Keywords: South East Asia
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MEDIA
- Lika Posamari
- 24 August 2018
1 Comment
In the Philippines and elsewhere, the spread of disinformation appealing to fear and hatred has helped create what Rappler CEO Maria Ressa describes as a 'spiral of silence that has had an incredibly negative impact on our democracy'. Social media platforms are far from blameless.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 06 August 2018
How are we to honour the commitment to peace of these Japanese and Maralinga survivors of nuclear conflagrations unleashed maliciously or negligently last century? We need to renew our commitment to painstaking negotiation of international treaties and agreements designed to ensure peace and security for all, insisting on the dignity and human rights of all.
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RELIGION
To mark two years as president of the Philippines, Duterte has taken on his biggest sparring partner yet. God now joins the likes of Barack Obama and the UN as targets in Duterte's ranting. It would be laughable if he hadn't spent his presidency turning the country into Revelations, where even priests are being gunned down in the streets.
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INTERNATIONAL
There is no basis for this claim that, if the summit and its outcomes had occurred under Barack Obama, some have argued, those on the centre left would be cheering. The reality is, the summit would never have occurred, because no other president would have made the concession of a meeting at all for no apparent gain.
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INTERNATIONAL
The story has become the triumph of Mahathir Mohamad, himself part of the political elite as a former prime minister for two decades, and his opposition coalition. This is wrong. The real story is the mass-mobilisation of Malaysia's civil society in the face of anti-democratic moves at suppression.
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RELIGION
The church has always been more about family than religion to me - my grandmother's grandmother did it all in Latin, but isn't it cool that we went through the same motions? - and I thought it always would. Then I got lucky: I moved to the world's most populous Muslim country.
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MEDIA
- Tseen Khoo
- 06 February 2018
2 Comments
Does watching this ridiculously premised film full of obnoxious characters, complete with smatterings of Singlish, make me feel culturally represented? Yes. There are threads of cultural recognition in the Southeast Asian locations and the Chinese customs that resonate, as well as the cultural mobility of various characters.
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RELIGION
- Erin Cook
- 17 January 2018
4 Comments
Though public health activists in the Philippines point to the church's influence in keeping sex education out of schools and contraceptive sales low as a major factor in the country's rising HIV rate, when it comes to taking on Duterte the church is the country's strongest progressive force. But that may be set to change.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Erin Cook
- 29 November 2017
5 Comments
The bones of the foreign policy white paper, released last week by Julie Bishop, have been picked over by the country's leading international relations thinkers and the consensus is clear - the timing is right and we must act now. But we need a leader who is willing to put the work in.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Erin Cook
- 19 October 2017
8 Comments
Australia's incoherent urge to 'lead' in the Asia Pacific while refusing to meaningfully reflect on the responsibilities this would require has left us floundering in the face of what the United Nations has called the 'ethnic cleansing' of Myanmar's minority Rohingya population.
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AUSTRALIA
- Kate Mani
- 12 September 2017
6 Comments
This Thursday will mark 70 years of Australian peacekeeping with a commemorative service and dedication of a new peacekeeping memorial. Dr Rosalind Hearder believes stereotypical perceptions of war and peace can leave Australians with a misguided understanding of peacekeeping. 'It's not the same experience as combat. But that doesn't mean it is easier. The long-term effects can still be damaging.'
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AUSTRALIA
- Evan Smith
- 01 September 2017
12 Comments
Earlier this year, Turnbull made a speech in London where he called for the Liberal Party to return to its ideological base as laid out by Sir Robert Menzies. Turnbull suggested that the Liberal Party under Menzies was the socially conservative party that many on the LNP's right wish it to be, but it seems that what the Liberals have taken from the Menzies era is a revival of anti-communist rhetoric.
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