̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Asia

̽��ֱ��tulip hunter of Toktogul

lw355 — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 09:15:17 +0000

Brett Wilson's love of wild tulips has taken him to some of the most spectacular places in Central Asia, where he discovered a new species in Toktogul, Kyrgyzstan. His work has helped to uncover the plight of 53 tulips which have been added to the 'Red List' of threatened species.

Opinion: A rattled Saudi Arabia pivots for support to South-East Asia

cjb250 — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 15:19:30 +0000

Capital cities across Asia spent the last month rolling out the red carpet for a rarely seen visitor: Saudi Arabia’s ageing King Salman, accompanied by a hundreds-strong diplomatic entourage including senior princes, businessmen and ministers. Taking in Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Japan, China and the Maldives, the king spent March leading a concerted effort to strengthen Saudi Arabia’s commercial links with Asia’s fast-growing economies.

̽��ֱ��House of Saud doesn’t usually go in for long state visits, and no Saudi king has visited Indonesia for half a century. So the fact that the Saudi king committed to a full month away in this part of the world speaks volumes about his government’s mood after a series of strategic miscalculations.

Saudi rulers have always worried about the prospect of diplomatic isolation, and stronger relations with Asia are in some ways part of the usual agenda. But they’ve now become a lifeline with which to save the kingdom from its bad bets in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia’s recent efforts to settle its incessant rivalry with Iran have not paid off, and after flooding the market with cheap oil and engineering a fall in the oil price to Iran’s detriment, the Saudis are now themselves faced with a festering budget deficit, forcing them to slash spending on infrastructure and reduce civil servant perks to get finances under control.

Elsewhere, the devastating war in Yemen is exposing Saudi Arabia to both military pressure and severe international condemnation for the humanitarian catastrophe the campaign has caused. Recent decisions taken in Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), meanwhile, forced Saudi Arabia to swallow a big hit on its oil production, suggesting that it can no longer afford an aggressive anti-Iran policy in Yemen without new allies and partners to shore it up.

In these squeezed times, South-East Asia’s growing economies have much to offer to the Saudis.

Finance diplomacy

Historically, the pilgrimage from Asia to Islam’s holy cities of Mecca and Medina has been an important revenue source for the kingdom’s volatile budget, but King Salman’s failing regional fortunes and financial problems have placed renewed impetus on moving the kingdom away from its traditional dependence on oil.

King Salman has found a receptive audience in the Asian capitals. Malaysia is already making a strong turn to the Saudi fold; in early 2016, it joined military exercises in northern Saudi territory involving around 150,000 soldiers, 2,540 warplanes, 20,000 tanks, and 460 helicopters. ̽��ֱ��exercise has been fuelling rumours that Malaysia might be swayed to join Saudi Arabia’s military campaign in Yemen, which already benefits from the support of several other Muslim-majority states.

This is not a strange expectation. Personal relations between Prime Minister Najib Razak and the Saudi royal family are reported to be strong, and the Saudis played a key role in helping to save Razak’s political career from a major scandal. By publicly confirming Razak’s claim that an unaccounted US$681m in his bank accounts was a donation from the Saudi royal family, the Saudis helped to counter accusations that he had in fact siphoned the money from heavily indebted state investment fund 1MDB.

Economic opportunities abound. Upon arrival in Kuala Lumpur in late February, national oil and gas company Saudi Aramco signed a US$7 billion agreement with Malaysian oil company Petronas. ̽��ֱ��deal will pump Saudi investment into a Malaysian petrochemical project valued at US$27 billion, making Aramco the single largest investor in Malaysia. ̽��ֱ��deal is also expected to improve Malaysia’s chances to compete in oil refining and energy storage, an industry currently monopolised by Singapore in South-East Asia.

Indonesia, too, hopes to attract billions of dollars in Saudi investment. ̽��ֱ��two countries have signed more than ten memorandums of understanding, building on cultural and religious projects, promoting educational exchange and intensifying trade. Together with Indonesia’s Pertamina, Saudi Aramco has committed to expand Indonesia’s biggest refinery in Java. ̽��ֱ��total value of the agreements stretches into the billions.

̽��ֱ��Saudis are highly skilled in this sort of fast-paced “finance diplomacy”. Like estranged family members coming home with presents, they bring in their wake large sums of money for development finance and the promise of several billions of dollars of investment opportunities for the relations they hope to cultivate.

And beyond pure financial interests, it’s worth remembering that these joint investment ventures create the sort of long-term partnerships that give external partners a stake in Saudi Arabia’s own security and development. These sorts of financial patronage projects extend far beyond trade and commerce – since the 1970s, Saudi oil money has persistently found its way to foreign schools, charities, mosques and nonprofits to promote a religious ideology which is at odds with the traditional brand of moderate Islam practised in South-East Asia. Donations by dozens of Saudi waqfs (Islamic charitable endowments) all fuel the elite’s drive to project itself as the leader of Sunni Muslims the world over.

Investment with the heft the Saudis offer is too tempting to pass up, but King Salman’s visit will only help export his country’s hardline doctrine to places where that could do without it. Both Malaysia and Indonesia urgently need to ease tensions between restive religious communities, but Saudi Arabia aims to open more Islamic schools across South-East Asia, increasing not only literacy in the Arabic language but also Saudi religious teaching and influence. That could be a heavy price tag indeed.

Babak Mohammadzadeh, PhD Candidate in Politics and International Studies, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

Saudi Arabia is seeking to strengthen its commercial links with South-east's fast-growing economies. What makes this such an attractive offer - and are there any downsides? asks Babak Mohammadzadeh (Politics and International Studies) writing for ̽��ֱ��Conversation.

Ezry Abdul Rahman

An Evening in Kuala Lumpur

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Virus evolution and human behaviour shape global patterns of flu movement

cjb250 — Mon, 08 Jun 2015 15:00:18 +0000

In the study, an international team of researchers led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and including all five World Health Organization (WHO) Influenza Collaborating Centres, reports surprising differences between the various types of seasonal flu virus, which they show to be due to the rate at which the different viruses evolve.

There are four types of influenza viruses that cause seasonal flu in humans: two influenza A viruses (H3N2 and H1N1) and two influenza B viruses (Yamagata and Victoria). While H3N2 viruses are the most common of the seasonal influenza viruses, H1N1 and B viruses also cause epidemics worldwide each year, hence the WHO selects representative strains of all four A and B viruses for inclusion in the seasonal influenza vaccine each year.

Importantly, all four of the viruses cause indistinguishable symptoms and evolve by similar mechanisms to escape immunity induced by prior infections and vaccinations. This ‘antigenic’ evolution is part of why people get influenza multiple times over the course of their lives.

In 2008, an international team led by scientists from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, writing in the journal Science, showed that H3N2 viruses circulate continuously in east and southeast Asia throughout the year, spreading to the rest of the world each year to cause seasonal flu epidemics. Given the fundamental similarities between H3N2, H1N1, and B infection it was thought that they would also emerge from east and southeast Asia to cause yearly epidemics worldwide. However, the work published today in Nature shows that in fact, H1N1 and B viruses behave very differently from H3N2 viruses.

Senior author Dr Colin Russell, from the Department of Veterinary Medicine at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, UK, says: “While H3N2 viruses die out between epidemics and new viruses emerge from east and southeast Asia every year, H1N1 and B viruses frequently circulate continuously between epidemics worldwide. This continuous circulation gives rise to a huge diversity in H1N1 and B viruses circulating globally.”

Interestingly, the researchers found that sometimes new H1N1 and B variants emerge from outside east and southeast Asia and are subsequently seeded into Asia, while in other cases H1N1 and B variants circulate in Asia for years without spreading globally.

“It’s really surprising to find that the H3N2 viruses are unique among the seasonal influenza viruses,” adds first author Dr Trevor Bedford from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, USA. “It’s almost as surprising to find that the differences among viruses are associated with a simple phenomenon: how quickly the viruses evolve antigenically.”

̽��ֱ��Nature study finds that the rate of global movement of each virus, and its ability to circulate continuously between epidemics, is shaped by how quickly that virus changes its coat to escape immunity in the human population. Viruses that evolve quickly, in particular H3N2, spread around the world rapidly, but die out quickly between epidemics. Viruses that evolve more slowly, like H1N1 and B viruses, spread around the world more slowly but are also better at circulating continuously between epidemics.

̽��ֱ��key element about global movement is who is getting infected: faster evolving viruses, like H3N2, can infect adults, who tend to travel more frequently than children, providing more opportunities for the virus to spread. Conversely, more slowly evolving viruses, such as H1N1 and B viruses, primarily infect children. Children get sick with all four seasonal flu viruses, but H3N2 evolves faster so it infects adults more often. This leads to a greater proportion of adult infections with H3N2 relative to H1N1 and B viruses, and faster spread of H3N2 viruses.

“Ultimately, this means that we can look at the viruses circulating in Asia to get a good idea of which H3N2 virus might spread worldwide, but for H1N1 and B it’s tremendously variable and the dominant variant can vary from one region of the world to another,” says Dr Russell.

̽��ֱ��Nature study also sheds important light on the role of India in the global spread of seasonal influenza viruses. Scientists and public health officials had long known that China and Southeast Asia were important for the evolution and spread of seasonal influenza viruses. However, based on the analysis of an extensive collection of viruses from India, it is now clear that India may be as central as China to the ongoing evolution of seasonal influenza viruses.

“ ̽��ֱ��focus of influenza research in the past has been on China and southeast Asia, but it seems obvious now that surveillance and public health in India, home to over one sixth of the world’s population, should be a high priority for further development to help safeguard India and the world against seasonal flu,” says Dr Mandeep Chadha of the National Institute of Virology, Pune, India.

̽��ֱ��research was primarily funded by the Royal Society and US National Institutes of Health with extensive involvement of the World Health Organization’s Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System.

Reference
Bedford, T et al. Global circulation patterns of seasonal influenza viruses vary with antigenic drift. Nature; 8 June 2015.

̽��ֱ��global movement patterns of all four seasonal influenza viruses are illustrated in research published today in the journal Nature, providing a detailed account of country-to-country virus spread over the last decade and revealing unexpected differences in circulation patterns between viruses.

While H3N2 viruses die out between epidemics and new viruses emerge from east and southeast Asia every year, H1N1 and B viruses frequently circulate continuously between epidemics worldwide

Colin Russell

Matteo Bagnoli

influenza

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Out of Asia: ancient genome lays to rest origins of Americas’ first humans

jfp40 — Wed, 12 Feb 2014 18:05:35 +0000

̽��ֱ��young boy’s genetic blueprint reveals that the Americas’ first human inhabitants came from Asia, not Europe, laying to rest a long-standing mystery.

Conducted by a consortium of scientists led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Copenhagen and including Drs Andrea Manica, Anders Eriksson and Vera Warmuth at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, the study is published in Nature.

̽��ֱ��child belonged to the Clovis people. They produced beautiful, distinctive stone and bone tools, and are named after the New Mexico town of Clovis where caches of the tools were first found in the 1920s and 30s.

̽��ֱ��Clovis culture moved south through the Americas, but where it came from, how it spread and whether modern Native Americans are descendants of the Clovis people has puzzled scientists.

Until now, two conflicting theories existed. One suggests that humans arrived in North America from Siberian parts of Asia through a corridor between the melting ice sheets, and that these people are the ancestors of modern Native Americans.

A second theory – known as the Solutrean – suggests people first travelled to the Americas from Europe via Greenland across the frozen ocean.

According to Dr Manica: “When we look at arrow and spear heads from the parts of Asia where we think Native Americans originated, we find no such technology, nothing that looked anything like a Clovis arrow head.

“On the other hand if we go all the way to Spain and France, we can find some arrow heads that resemble, to a certain extent, what we find in the Clovis culture.”

Solving the mystery depended on finding a well-preserved Clovis skeleton, from which researchers could extract DNA.

They located a skeleton that had been discovered, together with Clovis tools, in 1968 on a Montana farm. It is the only known Clovis burial site, and carbon-14 dating shows the bones are around 12,600 years old, close to the end of the Clovis culture.

“After obtaining permission from the current Native American tribes who live in the area, we were able to take the bones to the lab and extract the DNA. ̽��ֱ��bones turned out to be so well preserved that we were able to reconstruct the entire genome of that individual,” said Dr Manica.

̽��ֱ��child’s DNA revealed that the Clovis people came from Siberia, laying to rest the Solutrean theory.

“When we looked at this genome, it was definitely Asian; there was no sign of any European DNA, so it seems very clear that the people who made those Clovis artefacts were part of the Asian wave that came into the Americas about 15,000 years ago when the ice sheets started melting. Some stopped in North America, and invented the Clovis technology, and others continued all the way down to South America,” he said.

“As well as having a very clear Asian origin, it’s also very closely related to modern Native Americans. So the Clovis mystery is solved: we now know that Clovis were Asians and part of the group of people who colonised the Americas.”

Although the burial site is on private land owned by the Anzick family, the researchers worked closely with nine Native American groups with reservations in the surrounding area. A Crow tribe representative, together with the Anzick family, is working on an intertribal reburial of the bone fragments.

To see more about the research, view our film here

̽��ֱ��genome of a child who died some 12,600 years ago in Montana – the oldest known human remains from North America – has been sequenced for the first time.

As well as having a very clear Asian origin, it’s also very closely related to modern Native Americans. So the Clovis mystery is solved: we now know that Clovis were Asians and part of the group of people who colonised the Americas.

Dr Andrea Manica

Out of Asia: ancient genome lays to rest origins of Americas' first humans

Sarah Anzick

Examples of Clovis tools

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