keanwong

the 21st-century Leni will do better heroic framing? www.latimes.com/politics/sto...

and maybe unsurprisingly, the only regular oz uni conf on #malaysia has m'sian ambo open it as uni chiefs absent/"too busy" with fraught cuts meetings, as once-feted 'Asian Studies' does 'mergers'
/vanishing trix & anxious students around me wonder if they can graduate in time...

great list ... and i probably saw all but #10 live at that same place, with the Clowns' Louise so memorable against grumpy Ed in grim winter 🙃

Malaysia Helps Broker Thailand-Cambodia Ceasefire, Trump Claims Credit As "President Of Peace" | TRP White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for making the ceasefire happen.

and now for that Nobel Peace Prize, apparently .... www.therakyatpost.com/news/2025/07...

#BREAKING: IMMEDIATE AND UNCONDITIONAL CEASEFIRE BETWEEN THAILAND CAMBODIA AT MIDNIGHT

Malaysian PM Anwar Ibrahim announces breakthrough after talks between acting Thai PM Phumtham Wechayachai and Cambodia PM Hun Manet in Putrajaya.

Full speech below

‘Turun Anwar’ Rally a Wake-Up Call, Not a Threat, Says Klang MP KUALA LUMPUR, July 28 — The recent Turun Anwar rally, though modest in turnout, sends a strong signal of growing public dissatisfaction, particularly over unaddressed socio-economic grievances, said K...

While big #turunAnwar rally obscured PN opposition's fractious politix, “The solution isn't more one-off aid or last-minute announcements. What we need is structural reform & consistent, empathetic leadership that engages w. rakyat beyond election cycles & crises.” #madani hipz.my/turun-anwar-...

The Real Reasons for the Thai-Cambodia Conflict While long-standing border disputes explain some of the current violence between Thailand and Cambodia, the conflict’s escalation is primarily driven by Thai elites’ drive to consolidate military and…

banishing Thaksin's chaos 'for good' in military's checkmate of dangerous civilians, via @joshkurlantzick.bsky.social: "The conflict has allowed the military to stoke nationalism, and the leaked phone call, amidst this spike of nationalism, got rid of Paetongtarn..." www.cfr.org/blog/real-re...

Speaking Reassurance to Power, by Pankaj Mishra

"For all its claims to superior virtue, liberal America manifests very little courage & dignity it's expected from artists & thinkers in less fortunate societies, as hooded masked officials disappear students for the crime of writing school op-eds & liking soc-med posts"
harpers.org/archive/2025...

sydney harbour with bridge, opera hoise and city at dawn

dawn over the harbour, clouds still to clear, #nusantara dim and distant in #auspol imagination?

lots around me in KL just bored and insulted by a bad joke that mixes banal yet boorish oz with ersatz americana ...

Panel of Dr Niki Cheong, Dr Susan Philip, Dr Ann Lee, Fasyali Fadzly, Kam Raslan discussing the late playwright, satirist & writer Jit Murad at ASWARA KL

Deeply Malaysian chat, but can an uncertain nation well seared previously by Jit Murad's revealing, often satirical English-language theatre and social framings resonate with genZ religiosity, confused anti-secularism & Anglosphere-v-bahasa nusantara class disdain?

today's CP daily priority, as new US boorish ambo overshadows diminished Rubio, w. PMX walking hand-in-hand with WangYi. The sharp tabloid w. renowned visual verve does geopolitix succinctly, another pax americana moment of dying-in-ditch...

well, the Malaysian fo-po aide said to me today @ Asean summit, as Rubio & co troop in, that when 'only the best' will do... to slide _pax americana_ deeper into longkang (ditch)

Conflict preventions retraced over decades updated #Asean summit & ISIS M'sia via @rorymedcalf.bsky.social & ICG's Huong Le Thu w. urgent reviving of "mandate without breaking Asean mechanisms" incl "shared facts", poss roles for #auspol as 'creative partner' in region... w. extra resource$?

#auspol Foreign minister Penny Wong in KL for Asean summit week, during Malaysia's chairing year amid tariff wars and US Sec of State Rubio's a few blocks away...

Explaining a 'progressive patriotism' off @albomp.bsky.social Curtin speech, #auspol FM PennyWong charms Malaysians w. stout pts: "we must shape the region we want... we will keep prioritising this region, upholding the rules and norms that protect us", no US-China binaries in current turmoil

(from top left, clockwise) nasi kerabu, koay teow thng, braised duck rice with tea cured egg, yong tau foo.

tasty diversion in diversity @ KL: classic malaysian fusions, where quality diners are now scattered across the Klang valley and cost per meal nudges $8 rather than 4 from just 2 years ago, as stalwarts stall holders retire, wages and rents soar ahead of trade war angst

this Omar-Mariel collab was so resonant of our times, her conjuring downtown #NYC sonic discord was like unravelling modernity, matching his lyrical yet anxious dystopia of the seas &hills. And pivoting too a funny history lesson on Sabah #Borneo Malaya, of conquests to today (w. more colonisation?)

Events June 26th-28th The Offering: A Plastic Ocean Oratorio Heartland Festival presents Omar Musa and Mariel Roberts Musa Lenox Theatre Riverside Theatres, Corner Market &, Church St, Parramatta NSW 2150,.....

try catching them if you can, gigging across Europe, Britain, then Adelaide, Bangkok, and Malaysia too before the year's up... see www.marielroberts.com/events.html (and Omar's debut novel 'Fierceland' 2b launched at GTLF Penang in Nov, quite the sprawling/hearty/semangat'ful saga when i read it)

Omar Musa & Mariel Roberts Musa in 'The Offering' at Parramatta's Riverside Theatre, 28June

Amazing Malaysian-Aust artists OmarMusa & Mariel RobertsMusa in 'The Offering', his poet/jiwa so triggered/staged by her full swells of cello &brass stabs, afloat Borneo's plastic ocean of climate emergency, as Omar's classic 'Fire on the hills' urgently rings w. sonic discordance & fierce woodcuts

Dropping out, burning out, tuning out • Andrew Dean Nobody’s happy about the state of Australian universities, but a seasoned academic has some remedies

"It seems more likely that we will continue to work in an environment where students are shortchanged, academics treated like children, university leaders dramatically overpaid, and the public gets less back than it should from its already dwindling investment."
insidestory.org.au/dropping-out...

... but left behind ABC's bill for a million or more in legal fees and $70k+ for Antoinette?

The ABC squandered trust with its multicultural audience when it sent Antoinette Lattouf packing | Paula Kruger Shutting down voices is not ‘social cohesion’. We need a different approach to our most difficult conversations

Trust as audiences shrink: "We're weary of the cycle of corporate concern, review and apology...More significant for #ABC is the break in trust w. a multicultural audience. Silencing 1 side of the story isn’t success. Shutting down voices isn't 'social cohesion'." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Judgement against: "The decision was made to appease the pro-Israel lobbyists who would inevitably escalate their complaints about the ABC employing a presenter they perceived to have anti-Semitic and anti-Israel opinions in such a public position." www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Ju...

Indonesia’s answer to the Maldives is one of the best-kept island secrets Belitung Island, with its Maldives vibes, pristine environment, eco-resort offerings and sunken bounty, may be one of the world’s best island secrets.

beribu2 tahniah dan selamat perlancaran bu! your work immediately came to mind as others discover what you and our filem friends Riri&Mira know so well...
www.smh.com.au/traveller/in...

Collateral Damage: How Geopolitical Tensions Fuel Discrimination Against Chinese Americans A recent study explores how Americans’ views of the “China threat” influence ethnic discrimination in the U.S.

dismantling notions of modernity & citizenship for 'safety'? "The underlying dynamic is not just about race, but about how national security narratives, when framed in terms of covert threat, activate exclusionary instincts in ordinary citizens."
thediplomat.com/2025/06/coll...

Analysis | Meta found a new way to violate your privacy. Here’s what you can do. Even hardened digital privacy veterans said they were surprised by Meta’s scuzzy tactics.

"Researchers caught #Meta using tactics of digital crooks to secretly compile logs of web browsing on Android devices. No one, incl Google, knew that Meta’s #Facebook & Instagram apps were siphoning people’s data through a digital back door for months" www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Opinion | Here’s What’s Happening in America, in Six (Mostly) Russian Terms

Summer indifference in America wins... "the American security state, with its qualified immunity, surveillance apparatus and extrajudicial tactics, has long resembled something not far from a siloviki state. But the new administration is taking it to a new level." www.nytimes.com/2025/06/09/o...

We’ve Lost the Plot: Sinophobia and the Collateral Damage of American Primacy What Visa Bans Teach America About Itself

"Most Americans don’t stop to parse the difference btwn Chinese and AsianAms, or btwn Han, Koreans, Japanese... phenotype stands in for affiliation. This won’t stop with PRC passport holders. It never has. What’s taking root is more ambient, more dangerous..." www.sinicapodcast.com/p/weve-lost-...

Curtis Yarvin’s Plot Against America The reactionary blogger’s call for a monarch to rule the country once seemed like a joke. Now the right is ready to bend the knee.

tech feudalism: "In another timeline, Yarvin might have remained an obscure ineffectual crank, a digital de Maistre. Instead, he's one of America’s most influential illiberal thinkers, engineer of the intellectual source code for the second Trump Administration."
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Why isn't China's defence minister attending Shangri-la Dialogue, and how will it affect Sino-US ties? China’s decision to skip ministerial-level representation at this year’s Shangri-La Dialogue marks a return to a more cautious diplomatic posture, said analysts.

on face/Asia vs Usa.. "'We don’t like being gladiators fighting 1 another for others’ entertainment. We want to deal with our differences bilaterally, not in public forums.’...Beijing always wants to control the narrative &discourse. #SLD doesn't enable that” www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/china-s...