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Regional economic integration has become the dominant development pathway promoted, endorsed, and followed by many developing country governments in South East Asia and globally. Focusing on hydropower development, this article shows how forces of globalization manifested in the Myanmar government's strategies to promote economic growth are shaping the Salween River basin's development trajectory. Contesting the general belief that economic development would help the country's transition to full democracy and achieve peace, it illustrates how hydropower development plans in the basin are closely interlinked with human rights issues. Well known for its long histories of violent conflict involving the Myanmar military and ethnic armed groups in various states, hydropower development in the Salween River is not only linked to the ongoing peace process in Myanmar but could also have direct implications on the actual significance of the process. Despite the signing of nationwide ceasefire agreements in 2012, hydropower dam projects could contribute to and trigger reoccurrences of violent armed conflict. Recognizing this conflict-prone and politically fragile condition as the main characteristics of Salween water governance is essential if we are to strive for sustainable and just development.

Japan's surrender to the Allies on 15th August 1945 ended 15 years of military adventure into China, South-East Asia and the Pacific islands. How and why Japan waged war from 1931 to 1945 and what life was like for the Japanese people are the subjects of this book. Sabur{u014D} lenaga tells English readers for the first time the Japanese story of the Second World War. This book is far more than the history of the great battles that raged from China to the remote regions of the Pacific. It is also an account of what it was like to live under an all-pervasive state system. Using popular songs, private diaries and personal letters, and drawing on his own experience, the author describes the misery of the war for the Japanese and for the peoples they conquered. He shows how a nation was educated in fanatical patriotism and the barbarism and brutality that were its consequence. Sabur{u014D} lenaga has written eloquently of the wretchedness of war, and a compassionate, but highly critical, view of a people consumed by total conflict.

Despite vast natural resources and geographic advantages in the Asia-Pacific region, foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Philippines was ranked among the lowest in the region for the past 30 years. Some challenges, including high-level public corruption, low economic development and the government's inability to establish a good business environment, are seen to have reduced FDI. Moreover, the Philippines still remains lagging in the South East Asian region in terms of FDI despite recent developments, such as good GDP figures and the reforms put in place by President Benigno Simeon Aquino III. This may imply an interval between the reforms made and their impact on FDI. Thus, this study investigates the lagged effects of the government's anti-corruption stance, reforms undertaken to facilitate business and economic growth on FDI in the Philippines. In the process, it draws on both qualitative and quantitative data: The latter utilises an auto-regressive distributed lagged model to find possible time intervals on the impact of variables with each other, while the former provides support through a narration of historical developments, trends and explanations rooted on theoretical foundations.

AbstractThis paper explores the factors which eliminated the nonperforming loan (NPL) problem in Malaysia and Thailand following the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The number of NPL, which expanded in the aftermath of the crisis, has since declined in most South‐East Asian countries. Although previous studies have explored the causes of the increase in NPL numbers, few have analysed the factors that contributed to the reduction in their number in Asia. In Malaysia and Thailand, authorities put in place several measures to manage NPL. As a vehicle to acquire NPL from banks, Malaysia established the Pengurusan Danaharta Nasional Berhad (Danaharta) in 1998, while Thailand established the Thai Asset Management Corporation (TAMC) in 2001. We analyse whether the characteristic features of banks, improvements in macroeconomic conditions, and facilities for purchasing loans caused a reduction in the number of NPL in Malaysia and Thailand. The results suggest that selling loans to a public asset management company was effective in reducing the number of NPL in Thailand. While macroeconomic conditions influenced the decline in NPL ratios in Thailand, in Malaysia, well performing commercial banks and large commercial and investment banks generally had smaller NPL ratios throughout and following the crisis.

Children being left behind by their parents whose migrating are vulnerable to face social problems. Several studies noted the negative impact on migration on the children, but some positive impact on the household prosperity were gained as well. Even though it has the negative impact, international migration has an increasing tendency to become one of the efforts to boost the household economy. This article uses data from CHAMPSEA (Child Health and Migrant Parents in South East Asia) Study which underlined the importance to know the child's condition as the impact of international migration phenomena towards the family they left behind. Study showed that children being left by migrated parents, especially fathers, gave more positive responses, but those being left by mothers or both of the parents gave more negative responses. Nevertheless, those children apparently had desire to do migration abroad just as their parents did. Apparently the surrounding of the migrants and the better economy of migrant households had in uenced the children to do migration and work abroad as well.

The main aim of BioTrade2020plus is to provide guidelines for the development of a European Bioenergy Trade Strategy for 2020 and beyond ensuring that imported biomass feedstock is sustainably sourced and used in an efficient way, while avoiding distortion of other (non-energy) markets. This will be accomplished by analyzing the potentials (technical, economical and sustainable) and assessing key sustainability risks of current and future lignocellulosic biomass and bioenergy carriers. Focus will be placed on wood chips, pellets, torrefied biomass and pyrolysis oil from current and potential future major sourcing regions of the world (US-SE, Ukraine, South America, Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa). BioTrade2020plus will thus provide support to the use of stable, sustainable, competitively priced and resource-efficient flows of imported biomass feedstock to the EU – a necessary pre-requisite for the development of the bio-based economy in Europe. In order to achieve this objective close cooperation will be ensured with current international initiatives such as IEA Bioenergy Task 40 on "Sustainable International Bioenergy Trade - Securing Supply and Demand" and European projects such as Biomass Policies, S2BIOM, Biomass Trade Centers, DIA-CORE, and PELLCERT.

This synthesis article joins the authors of the special issue "Gender perspectives in resilience, vulnerability and adaptation to global environmental change" in a common reflective dialogue about the main contributions of their papers. In sum, here we reflect on links between gender and feminist approaches to research in adaptation and resilience in global environmental change (GEC). The main theoretical contributions of this special issue are threefold: emphasizing the relevance of power relations in feminist political ecology, bringing the livelihood and intersectionality approaches into GEC, and linking resilience theories and critical feminist research. Empirical insights on key debates in GEC studies are also highlighted from the nine cases analysed, from Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa and the Pacific. Further, the special issue also contributes to broaden the gender approach in adaptation to GEC by incorporating research sites in the Global North alongside sites from the Global South. This paper examines and compares the main approaches adopted (e.g. qualitative or mixed methods) and the methodological challenges that derive from intersectional perspectives. Finally, key messages for policy agendas and further research are drawn from the common reflection.

Following Snyderman and Rothman (1987, 1988), we surveyed expert opinions on the current state of intelligence research. This report examines expert opinions on causes of international differences in student assessment and psychometric IQ test results. Experts were surveyed about the importance of culture, genes, education (quantity and quality), wealth, health, geography, climate, politics, modernization, sampling error, test knowledge, discrimination, test bias, and migration. The importance of these factors was evaluated for diverse countries, regions, and groups including Finland, East Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Europe, the Arabian-Muslim world, Latin America, Israel, Jews in the West, Roma (gypsies), and Muslim immigrants. Education was rated by N = 71 experts as the most important cause of international ability differences. Genes were rated as the second most relevant factor but also had the highest variability in ratings. Culture, health, wealth, modernization, and politics were the next most important factors, whereas other factors such as geography, climate, test bias, and sampling error were less important. The paper concludes with a discussion of limitations of the survey (e.g., response rates and validity of expert opinions).

Following Snyderman and Rothman (1987, 1988), we surveyed expert opinions on the current state of intelligence research. This report examines expert opinions on causes of international differences in student assessment and psychometric IQ test results. Experts were surveyed about the importance of culture, genes, education (quantity and quality), wealth, health, geography, climate, politics, modernization, sampling error, test knowledge, discrimination, test bias, and migration. The importance of these factors was evaluated for diverse countries, regions, and groups including Finland, East Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Europe, the Arabian-Muslim world, Latin America, Israel, Jews in the West, Roma (gypsies), and Muslim immigrants. Education was rated by N = 71 experts as the most important cause of international ability differences. Genes were rated as the second most relevant factor but also had the highest variability in ratings. Culture, health, wealth, modernization, and politics were the next most important factors, whereas other factors such as geography, climate, test bias, and sampling error were less important. The paper concludes with a discussion of limitations of the survey (e.g., response rates and validity of expert opinions).

В настоящей статье рассматриваются особенности взаимодействия формальных и неформальных политических институтов в странах Прибалтики. Оценка роли неформальных правил и процедур в политической системе Литвы, Латвии и Эстонии основывается на классификации неформальных институтов согласно подходу Г. Хелмке и С. Левитски. Делается вывод о том, что за демократическим «фасадом» стран Прибалтики скрывается нехватка дополняющих неформальных политических институтов. При этом большую роль играют приспосабливающиеся и конфликтные неформальные институты, что свидетельствует о существенных изъянах демократических институтов.The article presents an analysis of models of political development on the Post-Soviet space. Much attention is given to the factors which shaped institutional choices of political elites and caused divergence in political development in Central and Eastern Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia. The influence of the Euro-Atlantic community on the political process in the region is considered. The author proposes a thesis: issues of «stateness» and sustainability of political order are paramount in comparison to democratization. The emphasis is placed on the problems of self-sufficiency and durability of democratic institutions created in Central and Eastern Europe with a considerable assistance from external actors.

The Coral Triangle is widely considered the most important centre of marine biodiversity in Asia while areas on its periphery such as the South China Sea, have received much less interest. Here, we demonstrate that a small population of the knobbly sea star Protoreaster nodosus in Singapore has similarly high levels of genetic diversity as comparable Indonesian populations from the Coral Triangle. The high genetic diversity of this population is remarkable because it is maintained despite decades of continued anthropogenic disturbance. We postulate that it is probably due to broadcast spawning which is likely to maintain high levels of population connectivity. To test this, we analysed 6140 genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) loci for Singapore's populations and demonstrate a pattern of near panmixia. We here document a second case of high genetic diversity and low genetic structure for a broadcast spawner in Singapore, which suggests that such species have high resilience against anthropogenic disturbances. The study demonstrates the feasibility and power of using genome-wide SNPs for connectivity studies of marine invertebrates without a sequenced genome.

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552 ; This synthesis article joins the authors of the special issue "Gender perspectives in resilience, vulnerability and adaptation to global environmental change" in a common reflective dialogue about the main contributions of their papers. In sum, here we reflect on links between gender and feminist approaches to research in adaptation and resilience in global environmental change (GEC). The main theoretical contributions of this special issue are threefold: emphasizing the relevance of power relations in feminist political ecology, bringing the livelihood and intersectionality approaches into GEC, and linking resilience theories and critical feminist research. Empirical insights on key debates in GEC studies are also highlighted from the nine cases analysed, from Europe,the Americas, Asia, Africa and the Pacific. Further, the special issue also contributes to broaden the gender approach in adaptation to GEC by incorporating research sites in the Global North alongside sites from the Global South. This paper examines and compares the main approaches adopted (e.g. qualitative or mixed methods) and the methodological challenges that derive from intersectional perspectives. Finally, key messages for policy agendas and further research are drawn from the common reflection.

in reference to the origins and historical development of water supply between Johore and Singapore during the colonial period. From historical perspective, this agreement is the first water agreement signed between Johore as a British protectorate and Singapore as the capital of the British Colony of The Straits Settlements. Despite the fact that this agreement had been abrogated in 1961 with the signing of the subsequent water agreements, most of its fundamental provisions still remains in effect. Thus, this article reveals the preceding events leading to the signing of the agreement, analyses the water agreements of 1927 and its implication for historical development of water supply to Singapore during the period from 1930's to the 1950's. It demonstrates that the issue of water supply between the two entities has tended to be in favour of Singapore because of Singapore's political economic supremacy derived from her status of being the British Imperial, in South East Asia and from being the bearer of capital expenditure in the water construction in Johore. Consequently, Singapore was able to continuously exploit the water deal as one of those economic means to preserving her advantage.

Abstract
Health is an integral part of sustainable development, a process that can't be materialized if there is a high prevalence of diseases, a high percentage of those is due to environmental factors. An important component of health is the healthy nutrition, especially of children and pregnant women. Iodine is an essential micronutrient for a good nutrition that covers the physiological needs of the body, iodine deficiency having important consequences for mother and fetus, then for children, especially in the first years of life. The main role of iodine in the body is due to his importance for synthesis of thyroid hormones involved in growth and development of psychic and somatic body, starting with intrauterine life. Iodine deficiency was, and still is, a public health problem, globally the most affected countries are in Central Africa, central South America and northern Asia. Europe iodine deficiency is relatively lower. Multiple interventions were made to improve and even eradicate iodine deficiency disorders, in particular through the universal iodization of salt for human consumption, but must be supported in continuing efforts because this issue is not fully resolved to this day.

Courts are becoming major players in the political landscape of South-east Asia. This paper seeks to examine the causes and consequences of this new trend with particular reference to Thailand. Our study primarily analyzes the behavior of the Thai Constitutional Court during the political crisis in 2006-2008; the findings suggest that recent judicial activism and assertiveness in political matters, while partly explained by the interests of judges themselves and by the constitutional rules guiding their activities, is best understood as a direct consequence of the intervention of the monarchy, to which the judiciary has traditionally been closely aligned. Accordingly, the Thai case not only provides new evidence about what may be driving the new judicialization trend, it also draws attention to problematic aspects of this trend, namely the gradual politicization of the Thai judiciary and with it the erosion of the rule of law in Thailand and its replacement with rule by law. Our findings may also illuminate some larger issues at the intersection of politics and the courts throughout the region in ways that advance the theoretical understanding of both.