Erin Cook

Beyond humanitarian aid: Rethinking Australia’s Myanmar policy Five years after the coup, Myanmar’s instability is bleeding across borders. Canberra’s policy hasn’t kept up.

“In this part of the world, instability rarely stays politely within national borders,” writes Mon Zin in The Interpreter.
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/beyond-humanitarian-aid-rethinking-australia-s-myanmar-policy

If Marles is Gibran does that make Stephen Conroy our Jokowi?

Def Min Richard Marles is in Jakarta this week and friends there are trying to find who his vibe equivalent would be. Neither of these are overly flattering options 😅

Peace in the Philippines: The Bangsamoro’s Moment of Truth | International Crisis Group The peace process in the Bangsamoro, the newly autonomous Muslim-majority region in the southern Philippines, has run into stumbling blocks, including repeated postponements of regional parliamentary ...

Fore more details and background, check out our report:

www.crisisgroup.org/rpt/asia-pac...

The peace process in the Bangsamoro, in the southern Philippines, is at a critical stage.

Our report draws on field research in Maguindanao, Lanao, Sulu, Davao, Zamboanga and Manila, conducted between June 2023 and February 2026.

It presents the current state of play in the southern Philippines.

security studies! loving the content, but the uni-ness of it is a bit surreal after so long 😅

last time I had a week to become an expert in the GATT or I may as well just die

I cannot get over how much of a breeze undergrad is my second time around. I just got a pop up to say you can have a three day extension for no reason at all, a 'breather' to 'empower' me in my studies. And one pdf to read this week!

One upside of low Indonesia literacy in Australia is you get really rude swears on the tv

Duterte took a lot of inspo from Suharto too! The Petrus campaign was a blueprint for Duterte's war on drugs

This is so big a question you've inspired me 😅

He's wrong! He's wrong about David Hicks!

That horrendous Australian murder in Bali last year has come to an end with three Australian nationals jailed for 12 to 16 years. Really shows how far we are from the dark Bali Nine days to be hearing this apnews.com/article/indo...

Online already - and with the Adrian Vickers approval! You've got to watch it this week www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXuO...

ABC's extremely irritating style of one line per paragraph aside, this seems like it'll be an excellent overview of where Indonesia is at 18 months into Prabowo's presidency. I'm looking forward to it!

In the early hours of the Iran war, Indonesia's president made a telling offer Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto's big ambitions on the world stage and at home have alarmed his critics.

Guess who is getting the Foreign Corro treatment tonight! www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03...

Idk what that means lol

People from Canberra should be exempt from hearing news about the Nationals

⛽️ Getting slugged at the bowser from miles away The many ways Southeast Asia's countries are responding to the potential energy crisis

Fuel runs all over the place, and you better not have that AC above 24 in Manila 😤 A look at how Southeast Asia is responding to fuel volatility darimulut.substack.com/p/getting-sl...

Ban on selling fuel in cans hits fishermen, threatens seafood supply A ban on selling fuel in cans is hitting small-scale fishermen hard, raising fears of seafood shortages and rising costs across Thailand’s supply chain

US/Israel destabilises the Middle East ➡️ fears of fuel shortages set off globally ➡️ runs on petrol stations in Thailand prompt ban of can sales ➡️ smaller scale fisher communities unable to get out ➡️ (eventually) seafood shortages domestically and for export www.nationthailand.com/news/general...

Getting around the world's largest city exhausts Jakartans Suburban residents give up on public transit despite investment in new train lines

Jakarta is officially the largest city in the world. And for Jakartans, living there is life on hard mode — residents spent an average of 83 hours in traffic last year.

asia.nikkei.com/spotlight/bi...

Jesus Christ I'm never posting about abbott again

A cafe in Solo, Central Java, is freedom fries-ing. Americanos are off the menu — ask for a hot or iced black instead. www.instagram.com/p/DVV_uxugWJ...

“Like a startled crow”: life for a woman in Myanmar To mark International Women’s Day, UQ researchers have shared findings from a project documenting the challenges of daily life as a woman under Myanmar’s military regime.

“Like a startled crow”: life for a woman in Myanmar

news.uq.edu.au/2026-03-star...

Not a big fan of Pine Gap and wants people to know even if anonymously. Which is a male trait.

There is someone in Canberra whose interests intersect with mine in a very specific way and he borrows a lot of library books before me and adds very irritating little marginalia in pencil. I will find you. And I will kill you.

Another satisfied customer of this great newsletter.

I'm crying that he thinks this is a good way to argue for MORE engagement of the US

@luke-buckmaster.bsky.social

I figured this must've been a freedom of religion story - and I was right! Syaban and I chatted about the differences in religion in Australia and Indonesia and legal overreach: flatkopi.substack.com/p/youve-got-...