Dr Frauk Heard-Bey, the RSAA’s local Honorary Secretary in Abu Dhabi, offers this picture of the impact of COVID-19 in the United Arab Emirates Abu Dhabi, 22 May 2020 The jury is still out on how effectively different countries dealt with the corona virus pandemic. Each and every authority is now looking back to the…
As Martin Purbrick (@mtpurbrick) leaves Hong Kong he reflects again on Covid-19 and Hong Kong’s relationship with China. It is difficult to describe the Coronavirus situation in Hong Kong when most people in the city remain preoccupied with the continued downward negative spiral of the political situation. Yet now in Hong Kong the Coronavirus pandemic…
Rupert Stone comments on the impact of Covid-19 in Pakistan While much of Europe and the US remains in varying degrees of lockdown as fatalities from the novel coronavirus continue to rise, Pakistan could be on the verge of a far more devastating crisis. With its huge population of around 220 million (the world’s fifth…
Articles are invited for a special issue of the Asian Affairs Journal on the subject of “The Environment and Social Justice in Asia”, to be published in November 2020. Articles covering any field or issue under this heading, including mining, water issues, forestry, manual scavenging, climate change, pollution, wildlife issues, or any other related matter…
Martin Purbrick (@mtpurbrick), the RSAA’s honorary local secretary in Hong Kong, continues his commentary on life with Covid-19. Martin is a regular contributor to Asian Affairs 20 April 2020 The Coronavirus in Hong Kong has led to a new normal lifestyle for us all. Bars, pubs, karaoke lounges, massage establishments, bathhouses, mahjong parlours,…
Coronavirus may be keeping us at home, but the RSAA is lucky to have members who can give us views from across Asia. This contribution is from Martin Purbrick (@mtpurbrick), honorary local secretary in Hong Kong. Martin is a regular contributor to Asian Affairs 4 April 2020 The Coronavirus affecting us now is not…
Sir David Akers-Jones, local honorary secretary of the RSAA in Hong Kong, died on 30 September. Martin Purbrick, a regular contributor to Asian Affairs, remembers his life. Â Sir David Akers-Jones, who has died aged 92, lived in interesting times on the south coast of China and was part of some of the key moments in…
Hardly anyone ‘goes to Batumi’. It appears in travel accounts as the gateway to the Caucasus, the last place where you can have the advantages of a port city before you hit the mountains, the last place where you can think twice before you set off for winding roads and precipices. I would have followed…
Paul Cheeseright is a former FT correspondent, and also is a member of the Asian Affairs Editorial Board. Maurice de Cazenove was in his early 20s when he arrived at Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) as a young career officer of Marshal Leclerc’s Expeditionary Corps aiming to reclaim French control of Indochina. He was…
Nagihan Haliloglu is an assistant professor at the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and a resident of Istanbul. In his introduction to Mehmet Emin Efendi’s 1877 travelogue on Turkestan, Ahmet Mithat Efendi says that anyone interested in Ottoman history and culture ought to visit Central Asia ‘to appreciate how much a tribe that is originally…
