Several international conferences planned for China were postponed or changed venues Yu p. 91) SARS also had some positive effects in terms of media coverage. Studies claim that the outbreak in 2003 not only emphasized the importance of good media coverage in alerting the international community to epidemics but also "... raised standards of government preparedness and border control." (ibid) The importance of rapid communication and the role of the media

229). The John Howard government cemented the lesson as a "significant shift in our dealings with the South Pacific," (quoted in McDougall and Sherman, p. 178) and as a result Australia now effectively reserves the right to step in to maintain (or restore) the rule of law throughout the region. If anything, Australia's relationship to Papua New Guinea is stronger than its interest in the Solomon Islands (Wainwright 2003, p.

Threats to security are seen to come not only from external military aggression but also from a myriad of internal challenges -- separatist movements, social unrest, or the collapse of the political system." -- Anwar 2003, With the international attention given to "military aggression," especially external military aggression, in recent years, it is easy to allow one's idea of was security means to become clouded with Hobbesian and Machiavellian notions

Some Chinese researchers assert that Chinese flutes may have evolved from of Indian provenance. In fact, the kind of side-blown, or transverse, flutes musicians play in Southeast Asia have also been discovered in Africa, India, Saudi Arabia, and Central Asia, as well as throughout the Europe of the Roman Empire. This suggests that rather than originating in China or even in India, the transverse flute might have been adopted through the

Of all the nations hit by the great Asian financial crash of 1997, Indonesia has gone through the most widespread political upheaval (Smith, 2003). A hated dictator has been thrown out, and democracy is on everyone's lips. But in spite of this victory, the capitalist democracy that most of the mass movement imagines is not possible in a nation as super exploited and crisis-ridden as Indonesia. In the end only

Ethnic Conflict in Southeast Asia: What Beginnings? Despite the insistence of some academics, usually ones with limited historical background, that ethnic conflicts are only a result of white, Western influences in all pockets of the world, there appear to be in all places and at all times ethnic conflicts of varying intensity, with the West in the rearguard of such conflicts and not in the vanguard. The case seems especially apparent