Asia

Arman Mahmoudian examines the return of great power competition in the Middle East and China’s role within the region.

​Luke Seow argues that Singapore is currently not well positioned to deal with the emergence of deepfake technology, and that this poses significant risks for national security and social cohesion. He highlights gaps in the current legislative framework, as well as lessons that can be drawn from other countries’ approaches to combating this emerging challenge. He then makes policy recommendations for Singapore to mitigate the potential dangers of deepfake technology.

Giorgio Cafiero analyzes the diplomatic row between four Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members and Lebanon and how it represents new challenges and severe complications for Beirut.

Ruru Hoong argues that the Ministry of Education’s recent change in the 2022 Primary 1 Registration exercise does not address underlying issues of educational equity. Rather, two potential policy interventions should be implemented—critically assessing the priority schemes and re-evaluating the overall school assignment structure for greater procedural equity. Rethinking these policies could have immense implications for the country’s goal to ensure that schools remain accessible to children of all backgrounds.

Oya Dursun-Özkanca examines the post-2019 developments in Turkey-West relations and argues that there is increasing use of boundary-breaking intra-alliance opposition process, creating a dangerous path dependency.

As a candidate, Joe Biden promised a values-based U.S. foreign policy towards Saudi Arabia. Less than a year into his presidency, Biden’s administration has abandoned that promise by resuming arms sales to Saudi Arabia, justifying the decision by saying the weapons do not support Saudi “offensive operations.”

In this two-part series, students from Roosevelt Network@Yale-NUS College delve into Singapore’s early childhood care and education (ECCE) landscape, examining the current state of quality and access in the sector. In part one, the authors discussed Singapore’s progress towards improving quality in the ECCE sector. Here in part two, they now turn towards the accessibility of ECCE services, and subsequently synthesise the issues of quality and access to deliver insights regarding the industry as a whole.

In this two-part series, students from Roosevelt Network@Yale-NUS College delve into Singapore’s early childhood care and education (ECCE) landscape. They draw upon expert interviews and careful study of existing government policies to unpack issues surrounding quality and access in the sector. In this first article, the authors argue that while the government has made significant strides in uplifting and standardizing ECCE provision in recent years, there remains room to tighten minimum quality standards. Effort also needs to be made to correct the societal undervaluation of ECCE jobs, providing professionals in the sector with remuneration and recognition that reflects the vital role they play in child development.

Ryan Chua argues that Singapore cannot rely solely on hard regulations like the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) to address the proliferation of fake news. He assesses how information is being consumed and disseminated in this new age of heightened populism, before evaluating alternative approaches that could be taken in Singapore. He advocates for softer but more experimental approaches that may not necessarily yield immediate results in the short-term but bode well towards building institutions and technology we can trust in the long-term.

Ghazi Ghazi sits down with Sally Bachori, one of the founding members of Ending Impunity in Iraq to learn more about the organization and their grassroots movement.

Jane Loo and Yasmine Wong examine our moral obligations to one another during COVID-19. They discuss the importance of social responsibility and how it maps onto the provisions and shortcomings of existing tracking technologies used to curb the spread of the virus. From the angle of beneficence—acting for the benefit of others and the common good—they explore possibilities for our control strategies and the community going forward.

Over the past weeks and months, numerous think tanks and individuals have published reports and briefs on the looming humanitarian crisis in northwest Syria. [[1]] This déjà vu moment has not been lost on actors and agencies focused on aid in Syria. In mere weeks, the last remaining entry-point for humanitarian aid into northwest Syria […]