What Can Be Done About Australia’s Declining Birthrate?
Last week the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released its latest data on Australia’s birth rates. The data indicated there has been a drop of 4.6 percent from the ABS’s 2022 statistics. The...
View ArticleThe US Risks Irrelevance in Asia
U.S. President Joe Biden was once again absent from the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit, which concluded last week in Vientiane, Laos. This marked the second year in a row...
View ArticleForging New Alliances: India’s BRICS Summit Diplomacy in Russia
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Kazan, Russia for the 16th annual BRICS summit from October 22 to 24 holds significant political, economic and cultural implications, especially amid...
View ArticleVietnam’s National Assembly Chooses Army General as President
Vietnam’s parliament has selected army general Luong Cuong as president, replacing To Lam, the chief of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), and strengthening the Party’s norm of collective leadership...
View ArticleCambodian Court Refuses Bail For Detained Journalist Mech Dara
A Cambodian court has denied a request for bail by the award-winning freelance journalist Mech Dara, who faces trial on charges of “incitement” for his social media posts. The 36-year-old, who has...
View ArticleTowards a More Resilient and United ASEAN
As Malaysia prepares to take over the chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2025, skeptics are having a field day. One commentator suggests that the country “will have...
View ArticleEvictions and Evasions: State Involvement in Southeast Asia’s ‘Golden Era of...
As global attention on Southeast Asia’s transnational crime epidemic continues to increase, the sophistication of analysis on it is rising in sync. Last week’s U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC)...
View Article‘Not Welcome’: China’s ICBM Test Raised Alarms in the Pacific Islands
In late September, China fired an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) into the Pacific Ocean between the northern islands of French Polynesia and the southern islands of Kiribati,...
View ArticleKey Takeaways From the Islamabad SCO Summit
On October 15 and 16, Pakistan hosted the 23rd Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Heads of Government meeting. Security was tight due to ongoing protests by the opposition Pakistan...
View ArticleWhat Does the Chinese Public Think of the China-India Border Patrol Deal?
On October 21, the governments of India and China announced that their four-year military stand-off at their disputed border along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh has ended. New Delhi...
View ArticleWhy Indonesia is Blocking Chinese E-Commerce App Temu
Temu is a new Chinese retailer that has exploded on the e-commerce scene in the last two years. The marketplace, which offers very affordable consumer goods typically shipped directly from producers in...
View ArticleSon of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew Granted Asylum in UK
Lee Hsien Yang, the youngest son of Singapore’s founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, announced yesterday that he has been granted political asylum in the United Kingdom, on the grounds that he faces...
View ArticleNPP Poised for Victory in Sri Lanka’s Parliamentary Election
Less than two months after Sri Lankans elected a new president, they are set to vote in parliamentary elections on November 14. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s National People’s Power (NPP) seems...
View ArticleWill Indonesia’s New President be a Statesman or a Strongman?
Indonesia, the world’s fourth-largest country by population, is a nation on the rise. With an economy projected to become the world’s sixth largest by 2027, this sprawling archipelago of 17,000 islands...
View ArticleThe Transformation of Japanese Politics and New Japan-Taiwan Relations
Ishiba Shigeru last month won the race to become the next Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) president, and thus the next prime minister of Japan. His ascendancy marked a major break. For more than 20...
View ArticleSingapore’s ‘Smart’ Tech Policies Require Public Trust
Singapore is poised to be a 21st century leader in the use of technology by government. Launched in 2014, the country’s Smart Nation initiative brings numerous visions of “smartness” together,...
View ArticleThe Release of Mech Dara: Speaking Truth to Power
After 28 days in an over-crowded prison cell, nearly 50 major global media stories, untold closed-door meetings and backroom deals, and one coerced apology video, renowned Cambodian journalist Mech...
View ArticleNew Gwadar International Airport: An Asset for Pakistan or Another Economic...
On the sidelines of the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Islamabad, Pakistan and China signed 13 agreements, covering a range of sectors including security, livelihood,...
View ArticleCan the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team Tackle North Korea’s Sanctions...
Since Russia vetoed the extension of the U.N. Panel of Experts mandate earlier this year, governments have been examining ways to reconstitute the Panel and continue its work tracking North Korean...
View ArticleThe Impact of the US Elections on India
The 2024 U.S. presidential election is arguably the most influential in American history. With Kamala Harris and Donald Trump of the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively, representing two...
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