Dr Ferit Murat Ozkaleli is Associate Professor of International Affairs at ADA University in Azerbaijan A soft spotlight illuminates the stage as music fills Baku’s Old Opera House. It is Uzeyir Hajibeyov’s Leyli and Mecnun, a musical adaptation of a 16th-century tragic love poem by folk artist Fuzuli. When the music meets with the singer’s…
Dr Börje Ljunggren is former Swedish Ambassador to Vietnam (1994-97) and China (2002-06) On 19 April, India begins its parliamentary elections. With nearly a billion voters it’s described as the world’s largest democratic exercise, yet is also deeply unsettling. Modi’s win could signal the end of a pluralistic India that has been embraced by the…
Herald van der Linde is the author of Jakarta: History of a Misunderstood City and HSBC’s Chief Asian Equity Strategist, based in Hong Kong. Jakarta is a fabulous city. To many, this statement might sound odd. The city conjures up images of endless traffic jams, immense shopping malls that all sell pretty much the same…
Nick Hinton is Chairman of the Britain-Nepal NGO Network (BRANNGO) and a former British Gurkha officer The Russian ‘Special Military Operation’ against Ukraine is shocking in so many ways, but perhaps one of the most egregious is the way in which young men from Nepal have been tempted or tricked into serving with Russian forces. It…
Dr Tsering Topgyal is a lecturer in International Relations at the Department of Political Science and International Studies of the University of Birmingham Tibetans are experiencing very challenging times both inside and outside Tibet. Under Xi Jinping’s stifling authoritarianism, Tibetans inside Tibet are being subjected to an extraordinarily heavy dose of securitised assimilationism and generalised…
Photo credit: Kazakh journalist Samat Iskakov. The Light Rail Transit System aimed at promoting urban mobility has been under construction in the Kazakh capital, Astana, for a decade. Every new mayor of the capital has promised to complete the project and has received adequate funding to do so, yet it still lies unfinished. It is…
Marcus Andreopoulos – Senior Research Fellow at the International Policy Assessment Group of the Asia-Pacific Foundation and Dr Sajjan M. Gohel – International Security Director at the Asia-Pacific Foundation and Chairman of NATO’s DEEP Global Threats Advisory Group. In 2021, the U.S. Department of Defence (DoD) stated that Da Jiang Innovations (DJI), the Chinese drone manufacturing company,…
Matthew Teller is an author, journalist and documentary-maker who has spent many years living, working and travelling in the Middle East. In February 1971, a few years after Israel’s conquest of the Egyptian Sinai, US media reported that Israel’s defence minister at the time, Moshe Dayan, had told a group of army veterans in Tel Aviv…
Chris Aslan is an author who has lived and worked across Central Asia. In Kyrgyzstan, he lived in the world’s largest natural walnut wood and established a wood-carving workshop. The first time I visit the world’s largest wild walnut wood, I’m struck by how at home I feel, as if this were a woodland somewhere…
Sophie Ibbotson is the Chairman of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs and a consultant on economic development and water conflict in Central Asia and Afghanistan. My prediction for 2024 is that the Taliban will soon be given diplomatic recognition as the official government of Afghanistan. Embassies and consulates will start to reopen, sanctions will…
