Who is he? Rodrigo Duterte is the mayor of Davao city in the southern Philippines, a position he has held off-and-on for 21 years. Under Duterte’s tenure, Davao went from one of the Philippines’ least safe cities to one of…
Who is he? Abu Wardah Santoso is the leader of the East Indonesia Mujahideen, or MIT, a terrorist group based near Poso in the Indonesian province of Central Sulawesi. Santoso has pledged his organization’s support for the Islamic State. Santoso’s…
By Michael Sheng-ti Gau On January 22, 2013, the Philippines initiated a compulsory arbitration against China according to Article 287 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, under the procedure described by Annex VII of the treaty.…
Who is he? Sarpin Rizaldi is a controversial judge with the South Jakarta District Court in Indonesia. He has been reported to the Judicial Commission, a body that oversees judges in Indonesia, on multiple occasions for having issued abnormally lenient…
Sumitro Chair Ernie Bower joins Maria Ressa, founder of Philippine news website Rappler, to discuss U.S.-Philippine relations, the pending Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, the 2016 Philippine elections, the peace process in Mindanao, and the potential for the Philippines to join…
The Philippines’ most credible deterrent to China’s stepped-up unilateral actions in the South China Sea is under the pen of Maria Lourdes Sereno, the chief justice of the Philippine Supreme Court. Sereno has been tasked with writing the decision of…
By Owen Jollie The lack of a social security totalization agreement has long been near the top of India’s relatively short list of economic grievances with the United States. When President Obama visited India in January 2015, he and Prime…
By Scott Kennedy Chinese state media reported on April 27 that China may radically reduce the number of its central state owned enterprises (SOEs) through mergers. This news, if true, is significant, but is potentially a bad sign. The Chinese…
By Joshua Simonidis In September 2014 the Cambodian government signed an agreement with Canberra to resettle a potentially unlimited number of refugees originally destined for Australia in exchange for increased aid. Human rights groups criticized the agreement and Cambodia’s capacity…
By Gregory Poling China’s reclamation blitz in the Spratly Islands continues unabated, despite condemnation from fellow claimants and outside nations. Chinese dredging ships have been hard at work expanding at least seven features: Cuarteron, Gaven, Hughes, Fiery Cross, Johnson South,…
