China’s 21st century initiative to revive the ‘silk road’ on land and sea may be the most ambitious development the world has seen At a time when globalisation from the West appears to be in retreat, the Belt and Road Initiative is a potent symbol of the rise of China-based globalisation. The BRI, part of […]
Crucial to Shinzo Abe’s control over his ruling party has been a string of electoral victories under his leadership and his cabinet’s consistently high poll ratings. Both now look increasingly in doubt After a dream run as Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe’s current political predicament must come as quite a shock. Plummeting poll ratings […]
Successive governments in Bangladesh have pushed many indigenous people out of their homelands and into the radical margins, driving them into an unstable and uncertain future An unprovoked attack by a mob of Bengali Muslim settlers on four indigenous localities of the mountainous Chittagong Hill Tracts took place in Bangladesh in June this year. Some […]
Australia is failing to broadcast its best television into Southeast Asia, a serious missed opportunity, argues Duncan Graham Most nations strive to show their best sides to the world through international TV channels, seen as effective means of building rapport and dispelling distrust. On these platforms they serve documentaries, dramas and newscasts made […]
The people of one of the world’s youngest democracies are embracing an open, public and popular electoral process, writes Damien Kingsbury In a colourful and noisy event, unblemished so far by the violence that marred the first few years of independence, Timor–Leste prepares for its fourth parliamentary elections this Saturday. By conventional criteria, it has […]
China’s treatment of its Nobel Peace Prize laureate, writer, literary critic, and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo, raises difficult and penetrating questions, writes Kerry Brown The loss of Liu Xiaobo is a tragedy. For him, a personal tragedy but there are far wider ramifications. The final decade of his life was spent in jail. The […]
