South east Asia

Sustainable construction is a way for the building industry to move towards achieving sustainable development, taking into account environmental, socio- economic and cultural issues. Differing approaches and differing economic markets lead to different priorities. This paper presents the construction scenario of Southeast Asia and the developments in sustainable construction taking place in the region. Barriers to the implementation of sustainable

This paper explores the concept of ‘speaking beyond trauma’ insocieties undergoing post-war reconstruction and recovery after decades ofcolonization and violence. It examines inequalities in the production ofknowledge and the re-colonization of knowledge economies dominated by wellfunded ‘experts’. It draws contrasts with the precarious lives ofunderfunded local knowledge producers, especially musicians and artists, whosecompositions transcend methodological nationalisms. The focus of this paper ison the tactile aspect of practising and playing music: perceived by, connectedwith, appealing to the sense of touch, producing the effect of solidity. Thepaper examines how music can weave, repair, connect, disconnect and reconnectpeople and affective communities of belonging in a society shattered bycolonization, war and ongoing conflicts.

La regione del Belūcistān è, dopo anni di dominazioni straniere, suddivisa all’interno di tre Stati: Iran, Afghanistan e Pakistan. La sua posizione è notevolmente strategica in quanto situata sul lato occidentale del Medio Oriente, possibile punto di sbocco sul mare Arabico e sull’Oceano Indiano per gli stati dell'Asia Centrale e Orientale, area di mare cardine delle tratte delle petroliere che dal Golfo Persico si dirigono verso est. Le popolazioni presenti nella regione subiscono costantemente, da parte dei governi centrali, le violazioni dei propri diritti umani, economici e culturali subendo continue discriminazioni, particolarmente per ciò che concerne la partecipazione alla vita politica e al mercato del lavoro. Tensioni, scontri e guerre, che proseguono a fasi alterne da anni, sono legate principalmente alle richieste, di partiti e movimenti del Belūcistān spesso non uniti e rivali tra loro, di maggiore autonomia economica e politica. La regione, ricca di gas, petrolio e minerali, è da alcuni anni al centro di interessi geostrategici ed economici. Di particolare importanza gli accordi sino-pakistani per la costruzione del megaporto di Gwadar e del China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), che ha acutizzato le proteste e le rivolte delle popolazioni locali, accrescendo l’aspirazione indipendentista.

... Collapse and Regeneration from Funan to Angkor The history of the Khmer civilization is characterized by cycles of fragmen-tation, collapse, and reorganization. ... When the Thai army sacked the capital of Angkor in ad 1432, they conquered a distinctly Khmer kingdom. ...

Numerous fast-growing coastal cities in the Global South are exposed to coastal, fluvial and pluvial floods, as a consequence of decades-long rapid urbanisation and weak enforcement of planning regulations. Integrating Blue–Green Infrastructure (BGI) concepts into the development of the urban landscape has the potential to increase flood resilience and offer broader environmental benefits. BGI is an innovative approach that combines water management and green infrastructure to maintain natural water cycles and enhance environmental and urban renewal. This paper identifies socio-economic, cultural and political challenges influencing BGI adoption in Semarang city in Indonesia. Data was collected from residents of three communities through interviews (n=30), questionnaires (n=180) and focus groups with policymakers and community representatives. The combined quantitative and qualitative data provide an understanding of the specific socio-economic, cultural and political issues at play...

The authors evaluate the impact of foot and mouth disease (FMD) and control of the disease in the Philippines using cost-benefit analysis. A scenario in which FMD control is maintained at recent levels with continued presence of the disease is compared to scenarios in which a publicly funded programme achieves eradication by 2005 (current policy objective), 2007 and 2010. Under varying assumptions regarding the development of exports of livestock products following eradication, estimated benefit-cost ratios for the investment in eradication range from 1.6 (2010, no exports) to 12.0 (2005, export of 5,000 tons each of low-value and high-value livestock products annually), indicating eradication to be an economically viable investment. The commercial swine sector is estimated to capture 84% of the benefits generated by the public investment in eradication, versus 4% by backyard swine producers. The implications of these results within the context of regional efforts to control FMD in ...

This paper provides a historical perspective on communication among Filipino transnational families. Before the explosion of communication channels and opportunities brought about with the arrival of mobile telephony, cheap international calls and the internet in the late 1990s, communication between migrant parents and left-behind children was dominated by letters and cassette tapes. For mothers who had arrived in the UK in the 1970s this represented a period of almost two decades. Our research is based on one-year long ethnography with Filipino migrants in the London and Cambridge areas, who had typically come to the UK after periods in the Middle East or Hong Kong and are employed as domestic workers or nurses. Mostly these are mothers separated from their families for almost the entirety of their children’s development. Apart from fieldwork with mothers many of whom recall this early period of their migration as dominated by letters and cassettes, we also conducted fieldwork in the Philippines interviewing the now grown up children of these mothers. In this article we compare accounts of mothers and children, and also the different qualities associated with letters and cassettes, such as temporality, materiality and the public-private distinction. We examine how the different media structure the relationships between parents and children and also how these media are appropriated in the context of different relationships as part of our understanding of the dialectical nature of media as a process of mediation.

Not all concepts that are successful in ‘the West’ may work in ‘the East’. Asia’s cities are booming, and rightly in their own unprecedented ways. There are no cookie-cutter solutions as each city is unique in its strengths and challenges. Hence solutions need to be tailored and contextual. And in order to arrive at that, city managers, activists and planners need to look for creative and innovative ways to involve, engage and entice multiple stakeholders, in particular those that dominate urban development, to understand that developing human-centric places that build communities can be profitable. In fact, it is precisely what savvy urban consumers are now demanding.

This paper presents a comparative study on the relationship between implementing total quality management (TQM) and organisational characteristics (size, type of industry, type of ownership, and degree of innovation) in a newly industrialised country in South East Asia. Vietnam has become the 150th member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) since January 2007, and this is the first empirical study

... Figure 2. Sai Sai Mao is one of the two most famous Shan singers in Burma's music industry. ... The former was also broadcast on state-run radio, which was formed in 1946 (Aung Zaw, 2004). ... began to imitate rock stars such as the Beatles, Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard and the ...

ABSTRACT
The traditional followers generally believe that Theravàda Buddhism is the Sect of the original teachings of the Buddha. Though Buddhism exists all-along but it appear and disappear time to time. Around 2600 years ago Siddharttha Gautama rediscovered the Dhamma and He was called Gautama the Buddha. During His time Buddhism flourished in Majjhimadesa and extended to the East, Northern Bengal up to Arakan. It further drawn-out beyond Jambudãpa including present North-East India during the Asokan period. Around one hundred year after the Buddha’s Mahaparinibbàna, the Monks community divided into not less than eighteen Sects though they did not have much variation among them as it got strengthen after the Vaisàlã council. In the result the Buddhist community was adulterated which created confused among the lay followers. The Emperor Asoka took a bolt step for the resettlement of the pure form of the religion and the Saïgha community. After the Patàliputta council due to Asoka’s Dhamma expedition Buddhism reached out many countries including Sri Lanka, Nepal-Himalayan regions, Myanmar, and Thailand; this very tradition is called Theravàda Buddhism.
After the Dhammasoka’s death Buddhism gradually started declining in its main land. During the 7th -12th centuries Bengal was ruled several Buddhist rulers like Khadga, Rata, Deva, Chandra, and Pàla dynasties. Myanmar rise again as a Theravàda Buddhist country during the 11th century. The similar Burmese form of Buddhism re-entered into present North-East India in different historical periods with its migrant Buddhists. These Communities who follows Elder tradition like Tai-Khamti, Tai-Phakeay, Tai-Khamyang, Tai-Aiton, Tai-Turung, Singpho, Dowaniya, Some of Nepali, Naga, Assamese Barua, Singha, Tai-Shyam, Tai-Ahom, Some Ahomia, the Chakmas, the Mog, Barua-Mog (Bangali speaking Barua Buddhist community), and Uchai etc. who are scattering today in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, and Tripura. 
The present work highlights above said Buddhist communities, their traditions, lifestyles, religious practices, and contributions in the social development of the studied region. It has been also dealt with the history of Buddhism in the regions during ancient and medieval periods including Bengal Buddhism and its neighboring State Tripura in particular. The present subject topic further divided into seven different chapters. …
Keywords: Buddhism, Theravàda, Mahayana, North-East India, Tripura, Bengal, Samatata, Patikera, Anga, Magadha, Suvannabhumi, Chittagong, Arakan, Myanmar. Religion, History, Samana, Brahmana, Traditions, Mog, Arakanese, Burmese, Tai, Shyam, Singpho, Cultures, Rites and rituals, festivals…

The Singapore and Melaka Straits are a place where regional and long-distance maritime trading networks converge, linking Europe, the Mediterranean, eastern Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian subcontinent with key centres of trade in Thailand, Indochina, insular Southeast Asia, China, Korea and Japan. The first half of the seventeenth century brought heightened political, commercial and diplomatic activity to this region. It has long been clear to both the Portuguese and the Dutch that whoever controlled the waters off modern Singapore gained a firm grip on regional as well as long-distance intra-Asian trade. By the early 1600s Portuguese power and prestige were waning and the arrival of the Dutch East India Company constituted a major threat. Moreover, the rapid expansion and growing power of the Acehnese Empire, and rivalry between Johor and Aceh, was creating a new context for European trade in Asia.

Drawing on maps, rare printed works, and unpublished manuscripts written in Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and Latin, Peter Borschberg provides new information on the diplomatic activities of Asian powers, and shows how the Portuguese and Spanish attempted to restore their political fortunes by containing the rapid rise of Dutch Power in the region. Key documents, transcribed and translated into English for the first time, make up a series of appendices.

The product of more than two decades of research in European libraries, archives, The Singapore and Melaka Straits will be of great interest to readers in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, where little is known about this pivotal pre-colonial period. It is also an invaluable resource for historians and other students of early modern Europe and of the European presence in Asia.
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The financial turmoil that originated in 2007 and developed into an unprecedented crisis battering financial and real markets is the latest manifestation, on a grand scale and with new attributes, of a welldefined pathology in the process of market liberalization and integration in the post-Bretton Woods era. At the root of the crisis lies a fundamental inconsistency between financial globalisation

A native of Bruges (now part of Belgium), Jacques de Coutre was a gem trader who spent nearly a decade in Southeast Asia in the early 17th century. In addition to a substantial autobiography written in Spanish and preserved in the National Library of Spain in Madrid, he wrote a series of memorials to the united crown of Spain and Portugal that contain recommendations designed to reverse the decline in the fortunes of the Iberian powers in Southeast Asia, particularly against the backdrop of early Dutch political and commercial penetration into the region. Translated into English for the first time, these materials provide a valuable first-hand account of the bigger issues confronting the early colonial powers in Southeast Asia, and deep insights into the societies De Coutre encountered in the territory that today makes up Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.

Closely associated with China’s growing prominence in international politics are discussions about how to understand Chinese history, and how such perspectives inform the way a stronger China may relate to the rest of the world. This article examines two narratives as cases, and considers how they fit against more careful historical scholarship. The first is the nationalist narrative dealing with Qing and Republican history, and the second is the narrative on the Chinese world order. Analyses of Chinese nationalism tend to see a more powerful China as being more assertive internationally, based in part on a belief in the need to address and overcome past wrongs. Studies of historical regional systems in Asia point to the role that a peaceful ‘Confucian’ ethos played in sustaining a stable Chinese-led order, and highlight the promise it holds for checking regional and international tensions. The two perspectives create an obvious tension when trying to understand China’s rise, which can suggest that using historical viewpoints to understand contemporary developments may be doomed to incoherence. This article argues that difficulties in applying knowledge of the past to analyses of China’s role in contemporary world politics indicate a relative inattentiveness to Chinese and Asian history. It illustrates how the nature of China’s rise may be more contingent on the external environment that it faces than popular received wisdom may indicate. The article suggests that a more extensive engagement with historical research and historiography can augment and enrich attempts to appreciate the context surrounding China’s rise.

SoutheastAsia is an area rich in biodiversity, with a high degree ofendemism in both flora and fauna. Many freshwater fish specieshave been exploited for the ornamental fish trade. As thepopulation in South East Asia increases, vast tracts of forestsare cleared for agricultural, industrial and urbanizationpurposes. To conserve and sustainably exploit the wild fishpopulation, measures should be adopted to protect this naturalresource. Already, several ornamental species have been severelyoverexploited, e.g. bala shark (Balantiocheilos melanopterus),pygmy loach (Botia sidthimunki) and arowana (Scleropagesformosus), but the extirpation of local populations occurs formany reasons, including deforestation, and not just because offishing for the trade. There are also still many species thathave great ornamental fish potential. Wild fish species have alsobeen successfully bred in captivity and conserved, e.g. tigerbarb (Puntius tetrazona), bala shark, pygmy loach and arowana.Other methods of conservation include public education, leavingpristine forests intact and reforestation. The aquarium trade ofthe bala shark, harlequin rasbora (Rasbora heteromorpha), clownloach (Botia macracanthus), arowana and sawfish (Pristismicrodon) is discussed