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May 2016

May 2016

Staff cuts threaten ANU’s international reputation

Students face uncertainty from staff cuts to ANU’s Asian studies Staff cuts announced last week at the Australian National University’s School of Culture, History and Language (CHL) are jeopardising the university’s position as a national and global leader in Indonesian studies. Understanding Indonesia, the largest country in Southeast Asia, is important for Australia’s national interest.

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Pitfalls ahead as Myanmar advances along democratic road

Facing challenges on many fronts, the first priority for Myanmar’s new government is to curb the country’s systemic violence While seemingly dissimilar in every respect, Myanmar and the Middle East have arrived at an eerily similar ‘historical moment’ in their political trajectories. Both find themselves confronted by a range of domestic issues defined by pluralising

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Tough guy wins in the Philippines, another tough guy waiting in the wings

There may be more to the Philippines’ new president Rodrigo Duterte than his tough guy image indicates In the populist theatrics that are Filipino politics, the overwhelming election of Rodrigo Duterte should not have come as a surprise, even if comparisons with US ‘outsider’ Donald Trump have been as common as they are inaccurate. Unlike

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Bangladesh killings bring tensions between Islam and secularism to the fore

Violent extremists are exploiting the tensions and paradoxes of secularism in Bangladesh Bangladesh, a South Asian Muslim majority state with the fourth largest Muslim population, has seen a spate of religion-based killings since 2013. With especially the murder of an American citizen of Bangladeshi origin, Avijit Roy, in 2015, there has been unprecedented global media

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