Marcus Andreopolous is a Senior Research Fellow at the Asia-Pacific Foundation, and an expert with NATO’s Global Threats Advisory Group Towards the end of June, Lindsay Ford, a former Biden Administration advisor on South Asia, warned of an emerging nuclear threat to the US from Pakistan. Ford argued that growing paranoia in Islamabad, triggered by…
Kathrina Mohd Daud and Ampuan Brahim bin Ampuan Tengah When Brunei Darussalam appears in global media, it is usually within the context of one of three points of emphasis: the perceived extravagance of the monarchy, the implementation of Shariah law in 2013, and dismissal as a somewhat unknown and perhaps exotic jungle island. It is…
Adonis Li is a Lecturer in East Asian History at the School of Humanities and Heritage, University of Lincoln and a recent recipient of an RSAA Travel Award Korean popular music, often referred to simply as K-pop, is truly a global phenomenon. Earlier this month (August 2025), the song ‘Golden’ from the soundtrack of Netflix…
Joe Luc Barnes is an author and journalist writing on the countries of the former Soviet Union Cholpon Melisbekova rests her komuz across her lap, the carved wooden instrument worn smooth by years of practice. “When I was little, in the 2000s, I was embarrassed to carry it with me,” she tells me. “Now I…
Razeen Sally is the author of Return to Sri Lanka: Travels in a Paradoxical Island. He taught international political economy and international trade first at the LSE and then at the NUS. I am “half-half”, the firstborn of an Anglo-Welsh mother and Sri Lankan-Muslim father. They met on a ship in 1955; my mother came…
Most recently a Director of VanEck in New York, Tom Butcher has travelled extensively, particularly in South and Southeast Asia. Pagan was a logical and important waystation as I made my journey from South Asia through to Southeast Asia, fishing and looking at temples. I had kicked off my minor exploration of Buddhism in Pakistan,…
Sean Paterson is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society living in Guangzhou A small town in Gansu is having something of a moment. Dunhuang, famous for its treasure-troves of Buddhist art and hoard of ancient manuscripts, and for the underhanded way that foreign adventurers pilfered huge quantities of both, is back in the limelight….
Tara Kangarlou is an Iranian-American global affairs journalist who has produced, written and reported for NBC, CNN, and Al Jazeera America. She is the founder of the NGO Art of Hope, an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, and the author of The Heartbeat of Iran. If there’s one truth I’ve come to hold sacred through…
Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat is the Director of the China-Indonesia Desk and the Indonesia-MENA Desk at the Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS), Bhima Yudhistira Adhinegara is Executive Director of the CELIOS and Yeta Purnama is a Researcher at the CELIOS. When the BRICS group expanded in 2024 to include Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Iran,…
Manish Vaid is a Junior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation India stands at the epicentre of one of the world’s most complex energy transformations. As the world’s third-largest energy consumer, India faces an unprecedented challenge that extends far beyond its borders: satisfying the energy needs of 1.4 billion people while simultaneously honouring its commitments…
