Western culture ceased to love and understand death long ago. Death is seen as ungrateful. However, there are places in the world where the passage from life to death is cause for celebration, not sadness.

The cultural legacy of the Mongol people comes from the meadows, close to River Orkhon. In this natural landscape of singular beauty and heritage of humanity, the legendary Karakorum was settled in the 13th and 14th centuries, ancient capital of the Mongol Empire founded by Gengis Khan. Nowadays, when there are only marks of the city and the heroic deeds of the fierce Mongol warriors are remembered and the nomad sheperds still pasture their cattle in these meadows.

The ancient beliefs of Thailand hold that there are superior spirits that live all over the place, in rivers, in trees and in mountains. In Thailand there is a great amount of rites unknown by westerners.

In 1993 the English writer James Hilton published the novel Last Horizon, where he described a fiction paradise called Shangri-La. Since then, several locations in Asia and other corners of the world have been called with this suggestive mystical name as a tourist attraction. However, the capital of the Autonomous Tibetan Prefecture of Diqing, also known in Chinese as Zhongdian and in Tibetan as Gyalthang, deserves the definition of Garden of Eden.

Renata Piazza tells us about her experience as a volunteer in the Japanese city of Kesennuma after the tsunami of last March 11. (Translated from the original Spanish by the author and edited for "Japan Perspectives" by David Appleyard)

On the 11th of June I was in Hiraizumi in Japan’s north eastern region of Tohoku. With a Japanese friend of mine I was visiting the monuments around Chusonji. or rather what is left today of what this used to be back in the 12th century. In those days it was a centre of political power and of religious and cultural ferment enjoying considerable influence under the noble family of Northern Fujiwara. Its temples competed in beauty with the magnificent ones of the capital Kyoto.

The 20th of March 2010, at 06:48 am (Spanish time), coinciding with the Spring equinox, the new year began for the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as for all those territories influenced by the Persian Empire, this is: Afghans, Tadzhiks, Kurds, Uzbecs, Parsis of India and Baloch. It is also celebrated in Turkey.

The increase of military tension continues in the Korean peninsula. North Korea carried out on the 25th of May a second nuclear test and launched on the same day and the next days several missiles of short range. It was a relative surprise because Pyongyang had already announced that on the 25th of April they were preparing a new test as a proof of rejection to the sentence of the UN before the ballistic test of the 5th of April. The Security Council of the UN approved of, on the 13th of June, by unanimity its fifteen members, among which China and Russia stand out, the resolution 1874 which established more political and financial sanctions to the North Korean regime. But it toughly reacted the following day announcing that it would continue enriching uranium in its reactor of Yongbyon to increase its arsenal and even did not hesitate to threaten with a possible nuclear test and with the launch of ballistic missiles aiming at the US territory (Alaska and Hawai Islands).

Vicente Ferrer, one of the most relevant world figures of the century within the field of cooperation, has died at the age of 89 accompanies by his family and close collaborators in his house of Anantapur, where he has worked the last 40 years of his life to struggle against poverty and social inequalities.

South Koreans woke up on the 23rd of May with the sad news of the suicide of Roh Moo-hyun who chaired the country until February 2008. Roh was 62 yeras old and he had been accused of alleged corrupt activities during his presidential term of office. On the 24th of April in a message to citizens he recognised that members of his family such as his wife, son, brother-in-law and other collaborators had ilegally received almost $7 million. He admitted to be ashamed about the activities of his family, which would not allow him talk about democracy, progress and justice. However, he denied having had knowledge of these serious events while he was President. His tragic death has caused a great and deep shock among North Koreans. Roh was considered an honest politician with a long trajectory as a lawyer and defender of human rights and democracy facing military dictatorships in the eighties, especially against the presidents Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, who later, in 1995, were condemned for corruption.

They make a strange and complementary couple. If the current and next Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, contributes his experience and knowledge for the Government of India, the young heir Rahul Gandhi has placed a great part of the votes on the table in the most solid victory of the Congress Party since 1991. The Congress, party that struggles for the independence of India and that has spent five decades in power, leads the Asian Giant again thanks to the new vitality of the Gandhi dinasty. Even though many people in the country criticize a formation whose strength is a political lineage, what cannot be denied is that the last generation Gandhi/Nehru has achieved to attract new voters.