Anna Kellar studied Political Science as an undergraduate at Yale, where she co-founded the Yale Afghanistan Forum, and is currently finishing a Msc in Conflict Studies from the London School of Economics. She has conducted research on development aid in Tajikistan,  studied foreign policy in Italy and worked for an anti-corruption NGO in Slovakia. She is…
RSAA members Max Lovell-Hoare and Sophie Ibbotson both recently were privileged to be part of a first in the history of travel – they were guides on the first private train to be permitted to cross from Iran to Europe. Here, Max Lovell-Hoare reflects on an unexpected gem he discovered in Iran during the journey….
Sir Harold Walker KCMG is a former UK Ambassador to Bahrain, the UAE and Iraq. He has long-standing experience of the Arab world, and also serves on the Council for Arab-British Understanding. He is an Honorary Vice-President of the RSAA. The death of Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud at the age of about 91…
Fitzroy Morrissey is an Oriental Studies Graduate of Oxford University. He has travelled extensively in the Islamic world, and is the author of A Sufi for a week. He is currently studying Persian as a graduate student. Here, he discusses the relationship between Sufism in Central Asia and the post-Soviet states. For over half a…
Dr Jim Hoare was chargé d’affaires at the British Embassy in Pyongyang from 2001 to 2002. He is also an academic and historian specialising in Chinese and Korean history, and is a member of the editorial board of Asian Affairs. Here, he gives a point of view on the recent confrontation between North Korea and…
Matthew Leeming is an RSAA member who works in Afghanistan with Milio International to develop Afghan marble mines and the country’s capacity to process and export the stone. He is also co-author of the Odyssey Companion and Guide to Afghanistan. Here, he answers questions from the Asian Affairs Weblog:Â What is the state of trade…
During the work of the Anglo-Russian commission, which, with the agreement of the Amir, settled Afghanistan’s north-western border with the Russian Empire in 1885-6, a series of photographs were taken. Paul Bucherer, the Director of the Afghanistan Institute in Switzerland, has compiled a catalogue of these photographs, with copies displayed on the Institute’s Phototheca Afghanica…
Dr Robin Edward Poulton, an RSAA member who has lived amongst Afghan villagers, offers a heartfelt response to the recent Taliban attack on the Peshawar Army Public School in Pakistan: Taliban butchers are Pashtun cowards by Robin Edward Poulton[i] If you sit of an evening beside a fire in the Pashtun heartlands, you will hear…
