held every four years, the congress is the world’s largest meeting of the rice industry, which feeds more than half the world.

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Asia

Global Recession Boosts Child Prostitution

Commercial sexual exploitation of children is booming in Southeast Asia, with governments failing to do enough to protect young people. “The recent economic downturn is set to drive more vulnerable children and young people to be exploited by the global sex trade,” said Carmen Madrinan, executive director of End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT). “The indifference that sustains the criminality, greed and perverse demands of adults for sex with children and young people needs to end.”

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Asia

An Unprecedented Food Shortage

Asia faces an unprecedented food crisis and huge social unrest unless hundreds of billions of dollars are invested in better irrigation systems to grow crops for its burgeoning population, according to a UN report quoted by the British newspaper The Guardian. India, China, Pakistan and other large countries avoided famines in the 1970s and 1980s only because they built giant state-sponsored irrigation systems and introduced better seeds and fertilizers. But the extra 1.5 billion people expected to live on the continent by 2050 will double Asia’s demand for food, says the report from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Bank-funded International Water Management Institute (IWMI).

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Asia

Capital Boost Will Not Help the Poor

NGOs have criticized a decision by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to triple its capital, claiming projects it funded have done more harm than good to communities it aims to help. On 30 April, ADB shareholders agreed to increase the bank’s capital base from US$55 billion to $165 billion to allow it to respond to the global economic crisis and help Asia’s poorest countries achieve the Millennium Development Goals, including halving the number of people living in poverty by 2015.

Irin News
Asia

Health and Education are the Paths to Progress

The fight against poverty and underdevelopment, in Asia and in other parts of the world, is not only overcome through a growth in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but in an increase in access to health and education. This is what the international association “Social Watch” is showing in its new annual report entitled “Rights is the Answer.” Social Watch has developed a new method for measuring the social and economic conditions of the world population: the Basic Capabilities Index (BCI), for analyzing the state of healthcare and level of basic education in 176 countries.

www.fides.org
Asia

Vocations are on the Rise

Vocations are on the rise in Asia, and the missionary spirit is increasing, evangelization is proceeding along with human development, but there are “challenges like dialogue with the other great Asian religions, disrupted by fundamentalist groups that do not shy away from resorting to violence; the lack of practical respect for religious freedom in vast areas; the widespread spirit of secularism and consumerism.” These are some of the lights and shadows in the life of the Church in Asia, according to the analysis carried out during the 12th meeting of the Special Council for Asia of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops.

Asia News
Asia

Church Defends Modernity’s New Slaves

The Church has to pave new paths of hope for the modern types of slaveries being created by the phenomenon of migration. This was one of 11 specific recommendations that came from a conference organized by the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers and the Thai Episcopal Conference in Bangkok. The Conference’s theme was “Towards a Better Pastoral Care for Migrants and Refugees in Asia at the Dawn of the Third Millennium.” Participants were informed that the continent hosts nearly 25% of the 200 million international migrants worldwide.

www.zenit.org
Asia

Religious Freedom Continues To Decline

The situation of religious freedom in Asia is worsening, especially in China and in democratic India, according to the annual report of the U.S. State Department on religious freedom in the world.

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Asia

Asian Poverty Line At $1.35 Per Day

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has adopted a new benchmark for poverty line that is more accurate and more relevant to the Asia-Pacific region. The new benchmark, called the Asian Poverty Line, has been fixed at an income of $1.35 per day, the Manila-based regional lender said in a press release while presenting its annual statistical publication – Key Indicators 2008. ADB estimated that according to the new evaluation system, there were probably 843 million people in Asia who lived under the poverty line in 2005.

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