The United States is not the only country that has undergone a history of female empowerment issues. Since 2006, Japan’s prestigious Tokyo Medical University has been marking down test scores of female applicants to keep the ratio of women in each class below 30%. Their defense? That unlike their male counterparts, women are more likely to drop out and have… Read more »
ONCE, the Catholic church in China was not underground. In the 17th century Jesuits were favoured advisers to the emperors of the Qing dynasty. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, abetted by a growing Western presence, the church thrived. But after two years of trying to establish formal ties with the new Communist regime, the Vatican gave up in… Read more »
JAPAN has made a lot of noise in recent years about demolishing the traditional view that women should stay at home while men go out to work. So it was shocking when, on August 7th, Tokyo Medical University, a prestigious medical school, confessed to marking down the test scores of female applicants to keep the ratio of women in each… Read more »
The charges against Rosmah Mansor were read out by prosecutors at a Kuala Lumpur court, after she spent a night in detention following her arrest by anti-graft investigators on Wednesday. Rosmah pleaded not guilty to all charges. Najib, who lost office in May, faces 32 charges from money laundering to abuse of power and criminal breach of trust over billions of dollars… Read more »
Between January 2012 and March 2017, the Indian authorities registered 250,000 children as missing. But according to activists, this figure represents only the tip of the iceberg – in many cases, families do not go to the authorities because they were fooled by “recruiters” who promised to send their children away to study. Local police officers also lack training in dealing with kidnappings… Read more »
While semi-autonomous Hong Kong has the opportunity to enjoy freedoms that are completely prohibited on the mainland, their political rights are beginning to dwindle as China continues to tighten its grip on them. In 2014, pro-democracy activists failed to win reforms in a number of mass rallies, sparking a major independence movement across the region. Hong Kong activists, however, continued… Read more »
The weeklong event at North Korea‘s Diamond Mountain resort comes as the rival Koreas boost reconciliation efforts amid a diplomatic push to resolve a standoff over North Korea’s drive for a nuclear weapons program that can reliably target the continental United States. The temporary reunions are highly emotional because most participants are elderly people eager to see their loved ones once… Read more »
Results released by the Elections Commission early Monday morning showed Solih had secured 58.3 percent of the popular vote. Celebrations broke out across the tropical archipelago with opposition supporters carrying yellow flags of Solih’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) and dancing on the streets. There was no response from Yameen after results were announced. Solih had the backing of a united… Read more »
Semi-autonomous Hong Kong enjoys freedoms unseen on the mainland including freedom of expression but the space for political dissent is shrinking in the face of an increasingly assertive Chinaunder President Xi Jinping. Police sought a ban in July on the Hong Kong National Party (HKNP), a well-known but small group with a core membership of around a dozen, which promotes the city’s independence from… Read more »
The more than century-old law prescribed that any man who slept with a married woman without her husband’s permission had committed adultery, a crime carrying a five-year prison term in the conservative country. A petitioner had challenged the court to strike down the law, describing it as arbitrary and discriminatory against women. “Thinking of adultery from a point of view… Read more »