Hang Nguyen is a Ph.D. candidate at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University in Australia. Here she considers the reasons for promoting Vietnam-Australia trade relations. Vietnam and Australia officially established diplomatic relations in February 1973 and have sought to foster their relationship since then. In 2009, Vietnam and Australia elevated their bilateral relations to…
Michael Noel-Clarke, who studied as an undergraduate in Esfahan and later served in the British Embassy in Tehran (1970-74), has recently translated the memoires of Prince Arfa, a prominent member of the Persian establishment at the end of the 19th century. The book has been published by Gingko Library as Memories of a Bygone Age: Qajar Persia and Imperial Russia…
Nadir Cheema is an academic at the School of Oriental and African Studies and UCL, University of London. He specializes in economics and studies Pakistani socio-political issues. He is also a senior fellow at Bloomsbury Pakistan. The perception that Pakistan lacks credibility within the international community is a common one among analysts and academics working…
Martijn van Gils is a Masters student of Comparative Literary research at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. His research interests are postcolonial literatures and cultural memory and trauma. Along with Malaka Mohammed Shwaikh, a Palestinian award-winning human rights activist and writer, he co-authored an article on Palestinian Cinema in the latest issue of the Asian Affairs Journal….
Richard Fell CVO is a former ambassador and Books Review Editor of the Asian Affairs Journal. Here, he reports on a recent visit to Sri Lanka. I recently spent two weeks in Sri Lanka with a distinguished group of New Zealanders and Australians. Though primarily a holiday, we had opportunities to discuss developments in the…
Dr Amit Ranjan is a research fellow of the Indian Council of World Affairs in New Delhi. Here, he considers the reasons behind the upsurge in militant violence in Bangladesh. Over the last decade, Bangladesh has turned into a militant hotspot where home grown militants have killed thousands of people. Their main tactics have included…
Nagihan Haliloglu is an assistant professor at the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and a resident of Istanbul. Here, she records her observations and thoughts on the recent coup attempt in Turkey. I first heard that something was not quite right in Istanbul as I was sitting by the Aegean shore in Çeşme, supposedly looking…
Huw Thomas, co-author of the Odyssey Guide to Tajikistan and the High Pamirs, goes in search of the birthplace of Nasir Khusraw. Nadir Khusraw [1004 – 1077] is recognized as one of the great poets of the Persian language and as an important Muslim philosopher. He was one of the greatest travellers of the eleventh…
This month sees the launch of Black Wind, White Snow by Charles Clover, former Moscow FT Bureau chief. Bijan Omrani, Editor of the Asian Affairs Journal, attended a speech by Clover this week at Pushkin House in London to mark the book’s release. What reasons can be given for Vladimir Putin’s belligerence? How is it…
Malgosia Skowronska is a graduate of the War Studies Department of King’s College London, and the producer of Narkomen, an independent film on the problems faced by heroin addicts in Tajikistan. The day comes to an end. The sun had almost gone down behind the surrounding peaks of the Pamir Mountains. Mirzo, with his slow…
