Play The Diplomat’s Quiz: September 18, 2016 Edition

In early September Kyrgyzstan hosted the 2nd World Nomad Games at the lakeside resort town of Cholpon-ata. The Games kicked off with a lavish opening ceremony on September 3 and closed with an eclectic concert on September 8. The week between was filled with earnest competition, friendly contests, and a full-on Central Asian Burning Man-like festival. Attended by delegations from more than 40 countries–some serious competitors and some perhaps press-ganged backpackers–the Games were a vibrant celebration of nomadic culture.

China and Russia will launch an eight-day joint naval exercise in the South China Sea off the coast of China’s Guangdong province. The Joint Sea-2016 exercises between the two countries will involve surface ships, submarines, fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and amphibious vehicles, according to Chinese Navy spokesperson Liang Yang. The exercises will conclude on September 19.

For nearly a thousand years, Sri Lanka prospered as the Buddhist kingdom of Anuradhapura while the rest of India went its own way, with kingdoms rising and falling. However, by 1000 CE, the Tamil kingdoms in the south developed an advanced naval apparatus and an interest in maritime conquest. Chief among these was the Chola Empire, based in today’s Tamil Nadu. Rajendra Chola conquered Anuradhapura in 1017 and Tamil forces occupied the island for several decades. This was the first sustained political and military contact between the Indian mainland and Sri Lanka in centuries. Though Chola rule only lasted until 1070, it was the harbinger of continued Hindu Tamil settlement and invasions of northern Sri Lanka. Another Tamil kingdom from India, the Pandyans, invaded Sri Lanka again in the 13th century, and eventually a Tamil kingdom, the Jaffna Kingdom, was founded in northern Sri Lanka. In southern Sri Lanka, there were a series of Buddhist statelets. It was this fragmented state that allowed the Portuguese and the Dutch to establish control over coastal Sri Lanka in the 1500s.

Efforts to prosecute Cambodia’s ruling elite in the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity were bolstered after the court ruled company executives could be tried for land grabbing and environmental destruction.

The decision from The Hague is a significant policy change within the internal ICC prosecution process for selecting and prioritizing cases.

Since opening its doors 14 years ago, the ICC has focused mainly on crimes committed in armed conflicts such as crimes against humanity, among other war crimes. Alleged atrocities committed for profit in peacetime had been left aside by the ICC.

Indian Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar met his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, on Monday in Washington, D.C. The visit is Parrikar’s second to the United States as India’s defense minister and resulted in the conclusion of a long-anticipated bilateral deal on military logistics exchange, known as the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), that was first mooted in the early 2000s. Parrikar and Carter additionally addressed the gamut of defense and security issues on the U.S.-India agenda, including defense technology collaboration, expanding military-to-military exchanges, and the U.S. designation of India as a “Major Defense Partner” (MDP) earlier this year.

In recent remarks, Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada reiterated the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s (MSDF) intention to continue cooperation with the United States in the South China Sea. In a speech delivered at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, DC-based think tank, earlier this week, Inada also expressed concerned about China’s behavior in the East and South China Seas.

Inada outlined three particular areas where Japan will continue to deepen its involvement in the South China Sea:

This week will see a dispute between Australia and Timor-Leste over maritime boundaries begin in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. At the center of the disputed territory lie the Greater Sunrise oil and gas fields. These fields are estimated to contain around US$40 billion worth of oil and gas deposits.

The conciliation proceedings fall under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This is a convention that Australia has signed, and Canberra has urged China adhere to UNCLOS with regard to Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea. However, Australia has a preference for bilateral negotiations for maritime boundaries, rather than international conventions. This is an acceptable practice within international law, but in this case remains a process between two vastly unequal partners.

This time, will Indonesia do it right? One of the world’s most resource-rich countries is about to embark on another massive development project in the rich gas reserves in the Natuna Sea region, in the far north of the archipelago. As Pertamina, the national oil company, signs deals with foreign oil giants, Indonesia’s leaders are already talking about how this massive, multi-billion dollar project will help aid economic development and increase the wealth of regular Indonesians. However, if the the country’s history is any sign, chances are, it may do little for regular people, and instead enrich the well-connected, and, judging from the location, the military as well.

After analyzing the images released by the North Koreans, experts at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey believe that North Korea showed off its extended range (ER) Scud missile. Because North Korea hasn’t flown or shown off the Scud-ER, the system has received fairly limited attention. The 2016 U.S. Department of Defense report on North Korea’s military notes the existence of the system alongside the regularly tested Scud-B (Hwasong-5), Scud-C (Hwasong-6), and the shorter-range Toksa.

The ER is a variation on the Scud-C with an elongated fuselage to store additional fuel. According to CNS’ Jeffrey Lewis, the pictures released by North Korea suggest that the launchers use a slightly larger cradle, but appear to otherwise be the same kind that Pyongyang uses for other missile launches. The Scud-ER is thought to be capable of delivering a 500 kg payload to roughly 1,000 km, Lewis adds. The payload is considerably reduced from the Scud-C–a trade-off that allows for a longer-range delivery.

Standing under a torrent of ice-cold water spilling over a rocky cliff in the mountains outside Tokyo, a man in his early 40s clasps his hands together. Clad in nothing more than a white loin cloth, he chants a mantra for more than half a minute, frigid water cascading over him. His peers, dressed in white robes, stand nearby and watch on. They cheer when he completes the ceremony and mentally prepare themselves for their own turn under the falling water.

Meet the Yamabushi (“one who prostrates upon mountains”), devotees of a mystical tradition with a unique place in Japanese spirituality. They are pursuing enlightenment through communion with the natural world and the supernatural forces running through it. At its core, they follow Shugendo, a syncretic system of belief that essentially means “the way of testing and training,” Alena Eckelmann, aYamabushi practitioner from Germany, told The Diplomat.