his life story may have grown to hit. 27 years ago but there's no holding back his dreams. thank you for watching. cinema starts may 27th on double play. this is news asia coming up today 10 years after sri lanka's civil war comes to an end the wounds are still fresh and emotions brought we joined families searching for their loved ones who are still missing today and a milestone taiwan becomes the 1st place in asia to approve same sex marriage parliament passes a bill and the l.g.b. t. plus community celebrates what does it mean for gay rights movements elsewhere in asia.

played. i'm sumi so moscato welcome to news asia it is good to have you with us today. now saturday marks 10 years since the end of sri lanka's long running civil war today the country is still struggling with the scars that the conflict has left behind the war broke out 1983 pitting government forces against imo militants led by the liberation tigers of. the l t t e were fighting for an independent state for the minority but in may 2009 they were defeated by the sri lankan military at a huge human cost it is believed some 50000 fighters and 100000 civilians were killed in the 26 year war today at least 20000 people are still missing. and heading goal travel to northern sri lanka where survivors have taken the search into their own hands. 10 years of demanding an answer j.

have anything still doesn't know what happened to her missing daughter the war was winding down she says when masked men tore 16 year old jeromey from her arms and fled. it wouldn't. let go of her hand it was lying on the ground and a man stomped on my back with his boot i screamed and when i looked up the large vehicle carrying my daughter it was already a column of dust in the distance that's how fast i took off. many people haven't heard from their loved ones for even longer in some cases several decades their stories might be different but the family share the same sense of suffering without proof their children are dead they hold on to hope. when i hear other children calling for their mothers to him my door to calling for me i hear her voice and i immediately look thinking she's come back to me. the task of finding out what happened to people like jerome we will land here at the office on missing persons

or m.p. it's a new commission being set up by the current administration to independently investigate the disappeared the chairman. understand some people are skeptical it is extremely challenging because there have been many institutions many commissions established in the past to address the issue of the missing and for the families feel that they have had no ounces we do not want to give people false promises or false hopes and we will be very clear that we try to be strived to establish itself we would try to find to help them to 5 ounces but that is going to take place building trust between state institutions and the people especially in the northeast has been no easy task human rights lawyers the bhajan occasional and in says the o.m. p could gain the public's confidence once they set up local offices but she also says some families are afraid. people may give testimony today but they have

a fear that it will fall into the wrong hands so some families have said they may have more faith in the process if a foreign government or international body works with. some others like you have anything to say they will only accept an independent and foreign led investigation. they did not have and there is a b o m people come and start from the very beginning it's been 10 years and more time will go by and that will be about. the civil war may have ended a decade ago but the families searching for their loved ones are still waiting for closure. all right let's take a look at where sri lanka is today 10 years after the end of the war we have alan kitten with us he is the senior analyst on sri lanka for the international crisis group and he joins us from london thank you very much for being with us as we saw in a report of the search for the missing continues in the north in the in the east of the country the o m p of the commission says they are looking into this but why has

so little progress been made on this question. well actually you know has a long history of disappearances question all the way back to the 1980 s. so and it's not just in the north and east where people were disappeared people from all communities including in the south and singular majority areas also were disappeared in the 10s of thousands so strunk has been struggling to deal with this issue for whatever that is 40 years. i think you know part of the problem is that we are almost certain that the vast majority of people disappeared were taken were abducted and probably almost certainly killed by the military and the police so it's the you know the government to really look into this and really find the truth has to be willing to implicate their own security forces in the murders of tens of thousands of people and that's hard for any government to not an excuse not to do

it but i think it's you need to understand what really is behind all of this i think alan if we look at the process of reconciliation and healing now 10 years since the war has ended what about the question of political representation for that the minority because that is one of the reasons that the war of course led started in the 1st place it's almost felt their voices were not being heard. right well there is tamil political representation in the parliament but given that tamils are only you know somewhere 111213 percent of the country and how you calculate it there are always going to be outvoted in the national parliament hence the desire i think for you know for decades to figure out some way of giving power to the regions which would allow. the north in particular but also the east which have large populations to have a certain degree of autonomy now there have been hopes there have been negotiations endless negotiations over the years in attempts to rejig their constitution to give

the province's a greater power so tamils would have areas where they were the majority and where they could regulate their own affairs within certain limits but those limits are they have been negotiated you know for years but there was hope that this government would finally maybe sort this out at least to some degree with their plan for a new constitution that would change a lot of other things as well as deal with this issue but that is basically ground to a halt just not the other things always seem to be more important to the politicians in colombia and that means principally that the saying of these politicians they're more concerned with fighting their own battles and you know jockeying for power and they don't want to lose votes from some number of singhalese who might be aggravated at the thought the tunnels are getting too much power so they let the issue drop and they've done that for decades all right so still some work that needs to be done there alan king in from the international crisis group joining us from london thank you very much for your insight thanks for having me. now

to a landmark vote in taiwan the parliament there has passed a bill legalizing same sex marriage the 1st of its kind in asia the legislation allows same sex couples to form exclusive permanent unions and it also grants them the right to apply for a marriage registration that supporters waiting outside of parliament celebrated the result conservative lawmakers tried to pass a watered down version of the bill but they failed to do so in 2017 the country's highest court ruled that it was unconstitutional to ban gay couples from getting married and gave the parliament 2 years to in trying the write into law last year taiwanese voters rejected same sex marriage in a series of referendums but parliament went ahead today to comply with the court's ruling. and we can speak to cindy sue from the lobby alliance for human rights she joins us from taipei hi cindy thank you for joining us now 1st of all this result is something that you have actively campaigned for what does today's

vote mean to you i want you to be. mean so much to us lobby and also as my role as a mother it's 2 children with a partner. we've been together for 9 years and. have 2 children and their careers and now and today when the law has finally passed we can finally be married and finally get parental rights or our children busy. yes and what rights are now guaranteed to you under this law. under this law we can now if you marry just like they are of sexual person so we're guaranteed with alarm or nurturing rights and oh so a lot of the laws today we can also be able to legally busy adopt our children. now this photo has been a long time coming not only because the court in 2017 ruled that parliament does

have to in trying this right into law that being said just last year the taiwanese voters actually rejected same sex marriage in a series of referendums so how accepted is same sex marriage in society in taiwan. i think generally same sex marriage is except i think people are friendly to what it's. all of we don't go and ask the really thing like that. about the referendum that passed last year we do find that there is still a lot of communication that we need to do because a lot of people oh we see a lot of fosse information from flyers or internet. and. they just don't understand what kind of rights we need to understand there are actually l.t.e. family that existed and that needs right as you go to apply for

a marriage license are you worried about pushback from other members of the society . oh man i worry i think on that task countries that have asked marriage equality that only opposition voices will hold significantly go down when a marriage bill has passed because people will see that gay people don't just want to form a family gay people just want to get married and then be responsible for being with each other and i think i think what happened today in taiwan also showed that and cindy what do you think this means for gay rights across asia. we really do hope that taiwan will come to beacon of light. other asian countries because this is a huge step in age we never thought that it was it will pass at all but now that it did it we really do hope that all the other countries was soon follow

on i'm sure it will push their teams then a lot faster now that we have that all right cindy sue from the lobby alliance for human rights in taipei very good to have you with us thank you so much. well that's it for today thank you for joining us on news asia there's more stories on our website d.w. dot com slash asia and be sure to check us out on facebook as well. believe you with them edges of the new shin can send a bullet train prototype being tested in japan it's scheduled to go into use in 2030 and would be the fastest train in the war.

i'm secure in the fire more than target and in the end this is a me you're not allowed to stay here anymore we will send you back. are you familiar with this. with the smugglers were lions of. what's your story ready. i'm more than i was and women especially in victims of violence. take

part and send us your story you are trying in order to understand this new culture . another visit or another yet you want to become citizens. in for migrants your platform for reliable information. we'll see p t p p be a success trade ministers of the successor of the trance of the civic partnership meet in chile to discuss the way forward. also on the show a social media outcry after gucci try selling a religious headwear online as quite a mock up. but come to business asia i want to get jones and bill in good to have you with us and we start with news just in it's is official president saddam you

want to become citizens. in full migrants your platform for reliable information. will see p t p p b a success trade ministers of the successor of the trance of the civic partnership meet in chile to discuss the way forward. also on the show a social media outcry of the bocce try selling a religious headwear online and it's quite a mock up. but come to business asia i want to get jones and bill in good to have you with us and we start with news just in it's is official president donald trump confirms he's postponed a decision on tariffs on cars and parts from europe and japan the now says he'll wait up to $180.00 days for the outcome of trade talks before deciding whether to

implement the additional navies and this comes as minister from 11 countries meet in chile to receive ect another trade deal that withdrew the u.s. from. it's been a tumultuous few years for global trade with several previously solid relation. ships' called into question. at the center of what some are calling a new era of protectionism is u.s. president donald trump since taking office he's pulled out of a number of high profile agreements including in 2017 a proposed 12 nation free trade pact called the trans-pacific partnership for t p p last year these 11 remaining nations came up with their own amended deal the not very catchy comprehensive and progressive agreement for.