From Ancient Times to the Year 1000

Author(s):  
Tim Dyson

This chapter addresses the period from the end of the Mauryan Empire to c.1000 CE. There is very little evidence for the period. Nevertheless, people probably continued to migrate into river valleys and exploit new land. As a result, populations in different parts of the subcontinent increased—albeit usually very slowly and irregularly. In the north, Indo-Aryan influences continued to grow. Further south, kingdoms like those of the Pallavas and Cholas were crucial to the process of ‘Indianization’ which, from about the second century CE, affected areas of south-east Asia. It seems unlikely that India’s people were badly affected by the so-called ‘Plague of Justinian’ which affected parts of the Middle East and southern Europe during the sixth century. The chapter considers evidence collected around 640 CE by the Chinese visitor Hsuan Tsang and suggests that it is consistent with a total population of anywhere between 30 and 85 million.

Author(s):  
Esraa Aladdin Noori ◽  
Nasser Zain AlAbidine Ahmed

The Russian-American relations have undergone many stages of conflict and competition over cooperation that have left their mark on the international balance of power in the Middle East. The Iraqi and Syrian crises are a detailed development in the Middle East region. The Middle East region has allowed some regional and international conflicts to intensify, with the expansion of the geopolitical circle, which, if applied strategically to the Middle East region, covers the area between Afghanistan and East Asia, From the north to the Maghreb to the west and to the Sudan and the Greater Sahara to the south, its strategic importance will seem clear. It is the main lifeline of the Western world.


2018 ◽  
Vol 66 (7) ◽  
pp. 556 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael K. Macphail ◽  
Robert S. Hill

Fossil pollen and spores preserved in drillcore from both the upper South Alligator River (SARV) in the Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory and the North-West Shelf, Western Australia provide the first record of plants and plant communities occupying the coast and adjacent hinterland in north-west Australia during the Paleogene 66 to 23million years ago. The palynologically-dominant woody taxon is Casuarinaceae, a family now comprising four genera of evergreen scleromorphic shrubs and trees native to Australia, New Guinea, South-east Asia and Pacific Islands. Rare taxa include genera now mostly restricted to temperate rainforest in New Guinea, New Caledonia, New Zealand, South-East Asia and/or Tasmania, e.g. Dacrydium, Phyllocladus and the Nothofagus subgenera Brassospora and Fuscospora. These appear to have existed in moist gorges on the Arnhem Land Plateau, Kakadu National Park. No evidence for Laurasian rainforest elements was found. The few taxa that have modern tropical affinities occur in Eocene or older sediments in Australia, e.g. Lygodium, Anacolosa, Elaeagnus, Malpighiaceae and Strasburgeriaceae. We conclude the wind-pollinated Oligocene to possibly Early Miocene vegetation in the upper SARV was Casuarinaceae sclerophyll forest or woodland growing under seasonally dry conditions and related to modern Allocasuarina/Casuarina formations. There are, however, strong floristic links to coastal communities growing under warm to hot, and seasonally to uniformly wet climates in north-west Australia during the Paleocene-Eocene.


Author(s):  
John W. Young ◽  
John Kent

This chapter examines the decline of détente during the period 1977–1979. Détente suffered in part from being identified with Richard Nixon. After 1973, conservatives increasingly questioned détente, felt that the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) benefited the Soviet Union most, and were disturbed by an apparent pattern of communist adventurism abroad, in the 1973 Middle East War, Angola, and South-East Asia. The chapter first considers détente and policy-making during the time of Jimmy Carter before discussing the conflict in the Middle East, in particular the Lebanon Civil War, and the Camp David summit of 1978 that resulted in an Egyptian–Israel peace treaty. It then analyses the Ogaden conflict of 1977–1978), the ‘normalization’ of Sino-American relations, and the Sino–Vietnamese War. It concludes with an assessment of the SALT II treaty.


2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 308-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
SIMON P. MAHOOD ◽  
CHAMNAN HONG ◽  
SON VIRAK ◽  
PHEARUN SUM ◽  
STEPHEN T. GARNETT

SummaryIn 2013 a prediction was made that the South-East Asian subspecies of Bengal Florican Houbaropsis bengalensis blandini would be extinct within 10 years. In 2018 we conducted a survey in the Tonle Sap floodplain, Cambodia, of the last population of Bengal Florican in South-East Asia. We found that the rate of decline in displaying males was 55% over five years, a decline comparable to that recorded between 2005–2007 and 2012. The estimated number of displaying males in 2018 was 104 (95% CI: 89–117), down from 216 (156–275) in 2012. We also conducted surveys by flushing birds in the non-breeding season, which indicated that the sex ratio of males to females is 3:1. We therefore estimate that the total population of adult Bengal Floricans in Cambodia in 2018 was 138 (119–156), making H. b. blandini the most threatened bustard taxon. The number of sites that support displaying male Bengal Floricans was reduced from 10 to four between 2012 and 2018. Between 2012 and 2018 we monitored numbers of displaying males in most years at the sites that support 80% of the total population. The only site where numbers of birds are stable is Stoung-Chikraeng Bengal Florican Conservation Area, where there were 44 (25–63) displaying males in 2018. This is the only site that has an ongoing NGO-government conservation programme. Our data indicate that Bengal Floricans are lost from sites when the area of grassland falls below 25 km2. We found evidence that displaying male Bengal Floricans abandon display territories when grassland is lost, this also creates hope that they may disperse and could colonise newly created habitat. All remaining sites that support Bengal Floricans in Cambodia are imperilled and we outline what must be done to reduce the possibility that H. b. blandini will be extinct by 2023.


Author(s):  
Emily Black ◽  
David J. Brayshaw ◽  
Claire M. C. Rambeau

Anthropogenic changes in precipitation pose a serious threat to society—particularly in regions such as the Middle East that already face serious water shortages. However, climate model projections of regional precipitation remain highly uncertain. Moreover, standard resolution climate models have particular difficulty representing precipitation in the Middle East, which is modulated by complex topography, inland water bodies and proximity to the Mediterranean Sea. Here we compare precipitation changes over the twenty-first century against both millennial variability during the Holocene and interannual variability in the present day. In order to assess the climate model and to make consistent comparisons, this study uses new regional climate model simulations of the past, present and future in conjunction with proxy and historical observations. We show that the pattern of precipitation change within Europe and the Middle East projected by the end of the twenty-first century has some similarities to that which occurred during the Holocene. In both cases, a poleward shift of the North Atlantic storm track and a weakening of the Mediterranean storm track appear to cause decreased winter rainfall in southern Europe and the Middle East and increased rainfall further north. In contrast, on an interannual time scale, anomalously dry seasons in the Middle East are associated with a strengthening and focusing of the storm track in the north Mediterranean and hence wet conditions throughout southern Europe.


2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-14
Author(s):  
N. Rogozhina

ISIS poses a real threat to security and stability of South-East Asia countries, inspiring local Islamic extremists to conduct jihad for the purpose of creating a pan-regional caliphate "Daulah Islamiyah Nusantara" comprising the territories of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Southern Philippines and Thailand, where the Muslim population exceeds 250 millions. The author assumes that ISIS has potential for increasing its influence on these countries, taking into consideration 1) the presence of long-standing terrorist organizations, which have established contacts with international terrorists, such as Al Qaeda, and are now ready to swear their allegiance to ISIS; 2) the existence of social base – receptive to the ideology of international jihad – that can increase in number in case of engagement of former ISIS fighters from South-East Asia in the battle for the Islamic State creation in the region. This struggle will lead to terror and violence. And strengthening of the ISIS power in the Middle East gives the militants force and determination in achieving this goal. Now the number of the ISIS fighters from South-East Asia exceeds 800 people, but the flow of new supporters can increase, because there is a well-established basis for their recruiting through: preaching in mosques; indoctrination of students in madrasahs and religious boarding schools, funded by radical Islamic organizations; circulating of religious literature of jihad orientation; local radical groups; social networks. To counter the threat of the Islamic community radicalization, the governments rely on the leading Islam organizations and take actions in different directions. But their outcome will depend on whether the Muslim majority of population preserves the inherent religious tolerance.


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