By Rich Garella

Wow, that was fast. We've only just completed the public TV version of our film Who Killed Chea Vichea?, and already a group of Cambodian unions plans to show it. In Cambodia, where it counts most. Their aim is to highlight the government's failure to conduct a real investigation of the 1999 murder of the Cambodian labor leader.

by Rudhy Sinyo

Recently, Indonesia's health services have begun to scale up the implementation of harm reduction in Surabaya. From a positive standpoint, government support for this program is improving, though there are down sides as well.

By Yu Fangqiang

 

The other night, a little after midnight, I was about to turn off my computer and go to sleep when I noticed, with surprise, an article in China Development Brief's Community Times: "Droughts in the Southwest Test Emergency Response: Where are the NGOs?"

 

China has recently been hit by a number of natural disasters, including the epic drought in the southwest and an earthquake in Qinghai. After reading this article, I had a few thoughts I had to share.

by Robbie Barnett

News Update on Jyeku/Yushu Earthquake Relief activities, 20th April 2010

An announcement from Greg Denham follows:

by Meg Davis

After advising other organizations on how to create their own strategic plans, Asia Catalyst sat down in a conference room on Sunday with ten or so of our best friends and engaged in the annual exercise to plan our own work. Every year, we seem to find this a little more difficult, as our projects multiply and become more complex.

Fortunately, we had on hand our new board advisor, John Santoleri, who stopped us and said, "I don't have a sense of the cost and benefit of each program -- how much time each one takes, versus how hard or easy it is to raise funds for that program, versus the impact each program has." With his help, we created a form to track just that.

By Robbie Barnett

The following is an update from news organizations and local groups working in Yushu, a Tibetan area in China's Qinghai Province, where a massive earthquake struck on April 14.  

A small coalition of local grassroots NGOs from Qinghai - including Snowland Service Group, Tsongkha Charitable Association, Sanchuan Development Association, Friend of Rural Community Development, Shem Women's Group, and the Pentok Institute - has set up a consortium to accept donations. Please be generous: www.yushuearthquakeresponse.org.

Asia Catalyst invites applications for one scholarship to participate in the International AIDS Conference in Vienna from July 16-24. Applications must be received by April 25. The scholarship will support a Chinese PLWHA， a current or former sex worker or drug user to participate in the meeting.

亚洲促 进会邀请中国艾滋NGO申请一个参加 维也纳7月16日到24日召开的国际艾滋大会的奖学金。申请截至日期是4月25日。我们会支持一位感染者, 现在或者目前性工作者/成瘾者，参加会议。

By Gisa Hartmann

Last month, I went on my second trip to China for Asia Catalyst. As we've previously discussed in this blog, Asia Catalyst is spending several years "incubating" or building the internal management skills of Phoenix, a nonprofit organization of sex workers living with HIV/AIDS. Phoenix is based in Gejiu, Yunnan, on China's borders with Vietnam. My main objective during my two weeks there was to help Phoenix to develop their staff management system, as well as improve their understanding of budgeting and financial reporting. We spent an intense two weeks tracking down and discussing every single receipt for the past two quarters.

One morning, as I was preparing for another day of office work, I received a call on my cell asking me to come to the office as soon as possible. The husband of a Phoenix member had died the previous day.

By Gregg Gonsalves
Yale University and the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition

Comments at
The Future of Development:
Human Rights and International Aid Beyond the Economic Crisis
Robert L. Bernstein International Human Rights Fellowship Symposium
April 8-9, 2010
Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights
Yale Law School, 127 Wall Street, New Haven, CT

* * *
Good afternoon. Greetings from up on Science Hill, where I just got out of a class on evolutionary biology. Permit me to use one analogy today--only because it seems so apt.  A new book by a fairly well-known philosopher named Jerry Fodor has just come out. It's called What Darwin Got Wrong. This isn't some creationist tract. Dr. Fodor apparently believes in evolution, but he thinks Darwin erred by claiming natural selection is responsible for it.  The book hasn't been well-received among scientists--not because we have a vested interest in this 150-year-old theory, but because the evidence supports natural selection and Dr. Fodor's description of it only remotely resembles the phenomenon.

By Annie Ye Ren

 

For the past four years, I have periodically worked with a Chinese grassroots HIV/AIDS non-governmental organization (NGO) that serves children in Fuyang Prefecture, Anhui Province. The Fuyang AIDS Orphan Salvation Association (AOS) gives aid directly to local communities, addressing local needs that are often overlooked or underfunded by large-scale government projects.

by Ken Oh

Around Asia, internet users face several barriers to doing legal research. The barriers can be political, as the recent row between China and Google demonstrates. In some cases, developing countries do not have the capacity to provide internet access to their citizens.  Finally (and likely the most easily fixed), the barriers can be more practical: once you have internet access, how do you know where to search?

Once again, be blown away by how much stuff we did with 2.25 staff people.

By Adam Froiran

China's environmental issues increasingly command domestic and international attention - what's the role of civil society in promoting environmental protection?