ASIAN STUDIES

Ketki Madane
(RIEAS Regional Director in Southeast Asia and Australia)
Copyright: www.rieas.gr

The invention of the printing press in 1440 created an information revolution which at first was controlled by a few powerful entities. By the 20th century, due to the explosion of the internet and the freely available information online, pioneers in the social networking industry such as Friendster brought a unique flavor to friendship.
After Friendster set the bar for social networking, its competitors came in the form of Myspace, Facebook, Blogger, Linkedin and the newest player – Twitter. As platforms became increasingly sophisticated after newer versions were introduced, social media began to catch the eye of corporations.

Richard L. Benkin, Ph.D.
(President, Forcefield)

Copyright: Richard L. Benkin on line

Bangladesh’s Hindu population is dying. That is not opinion; it is a fact.  At the time of India’s partition (1947), they were just under one in three East Pakistanis.  When East Pakistan became Bangladesh (1971), they were under one in five; thirty years later less than one in ten; and according to some estimates, under eight percent today.  Professor Sachi Dastidar of the State University of New York, using demographic and other methods, calculates that well over 49 million of them are missing (Dastidar, 2008).(1) During that same period, regular reports of anti-Hindu atrocities have poured out of Bangladesh.  They have not slowed even with the landslide election of the self-styled “pro-minority” Awami League government at the end of 2008.  Serious anti-Hindu actions occurred at the rate of almost one a week in 2009; and they have continued without let up in 2010 and 2011.(2)   This puts every one of Bangladesh’s remaining 13-15,000,000 Hindus at risk.  Yet, while these numbers dwarf those of the worst cases of genocide and ethnic cleansing (e.g., Nazi Holocaust, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur), no major human rights organization, international body, or individual nation has highlighted this quiet case of ethnic cleansing or even raised it as a matter for investigation.

On April 12, 2011, RIEAS Director John M. Nomikos, along with Senior Analyst Aya Burweila and Research Associate Georgios Protopapas, met with a visiting delegation from the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS). Headed by SIIS President Dr. Yang Jiemian, who actually extended the kind invitation to meet, the Chinese delegation also comprised:

Dr. JIANG Xiyuan, Senior Associate, Institute of International Strategy, SIIS,
Dr. SHAO Yuqun, Deputy Director, Institute of Taiwan, HK and Macau Studies, SIIS,
Mr. ZHA Xiaogang, Researcher, Institute of World Economy, SIIS,
Ms. LOU Xiangfei, Researcher, Institute of Foreign Policy, SIIS,
Mr. LU Chuanying, Researcher, Institute of Data Processing, SIIS.

Vassilios Damiras
(Counterterrorism Expert based in USA)

Copyright: www.rieas.gr

 The famous military terms counterterrorism and counterinsurgency dominated the political and military lexicons after the brutal terrorist attacks organized by al Qaeda against the Twins Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001. Counter terrorism apply to military operation executed by U.S. Special Forces and unmanned Predator aircrafts. These Special Forces operations are specifically designed to capture or killed “high-value targets.”

 Counterinsurgency know as COIN is applied to incorporate to those military, political, paramilitary, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by the U.S. Armed Forces to defeat insurgency. This combined approach and effort strongly requires a great number of ground troops for an extended period of time.

Copyright: Dr. Peter Becker on line

Dr. Peter Becker’s Speech in the International  Intelligence History Association (IIHA) Conference: “Intelligence and Society” at the Akademie fur Politische Bildung Tutzing on 23-25 April 2010 in Munich, Germany.  Read more
 

M. Aynul Islam
(Curently VLIR Scholar at IOB, University of Antwerp, Belgium. He is also Assistant Professor of Political Science, Jagannath University, Bangladesh)

Copyright: www.rieas.gr

Although the history of violence and conflicts in South Asia is longer than the nation-state, the religious militancy in the last decade has become a scourge, affecting development and security of its 1.5 billion people.