Who is she? Kamala Shirin Lakhdhir is a U.S. diplomat who served as executive assistant to the under secretary of state for political affairs from 2011 to 2015. She served as the U.S consul general in Belfast from 2009 to…
By Rui Hao Puah — What does the United Kingdom (UK) vote to leave the European Union (EU) on June 23 mean for ASEAN, a regional grouping that has been often compared to the EU? How will Brexit reverberate economically…
By Lisa Collins — A fake report about the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un by a female suicide bomber from a secret Pyongyang brothel set the Twittersphere on fire late June 16 and early June 17. The South…
By Phuong Nguyen — At the end of a recent ASEAN-China summit in Kunming, China, on June 13, Beijing pressured several ASEAN members close to it to withdraw their support for an ASEAN joint press statement expressing “serious concerns” about…
Karnataka and Goa join power bailout UDAY scheme, Gujarat introduces local content rules for government purchasing, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan travels to China, Rajasthan to tax e-commerce purchases when the goods come from out of state, Telangana…
By Sarah Watson — India’s new Defence Procurement Policy (DPP) was released in March with one section missing. Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar promised that he would soon release an additional chapter on Strategic Partnerships (SPs): a plan to identify one…
Who is she? Rena Bitter is the consul general at the U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, a position that she has held for three years. Prior to this position, she served as the director of the…
By Shannon Hayden — In two years on the China desk in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, colleagues and I had frequent interactions with China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). They were our counterparts out of China’s embassy in…
Who is he? Ambassador Sung Kim most recently served as special representative for North Korea policy and deputy assistant secretary for Korea and Japan at the U.S. Department of State. Prior to that appointment in November 2014, he was the…
By Esther Sainsbury — U.S. president Barack Obama recently said that he was “confident” Congress would pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal in 2016. But with no apparent effective legislative strategy, the conclusion of Obama’s presidency fast approaching, and…
