Asia
Jakarta is flooding and its governor is sinking
Jakarta welcomed the new year with a new record — the heaviest rains in decades. The deluge left parts of the Indonesian capital under 5 metres of water, which triggered…
Asia’s shameful gender discrimination
The annual release of the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report is always a moment of great shame for Asia’s leading economies. The relative gaps between Asian women and…
Can Indonesia lead? Maritime tensions with China escalate
Sadly, for both Australia and Indonesia the New Year has wrought death and destruction with the worst flooding in Jakarta in a decade and an Australian bushfire crisis…
Could Afghanistan be the stage for US-Iran conflict?
The killing of top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike on 3 January in Baghdad has sparked fears of a regional war between Washington and Tehran…
India-Australia strategic convergence … with differences
Recent years have witnessed a dramatic transformation of the Indian-Australian strategic relationship. While Australia worried about India’s naval expansion in the late 1980s, and…
Policing Vietnam: How Australia could help
Visitors to Vietnam’s premier police training institution are greeted by a statue of the country’s first president Hồ Chí Minh with his right hand raised and the index finger…
North Korea’s ambiguous New Year message
Christmas and New Year came and went without a bang on the Korean peninsula, even though North Korea had warned of a “Christmas gift” for the United States and the horrendous…
The absurdity shaping Taiwan’s presidential elections
If you were to receive a receipt in Taiwan today, the date would be marked with the year 109. It will be 109 when Taiwan holds its presidential and legislative election in what we…
“Maximum pressure” demands diplomatic off-ramps
With Donald Trump facing an impeachment trial in the Senate and a tough re-election battle, some US rivals see the president as politically weakened, risk-averse in exerting…