Local renderings of the two Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata in Malay and Javanese literature have existed since around the ninth and tenth centuries. In the following centuries new versions were created alongside the old ones, and these opened up interesting new directions. They questioned the views of previous versions and laid different ......
The 1990s have witnessed a strong trend in different parts of the world especially the developed countries to form regional trading blocs, such as EU and NAFTA. The formation of these trade blocs has led to substantial diversion of trade and investment away from the rest of the world economy affecting the growth process in other regions that are ......
How can a developing, democratic and predominantly Muslim country like Indonesia manage its foreign relations, while facing a myriad of security concerns and dilemmas in the increasingly complex post-Cold War international politics, without compromising its national interests and sacrificing its independence? Approaching this problem from the ......
After more than a decade of deliberations, ASEAN leaders agreed on 11 November 2022 in principle to admit Timor-Leste as the eleventh member of the regional organization and to grant Timor-Leste observer status to attend all ASEAN meetings. Timor-Leste has demonstrated positive developmental progress, and fact-finding missions across the three ......
From Conflict to Reconciliation, Democracy, and Regional Integration
The Singapore Lecture series was inaugurated in 1980 by the ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute (formerly Institute of Southeast Asian Studies) with a founding endowment from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), and augmented by a generous donation in 1983 from ExxonMobil Asia Pacific. The Singapore Lecture is one of the intellectual highlights ......
Vietnam and the Growing Challenge from Non-traditional Maritime Threats
While the South China Sea dispute remains Vietnam's top security concern, the country also confronts a variety of growing non-traditional threats, such as illegal fishing, maritime violence, smuggling, ecological degradation and climate change. These issues adversely affect Vietnam's external relations, socio-economic development, marine ......
Singapore is America's closest security partner in Southeast Asia. The United States has decided to help India become a major world power in the 21st century, an objective that is furthered by the nuclear agreement between them. Singapore's relationship with India is an increasingly pertinent feature of Southeast Asias political and strategic ......
Threads of the Unfolding Web is essential reading for scholars, students and the general reader interested in Javanese history of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Little is known about the history of Java in this period, which witnessed the beginnings of major global economic, political, cultural and religious change. It was a time when Java ......
The presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (2004-14) was a watershed in Indonesia's modern democratic history. Yudhoyono was not only the first Indonesian president to be directly elected, but also the first to be democratically re-elected. Coming to office after years of turbulent transition, he presided over a decade of remarkable political ......
