POLITICS

What Happened: The Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr – this year falling between May 13 and 14 – usually involves large numbers of people traveling home, sparking concerns that this year’s holiday will only worsen Indonesia’s pandemic problems, already exacerbated by a lack of vaccine access.

Our Focus: While the Indonesia government has officially banned mudik -- the traveling of migrants back to their home villages for the holidays -- again this year, there is widespread concern that just like last year enough people will defy the ban to see COVID-19 cases rise in the ensuing weeks. Combined with inconsistent government messaging and vaccine supply problems, Indonesia faces the prospect of a steep rise in cases.

What Comes Next: “Those who insist on participating in mudik this year, in defiance of the government’s ban,” writes Teguh Maulana, “may end up paying” a heavy price, one that could have been avoided by more equitable international cooperation on vaccine distribution.

INTERVIEW

Commissioner Gary L. Bauer of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom on China’s growing influence in the Pacific: “I would argue to policymakers in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, that a Pacific down the road that has to get up every morning trying to figure out how it’s going to please the leadership in Beijing is going to be a Pacific that is much less hospitable to the desires, the ambitions, of the people of those countries.”

Northeast Asia

Japan is in the middle of a COVID-19 wave, sparking extended states of emergency in major cities -- including Tokyo, set to host the Summer Olympics in less than three months. With protests mounting calling for the government to cancel the Olympics altogether, the government faces a tough decision.

South Asia

After months in the making that marked a particularly tumultuous phase in Nepalese politics, Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli lost a crucial vote of confidence in Nepal's parliament on May 10. However, whether Oli's defeat marks the end of his prime ministership remains an open question whose answer rests in deeply fractured political arrangements. Meanwhile, Nepal is staring at a massive second wave of COVID-19 infections.

Southeast Asia

Following complaints of false positives by passengers arriving through Kualanamu International Airport in Medan, North Sumatra, a police investigation revealed employees of a pharmaceutical company recycling nasal swab testing kits, in another case employees repackaged used kits for sale.

Central Asia

Uzbek blogger Otabek Sattoriy was given a 6.5 year sentence this week following convictions on extortion and libel charges which human rights advocates say were absurd. The case, for some, is a true measure of progress on media freedoms in Uzbekistan.

What are the economics of the China-India-Sri Lanka triangle?

POLITICS

The “People’s Council” is currently the upper chamber of Turkmenistan's parliament. A body with that same name has held other positions in the Turkmen political architecture over the years. While the Turkmen legislature is ineffective in a traditional sense, it has undergone a series of evolutions at the behest of the president.