Is it possible for Australia to improve its security with the rise of China looming over the region? Adeline Tinessia writes.

‘Fake news’ is plaguing Southeast Asia. In the Philippines, news breaks that Queen Elizabeth is praising President Rodrigo Duturte; in Indonesia, photos of President Joko Widodo at a communist youth rally explode throughout the Internet; in Myanmar, rumours swirl that mosques in Yangon are stockpiling weapons for terrorist attacks.

“If I go to the parliament in Jakarta, it’s easy for me to just call up someone and ask ‘do you have time for a chat?’ They might be a member of parliament or head of a commission, but often times they are willing to talk. That’s the sort of access you just don’t get in Australia, especially if you’re a young guy that doesn’t have a name as a high-flying journalist or a diplomat or a professor.”

The apparel industry put Hoi An on the bucket list for travellers to Vietnam, but is the industry more harm than good?

He walks into the terrace house with a red face, and lowered head. He shakes hands and sits on the floor cross-legged. His head bowed down, staring at the floor at the Safe House for the Children in East Jakarta. In his 16 years Castro (pseudo name) has lived a life that many of us know nothing about. He spent four months this year being trafficked as a child prostitute.

“Seeing the elephant” is a 19th century American saying, meaning the gaining of world experience at a significant cost. It originated from travelling circuses, where curious people would pay exorbitant sums to literally, see the elephant.
Today there is an altogether different sort of elephant, one for which the cost is incurred when it is not seen. The identity of this pachyderm is, of course, India.

Oliver Friedmann interviews Olivia Cable and reflects on his experiences with Humans of Sydney.

This week we caught up with Dr Nicholas Farrelly, a fellow at the Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, to discuss his academic career and life as a former ANU student. Nicholas is the director of the ANU Myanmar Research Centre and convenor of the PhB program in the College of Asia and the Pacific. Nicholas also runs the Asia Pacific Week internship course and supervises various honours, masters and PHD students at ANU.

Emma Roberts documents an eye-opening week in the Baliem Valley of Papua, Indonesia. What she encountered was a place where Melanesian culture is strong but the lives of the locals are also dominated by mosques and Indomie; a place where people live in regions impenetrable by transportation but continue to travel long distances on foot with big smiles on their faces; a place where life is tough but resilience is tougher.

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