Asia Pacific

Trade in ivory was banned in 1990. An Egyptian ministerial decree issued in 1999 makes it illegal to import, export, or possess ivory products, or to offer them for sale.

Chinese biggest customers for illegal ivory in Egypt

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM) • Catholic Online • 2/7/2012

While it is still very much illegal to sell items fashioned from ivory, procured from the tusks of endangered elephants, the practice continues very much in force throughout Egypt. Tourist areas, souvenir shops and open air markets brazenly offer ivory walking sticks and figurines ...

A resident collects his belongings after an earthquake in Negros Oriental, the Philippines, Feb. 7, 2012. The death toll from the magnitude 6.9 earthquake that shaked central Philippine province of Negros Oriental on Monday rose to 52, local officials say.

Dozens are feared dead after quake in Philippines

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM) • Catholic Online • 2/7/2012

Many fear that dozens of people have been killed in a 6.7 magnitude earthquake in the Philippines. Rescue workers are combing through landslides and toppled buildings on the heavily populated islands of Negros and Cebu. LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic online) - Officials in Manila have put the ...

Cambodian war criminal Kaing Guek Eav, commonly known by his alias of Duch ran a torture prison during the reign of Pol Pot. He had ordered the execution of countless prisoners after their interrogation was completed.

Notorious Cambodian war criminal sentenced to life in prison

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM) • Catholic Online • 2/5/2012

Cambodia's war crimes court has rejected the appeal of one of the Khmer Rouge's most notorious war criminals. Kaing Guek Eav, commonly known by his alias of Duch ran a torture prison during the reign of Pol Pot. Eav was instead sentenced to life in prison. LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - ...

China remains Tehran's largest trading partner and biggest oil customer. Cooperation from China is crucial to the West's plan to use the embargo to force Iran to stop uranium enrichment.

China unlikely to join embargo against Iranian oil

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM) • Catholic Online • 2/2/2012

According to various analysts, China is highly unlikely to join the West in an oil embargo penalizing Iran for its nuclear program. China has practiced a non-interfering foreign policy for the last 30 years, i.e. denouncing sanctions on one hand yet working to protect its national interests ...

Speaking after talks with Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, Hina Rabbani Khar, the Pakistan foreign minister said that 'We can disregard this [report] as a potentially strategic leak ... this is old wine in an even older bottle.'

Pakistan rejects report that nation is aiding Taliban

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM) • Catholic Online • 2/2/2012

The nation of Pakistan has rejected a leaked NATO report which claims that the country's security services are helping the Taliban. Officials have denounced the report as "frivolous," it arrives at a time when Hina Rabbani Khar, the Pakistan foreign minister, is visiting Kabul for talks ...

India's famed, bustling marketplaces - tiny shops that cater to crowds, usually one-man operations or family owned and operated - is now facing stiff competition with the introduction of mega-retailers such as the U.S.'s Wal-Mart, Britain's Tesco and France's Carrefour. Will these feisty businesses fall by the wayside?

India's small businesses tremble with introduction of Wal-Mart, others

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM) • Catholic Online • 1/31/2012

India's famed, bustling marketplaces - tiny shops that cater to crowds, usually one-man operations or family owned and operated - is now facing stiff competition with the introduction of mega-retailers such as the U.S.'s Wal-Mart, Britain's Tesco and France's Carrefour. Will these feisty ...

The Dawoodi Bohras sect is a tightly knit community of about two million people worldwide. Women in the sect have only begun speaking out against the mutilations over the past several years.

Women come forward to protest genital mutilation in Muslim sect

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM) • Catholic Online • 1/30/2012

The mutilation of female genitals in order to curb sexual appetites is a barbaric practice typically performed in rural tribes in Africa and the Middle East/ Members of the Dawoodi Bohras sect, a sub-sect of Ismaili Shia Muslims in India and Pakistan have since come forward to condemn the ...

Japan's population will keep losing one million every year in coming decades, experts say. Japan needs to urgently overhaul its social security and tax system to reflect the demographic shift.

Japan to lose one million people annually due to aging

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM) • Catholic Online • 1/30/2012

World industrial powerhouse Japan, by far Asia's strongest economy, is shrinking - the nation's aging population sees its population lessening by as much as one million a year. It's estimated that Japan will only have a population of 87 million by the year 2060, putting a strain on social security ...

In Odisha, more than 258 women die each year for every 100,000 deliveries, while 65 infants die in every 1,000 live births, according to the latest Sample Registration System (SRS) - India's largest demographic sample survey,

Male health activists step in to help in Indian child births

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM) • Catholic Online • 1/30/2012

In order to reach the United Nations' millennium development goals 4 and 5, which is to reduce child and maternal mortality respectively, such new innovations have been introduced in such remote areas as rural India, Malawi and Sierra Leone. One of these new ideas are male health activists, ...

While India anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare drew much attention to his cause with widely publicized fasts, he has since fallen ill and the movement he helped spearhead has appeared to have lost momentum.

Anti-corruption movement in India appears to have lost momentum

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM) • Catholic Online • 1/26/2012

India's anti-corruption movement, spearheaded by anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare has appeared to have lost its momentum. Hazare, with his widely publicized hunger strikes, has since fallen ill. In addition, the Indian government has rejected anti-corruption legislation. LOS ANGELES, CA ...