Suchergebnisse

"Political, social and economic transformations have marked the 20 years since Hong Kong became a Special Administrative Region of China. To mark the historic handover, the Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) at Nanyang Technological University invited experts from various fields to share their unique insights on the developments and impact of the last 20 years on Hong Kong and Singapore in a conference in Singapore. This volume is a compilation of speeches and presentations delivered at the conference by such heavyweight experts as Wang Gungwu, Antony Leung and Yang Jinlin on the road travelled and the paths ahead for both cities. This volume is an invaluable collection on Hong Kong and Singapore's past, present and future. Readers can enjoy the salient analysis delivered with great thought and reflective humour."--

Reviewing the history and trajectory of Malaysia's foreign policy, this article highlights national role conceptions (NRCs) during Tunku's premiership between 1957 and 1968 and the first and second Mahathir tenures of 1981–2003 and 2018–2020, respectively. Malaysia's foreign policy and its fundamentals have remained reasonably stable over prolonged periods but NRCs, which define foreign policy, have witnessed shifting nuances and noticeable changes under different premierships. Foreign policy under succeeding Malaysian governments has seen major shifts occurring in the transition of foreign policy in tandem with changing NRCs. Malaysian foreign policy is articulated within the constraints posed by the global and regional environments and that of a highly politicised, often divided domestic landscape. In the Tunku era, Malaysia was decidedly a Western ally, symbolised by NRCs of being "pro-West" and "anti-communist". Since then, Malaysia's relations with major powers and regional countries have shown a stable, neutral and non-aligned stance and it emerged as a "regional neutral strategist" under the premiership of Tun Abdul Razak. This article argues that the shifts and revisions in Malaysia's NRCs under Mahathir as a "global champion of the South", exemplar of "Looking East" and "champion of moderate Islam" were not all just outcomes of elite preferences but reflected political agendas of elites and political agents within the domestic political game. Drawing on some examples of domestic contestations over NRCs and foreign policy, the article points to the re-definition and even the abandonment of policy directions which were not consonant with the imperatives of the domestic political game.

Evaluations aiming to assess the risk posed by individuals suspected or convicted of violent extremist activity have developed rapidly since the late 2000s. Largely based on a process known as structured professional judgement, terrorist risk assessments have drawn upon decades of research on those used for non-ideological violent criminals, and inserted contemporary understandings of what may drive extremist violence. While uncertainty over precise risk factors presents ongoing challenges, the primary problem is that risk assessment instruments tend to be time consuming and complex, thus requiring a level of practitioner expertise not always readily available. Over the past several years, Indonesia has been experimenting with strategies to evaluate risk among individual extremist prisoners, but disagreements over suitability and human resource constraints have hindered progress. One way forward could be the establishment of a more simplified assessment system shared by relevant government stakeholders, from law enforcement to prison authorities to social service providers. While an abridged judgement process would hold limited capacity for prediction, a collaborative approach would add clarity and much needed inter-agency coordination to the management of convicted extremists in Indonesia.

"This interesting book is a compilation of the lectures and discussions held during a four-day event "Grand Challenges for Science in the 21st Century" organized by Para Limes at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. The elite group of speakers included Nobel laureate Sydney Brenner who called on all scientists to adopt a truth-seeking approach and not be afraid of challenging assumptions. The other panellists were Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal and past President of the Royal Society, the much-cited Terrence Sejnowski from the renowned Salk Institute for Biological Studies, the well-known keynote speaker in economics and complexity sciences Brian Arthur, the former President of the European Research Council Helga Nowotny and the Director of the Parmenides Center for the Conceptual Foundations of Science Eors Szathmary. The lively sessions were moderated by the Danish writer Tor Norretranders. The panel tackled topics from evolution and the origin of the universe to modern technologies and artificial intelligence. The challenges presented during the event are bound to get the reader thinking about what may lie ahead in our future"--