Editor's note

Compared to South Korea, North Korea’s infrastructure is crumbling and in dire need of expansion and modernisation. The South evidently wants to help with new projects and special economic zones it envisioned at a recent summit between the two countries. Hussein Dia writes that progress will depend on the cooperation of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, who has been reluctant to accept help in the past.

Indonesia’s hard-won democratic advances may be under threat amid growing intolerance, including violence against minorities. Up until now opponents of the 1998 democratic transition might have felt politically constrained to accept democratisation as a necessary evil. But, warns Tim Lindsey, as the country prepares for presidential elections next year the temptation to resort to regressive identity politics and opportunistic populism will increase.

Shallan Govender

Copy Chief

Top Stories

Why roads and trains may be key to bringing peace to the Korean peninsula

Hussein Dia, Swinburne University of Technology

North Korea's infrastructure is in dire need of expansion and modernisation. This is where the South can help.

Is Indonesia retreating from democracy?

Tim Lindsey, University of Melbourne

Indonesia has long been held up as a model of democratic transition in the Muslim world. This view of the country now needs rethinking.

Business + Economy

Why the WTO still matters

Charles Hankla, Georgia State University

Despite sluggishness in the world economy, global trade reached an astonishing US$23 trillion last year. The World Trade Organization has been the primary guarantor of this extraordinary growth in global…

We estimate China only makes $8.46 from an iPhone – and that's why Trump's trade war is futile

Jason Dedrick, Syracuse University; Greg Linden, University of California, Berkeley; Kenneth L. Kraemer, University of California, Irvine

The president launched a trade war largely on the premise of a massive trade deficit with China. A closer look at the iPhone shows why he's wrong.

Politics + Society

New migrant processing centres in EU must avoid inhumanity of 'hotspots' in Greece and Italy

Samantha Velluti, University of Sussex

Newly proposed 'controlled centres' in the EU must not breach migrants' human rights.

Poland's judicial purge another step toward authoritarian democracy

Brian Porter-Szücs, University of Michigan

With its attempt to purge the country's courts of 40 percent of its judges, Poland's right-wing ruling party passed another milestone on the path towards establishment of a one-party state.