The modern world has long thought of refugees in strictly political terms, victims in a world driven by competing ideologies. But as climate change continues unabated, there is a growing population of displaced people whose homes have been rendered unlivable thanks to a wide spectrum of environmental disasters. Despite their numbers, and their need, most nations refuse to recognize their status.

India has not had any problems producing a birthrate to support the world’s second-most populous nation. They have a highly educated workforce. Anyone, from anywhere, that has needed tech support knows their telecommunications infrastructure works. They are creating their own products to meet the growing material demands of Indian citizens.  Since the turn of the century, India has become a hotbed for computing innovations. First, they assisted American companies to avoid any Y2K complications. Today, Indian technology entrepreneurs are creating intellectual property to compete on the global market.

When Dang Thi Kim Lieng set herself ablaze in a self-immolation to protest the local communist administration in Vietnam on July 30, the country's dismal human rights records once again caught the world's attention. But, unlike other dictatorships before them, the Hanoi rulers' oppression of their citizens is increasingly being viewed as something even more ominous: More and more, the Communist Party is seen as unpatriotic, as selling out the national interest to secure their own grip on power.

For longtime Indochina observers, the developing story is one full of irony and a signal for a major shift in the long if arduous U.S.-Indochina relations. Nearly four decades have passed, but America barely recovered from its psychic wounds. Vietnam, after all, was our “hell in a small place.” It spelled America’s ignominy. The country known for its manifest destiny was soundly defeated by what former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once called a “fourth-rate power.” Still, here we are, at the turn of the millennia, seeking a return. 

Besides the tasty draw of fatty foods and sweet sodas, there’s another reason why such establishments are making inroads in countries that are otherwise known for their excellent culinary traditions. Unlike in the U.S., where fast food is perceived as time saving and cheap and often the preferred meal of the working poor, in Asia places like Burger King and Pizza Hut are the fare of choice for those with dispensable incomes. 

There’s a restlessness to Rian Dundon that defines much of his work. Sitting over coffee, the 31-year-old photographer checks his phone, then his watch. He looks past the window, capturing mental images of the world outside. Then he returns. It’s that same nervous energy -- a sort of daring uncertainty - that animates the subjects of his forthcoming book on the Chinese city of Changsha, a one-time stronghold for Mao Zedong’s incipient Communist Party. 

People in China traditionally head home for the lunar New Year holiday, marking one of the largest annual human migrations on the planet. This year, however, a growing number are opting to travel abroad, bringing in new streams of tourism revenue to destinations in the Bay Area and across the country.

Few artists were featured in the media in 2011 as frequently as Ai Weiwei. His placement on Time Magazine’s list of 100 most influential figures came at the end of a year when he was taken into custody by the Chinese government for alleged economic crimes. Ai’s supporters believe these charges are a ruse, and the media have questioned their validity as well. As Andrew Stout of More Intelligent Life explains, the accusation of economic crimes is “a catch-all charge often used by Chinese officials to publicly discredit dissidents”. 

Once in a while tigers make international news, like the white tiger in Las Vegas that mauled illusionist Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy, or the one that killed a teenager at the San Francisco Zoo. Most of the time, though, the news is about tigers being eaten by man. The latest involves a restaurateur in Hanoi arrested for selling tiger meat. She has been arrested before and served time in jail, but the trade proves too lucrative – $1,000 per 100 grams of tiger meat -- to give up, especially now that there are but a few tigers left in the wild. 

From New America Media -- China Daily USA (posted October 28, 2011): The world's population [was] expected to reach 7 billion on Monday [October 31, 2011], four years later than once predicted largely thanks to China's family planning policy, according to the country's top population experts. Population growth has rocketed. It took just 13 years for 1 billion more people to live on the planet, yet only at the dawn of the 19th century did a billion people first inhabit the Earth, according to a report by the United Nations Population Fund.