Shinzo Abe's plans for structural reform are welcome. But in a region sensitive to Japanese nationalism, revitalising Japan's military will demand delicacy, say our correspondents
THE world’s most densely populated country of any size also happens to be home to the world’s fastest-growing city. By the middle of the 21st century, Bangladesh, whose landmass could be fit 58 times into Brazil’s, will be home to 195m people—that is, Brazil’s population today. In short, this is not the sort of country where anyone would look to find a declining population.
Yet one needn’t look far. Barisal, an administrative division to the south of Dhaka, is home to a population that is just starting to shrink. The city of Barisal lies in the river delta of the Padma, as the main branch of the Ganges is called as it flows through lower Bangladesh and into the Bay of Bengal.
Soon India will have a fifth of the world's working-age population. It needs to make 100m new, good jobs fast, or it risks squandering a once-in-a-generation demographic advantage
AS POWER is peacefully handed from one democratically elected government to another for the first time in Pakistan's history, our correspondents ask what the results mean for the future of the country
IT IS still not official, but everybody knows Nawaz Sharif is set to become Pakistan’s next prime minister. Foreign leaders have dialled in congratulations. Pakistan’s bigwigs sniffing for jobs queue at his residence in Lahore. Three days ago everyone you met on the street was planning to vote for Imran Khan. Today all proudly explain how they voted for Mr Sharif.
On May 12th a street-sweeping van carefully cleaned the already pristine tarmac leading to Mr Sharif's rural home, as curious local farmers stared. The next day Mr Sharif, no doubt hoping to placate pesky demands for interviews, invited the foreign press corps to lunch. It was a brave decision.
THROUGH the night in Lahore, and early in the morning of May 12th, cars raced, honked and revved their engines, young men sprawled out of windows to wave flags and mobs of happy Punjabis shouted: “Lion!”, the party symbol of their successful leader. Their cheerfulness was understandable. Lahore is home to Nawaz Sharif, a two-time prime minister in Pakistan now set for a record third stint.
His Pakistan Muslim League, Nawaz, or PML (N), won a clear victory after voting in national and provincial elections the day before.
IT WAS a television image that many feared seeing in an election campaign beset by terrorist attacks. A prominent party leader, aspiring to be prime minister,was shown bloodied, unconscious and being carried from a rally. Late on May 7th Imran Khan, the charismatic leader of the Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI), was rushed to hospital with injuries inflicted during a campaign event in Lahore.
Yet Mr Khan was the victim of a clumsy accident, not terrorism. He fractured his spine and cut his head after tumbling five metres (roughly 15 feet) from a platform attached to a forklift truck being used to raise him to a stage, along with an absurd number of flunkies.
THE ARMY was still counting the dead from Bangladesh’s biggest industrial disaster, when a massacre of hardline Islamic demonstrators unfolded in the early hours of May 6th. It took place in the commercial district of Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital. At least 37 were killed and hundreds more injured in clashes between security forces and members of an extreme Islamic group, Hefajat-e-Islam.
The final death toll is likely to be higher. Prothom Alo, a Bengali-language newspaper, suggested 49 had died, mostly outside of the capital.
Update, May 7: Since this blogpost was published, the Election Commission (EC) has officially announced a record voter turnout of 85% instead of the estimated 80% earlier mentioned. In addition, the EC confirms that 46.5% of the votes went to Barisan Nasional (BN), the lowest share of the popular vote ever.
IT IS more of the same in Malaysia as the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition has been re-elected in the country’s 13th general election. Voting on May 5th, with a record turnout of 80%, gave Barisan a majority of seats in parliament of 133 out of 222, probably a slightly bigger margin of victory than many had predicted.
I AM in Malaysia for the election on May 5th, and up here in the north of the country quite a lot of the political to-and-fro is about political Islam. The opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (better known as PAS) is strong up here in states like Kedah, so the ruling coalition Barisan Nacional is trying to scare people off voting for them by claiming that, if they were to be elected nationally, they would force the opposition coalition into turning Malaysia into an extremist Muslim state. It’s a lame old tactic, but still seems to find some traction.
A fellow-member of ASEAN, Myanmar, is wrestling with its own Islamic problem, but in a much more volatile and blood-soaked manner.
ON MAY 5th Malaysia goes to the polls to elect its next government. For the first time since 1957, the ruling coalition stands a real chance of losing
SO FAR it is a matter of a few military tents, a handful of shivering soldiers and a disagreement over a remote and never-demarcated line in the Himalayas. Yet a lengthening stand-off between Chinese and Indian soldiers in a disputed part of Ladakh reflects a profound problem: already it ranks as the most serious confrontation between the Asian giants since the late 1980s.
India accuses its neighbour to the north-east of sending troops some 19km past a line of actual control (LAC), in the Despang area of Ladakh, a part of Jammu & Kashmir state that is wedged between Tibet proper and the vale of Kashmir. They have reportedly been there for more than two weeks.
THE story of Lim Guan Eng, chief minister of the Malaysian state of Penang, tells much about how Malaysian politics has been transformed in recent years. Mr Lim heads the Democratic Action Party or DAP, a member of the three-party opposition coalition hoping to wrest power from the ruling Barisan Nasional in a general election on May 5th.
This is the first time since independence from Britain in 1957 that the opposition has a genuine—if still outside—chance of winning a federal-government election. That follows its startling advance in the previous general election in 2008, when, as this year, 12 of Malaysia's 13 states held simultaneous elections.
IT LOOKS like the worst industrial disaster in Bangladesh’s history. Thirty-six hours after an eight-storey building collapsed in Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, dead bodies kept emerging from a pile of concrete rubble that was, until Wednesday morning, a complex that included a shopping centre and six garment factories.
At least 250 people were killed when this squat tower block in the heart of Bangladesh’s garment-industrial belt, north of the capital Dhaka, tumbled down like a house of cards on the morning of April 24th. Hundreds more were injured, some pulled from the rubble. Police have said that hundreds of people are still missing.
SUSILO BAMBANG YUDHOYONO, the president of Indonesia, was in Singapore on Monday for the regular Singapore-Indonesia “leaders’ retreat”, a chance for a more relaxed exchange of views between the premiers of the biggest South-East Asian country and one of the smallest. Before flying off for his first visit to the new Myanmar on April 23rd, however, he stepped into the downtown offices of Thomson-Reuters to answer questions from a gathering of bankers, analysts and financial hacks. The result was quite revealing.
Coming towards the end of his second (and last) term in office, SBY, as he is known to his friends as well as the public at large, was engaging and confident.
Analysis of Asian politics and culture, from our Banyan columnist and other correspondents. Named for a tree whose branches have sheltered great ideas
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