Story Archive
2008-05-16
China’s government is fighting to curb food prices in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake. Economists argue the country should keep markets open to prevent shortages rather than impose new price controls.
2008-05-16
Nearly 78,000 people have died and 56,000 are missing in the wake of Burma’s devastating Cyclone Nargis, state-run media report. International aid agencies say the death toll could surge further, amid new storms, aid delays, and reports of cholera in the impoverished Southeast Asian country.
2008-05-16
More than 100,000 soldiers, police, officials, rescuers, and volunteers are racing to save lives in the wake of China's devastating earthquake. But the body count is rising, and aid efforts now are focused on getting clean water to millions of survivors.
2008-05-15
Two months after a massive crackdown ended the worst anti-Chinese unrest in Tibet in nearly 50 years, residents still report small, sporadic protests by monks, nuns, and lay people—and swift arrests.
2008-05-15
China now says more than 50,000 people may have died in a devastating earthquake in Sichuan province—as rescue workers now shift their focus from finding survivors to recovering the dead.
2008-05-14
Corpses remain piled up on the streets of cities in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan, as the authorities mobilize troops to rescue hundreds of thousands of people believed to be still trapped under rubble. Survivors are camping outside, and many say they have run out of food and water.
2008-05-14
Burma’s military regime has begun moving large numbers of cyclone and flood victims from a major city hit by Tropical Cyclone Nargis last week. And a growing number of ordinary people are saying that foreign aid supplies are being sold privately in shops and markets, or controlled by officials and government supporters, instead of being distributed free to the most needy.
2008-05-14
Burma's cyclone Nargis has exposed a secretive society in which the junta and its supporters enjoy privileges far removed from the lives of ordinary Burmese. Tyler Chapman visited central Maymyo, home to many of the country's elite and now a vital part of Burma's military-industrial complex.
2008-05-14
As Chinese authorities in Sichuan province have handed down jail terms and arrested more nuns for joining demonstrations, in Nepal Tibetan women, including nuns, clashed with police in the capital, Kathmandu, on May 12, 2008.
2008-05-13
The worst earthquake to hit China in three decades leaves thousands of people waiting anxiously for news of the missing, many of whom are believed trapped beneath collapsed buildings. Authorities say the toll is now around 12,000, and rising.
2008-05-13
As court poet for North Korea's reclusive leader Kim Jong Il, Jang Jin-sung enjoyed all the trappings of life among the Pyongyang elite. But he traded it in for a dangerous flight to South Korea, where he is now a best-selling author of poems chronicling the grueling misery of North Korean life.
2008-05-13
More than 1 million Burmese survivors of Tropical Cyclone Nargis are still living with scant food or water as the threat of infectious disease mounts. Many say they have yet to receive any official aid and are managing as best they can on handouts from well-wishers and non-government groups.
2008-05-12
Nearly two months after widespread Tibetan protests against Chinese rule, authorities in a heavily Tibetan area of Sichuan province have handed down jail terms to seven nuns for joining the demonstrations—and 14 more nuns are taken into custody for staging new protests.
2008-05-12
The worst earthquake to strike China in decades has killed as many as 9,000 people, according China's official media, but authorities still haven’t reached numerous areas whose dead could push the toll far higher.
2008-05-11
Monks play a pivotal role in Burma, and never more so than in times of crisis. In his reporter's diary, veteran journalist Tyler Chapman describes what he observed of this unique relationship between monks and lay citizens when he attended the Ananda Festival in Bagan this year.
2008-05-09
The United Nations seeks a massive infusion of funding for Burma's cyclone relief effort, while a leading expert says the country's health infrastructure could be overwhelmed by disease outbreaks in the wake of Cyclone Nargis.
2008-05-09
Burma’s reclusive military government has impounded U.N. aid in the wake of Cyclone Nargis, as the confirmed death toll reaches 60,000 and the top U.S. diplomat calls on the junta to reconsider.
2008-05-08
Witnesses in Burma have been contacting RFA Burmese service staff with heartbreaking accounts of devastation, death, and a major humanitarian crisis in the wake of Tropical Cyclone Nargis. Read their first-hand accounts of the storm and its aftermath.
2008-05-08
Countries throughout Asia are likely to feel the impact of Burma's Cyclone Nargis as lost rice production pushes prices higher. The storm has damaged areas that account for 65 percent of the country's rice output.
2008-05-08
A trickle of tourists from other parts of China has resumed into the Tibetan capital, although few shops have opened in downtown Lhasa despite encouragement by local officials to do so. Phone services to the city have improved, and Tibetan students are being taken on "educational" trips by the authorities.
2008-05-08
In video footage shot by the opposition, Burmese people speak about having lost loved ones, about entire neighborhoods being flattened, about the first emergency camps being built.
2008-05-07
Even as Burma's state-run media report that officials are working hard to tackle the havoc wreaked by Tropical Cyclone Nargis, Burmese citizens complain that very little appears to be happening on the ground. They describe innumerable floating corpses, devastated infrastructure, and scarce water, food, and fuel.
2008-05-06
As Burma reels from a devastating cyclone and tidal surge, officials set the death toll at more than 22,000 and rising—while a top U.S. diplomat in the country says the number of deaths could reach 100,000. Local residents say the government's response has been sorely inadequate, as an international rescue operation gets under way.
2008-05-06
Hong Kong people turned out in force to protest the deadly Chinese crackdown of 1989, says a Hong Kong-based journalist jailed by China for almost three years on spying charges. But Ching Cheong also says the territory’s space for dissent has shrunk dramatically.
2008-05-06
This video shot secretly, in April 2008, in the Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture shows closed monasteries but defiant monks who speak openly about their hope for a return of the Dalai Lama.
2008-05-06
"It's as if they want to change the way we are," said a lama about the Chinese authorities. Monks in Tibet are struggling to continue practicing their faith in the face of huge political pressure.
2008-05-06
Deep in Tibetan Kardze, in China’s southwestern Sichuan province, Chinese authorities continually remove images of the Dalai Lama from display in a monastery. But the monks just keep replacing them.
2008-05-06
A prominent ethnic Mongolian writer has had his home raided and is now being held there under tight surveillance after spending 20 days in detention. Overseas dissidents say China is cracking down on any ethnic minority groups in an attempt to blanket out any form of separatist sentiment ahead of this summer's Olympic Games.
2008-05-06
Monks play a pivotal role in Burma, and never more so than in times of crisis. In his reporter's diary, veteran journalist Tyler Chapman describes what he observed of this unique relationship between monks and lay citizens when he attended the Ananda Festival in Bagan this year.
2008-05-05
More than 22,000 people have died and hundreds of thousands are without safe drinking water or shelter in Burma after a massive cyclone ripped through the impoverished Southeast Asian country. In one remote area, “15 whole villages have just disappeared,” one witness said.
