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At an age when we still regard them as children, thousands of young girls from northern Thailand are being lured into prostitution. Girls as young as 10 are sold to the brothels of Bangkok, other Thai cities, and overseas. Others drift into prostitution when they move to larger towns for employment. From there, they migrate to cities, where they’re likely to end up in poorly paid factory or restaurant jobs with substandard conditions and links to the sex industry.

They come from families in the Golden Triangle area trapped in a cycles of poverty and debt. Their parents are subsistence farmers or villagers with few work opportunities, their traditional lifestyle and values constantly eroded by development and consumerism. read more

When I was a boy, my family and I joined hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in yearly anti-nuclear demonstrations through the center of London. The demonstrations were replicated in every capital city of democratic Europe, in the US, Australia, and New Zealand. We would go to "die-ins" outside Britain’s nuclear research facility at Aldermaston, and my mother would frequently join the women camped outside the military base of Greenham Common, protesting the presence of the US-made Cruise missiles. Few people now know what Greenham Common represented. But for politically aware Brits of my generation, the very words evoke a maelstrom of emotions. read more

Pakistan was forced to riposte in late May to India’s nuclear tests by detonating five nuclear devices. Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif had waited, hoping the west would punish India for sparking an Asian arms race. Instead, the west and Japan merely slapped India’s wrists. Sharif finally bowed to fierce public pressure.