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Throughout human history, people have always produced waste, but during the last century, this has shown explosive growth. Globally, a combination of rising incomes, urbanization, the development of new, cheap materials, and changing lifestyles have driven the growth of products that were designed to be used for only limited periods of time producing a totally unprecedented amount and variety of waste. However, this development has not affected all people in similar ways. Waste has been a marker of unprecedented but unbalanced efficiency, wealth and power, and conflict. Five articles address waste as a function of conflicts in areas in various places in Europe and Asia. Collectively, these papers shed an unusual light on the twentieth century world through a collection of cases, in which conflicts have tended to exacerbate challenges of waste, either by increasing the quantity of weapons and their (often toxic) remains, or by creating contexts in which the confrontation with adversaries often relegated environmental, social and health-related consideration to the backstage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper enquires into how effectively "regional transboundary water governance" functions in resolving ecological problems associated with shared water resources. It compares three cases in Asia—the Irtysh River, Aral Sea, and Mekong River basin. Previous scholarly work on the hydro-politics of these three cases within social science disciplines, especially political science and international relations, focuses heavily on the dimension of "hegemonic power disparity between state actors" (from the weaker parties' points of view) and/or the "economic or strategic benefits of development either defending or criticizing" (from the more powerful—often the polluters'—point of view). To contribute to existing research, this paper intends to enlarge the analytical scope and use the formation of regional environmental governance to grasp a broader picture of the complexity and interconnectivity of ecological issues, regional history, and politics. For analysis, we investigated the multilevel gaps in environmental communication at three different levels, exploring both the conflictual and cooperative relationships amongst all actors involved, namely (a) state-to-state relations: hydro-hegemonism due to the power disparity in historical and political contexts; (b) society level: authoritarian environmentalism between politics and citizens; and (c) global inter-connectivity or distance from (or the absence of) the application of international norms. We argue that all three cases, albeit at various degrees, equally exhibit the potential to fill the multidimensional gaps to ensure more functional, effective, and equitable regional hydro-governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A call for papers on sustainability in small and medium-sized business enterprises in Asia and Africa.

This paper breaks new ground by looking at the role played by merchant empires, such as the Dutch East India Company (VOC), in shaping European interactions with the non-Western world. It offers a critique of the English School's state-centric narrative of the expansion of international society by looking to how the VOC and its expansion in Asia influenced developments within Europe. As a non-state actor, the VOC developed networks of trade and power, which were intertwined with the Dutch struggle against Iberian hegemony. As this paper shows, the development of international law, sovereign equality and European international society needs to be understood as being constituted through these colonial encounters. Looking to the VOC as a merchant empire presents a more nuanced approach to the expansion narrative that recognises that states, empires and early modern companies developed in a co-evolutionary manner. This critical approach calls for the recognition of international society as an ongoing process formed by the contestation of hybrid cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schools provide an ideal setting for early, accessible intervention according to research conducted in developed countries for adolescents experiencing adverse mental health (MH). Many schools in South Asia, however, lack structured and standardized school counselling services. Research indicates that where services do exist, students are reluctant to access them due to perceived high risks and low benefits in MH help seeking. This paper explores the challenges experienced in MH provision from the perspective of school counsellors. A qualitative approach was chosen, and three main themes emerged from the data using the thematic analysis: negative perceptions of MH and counselling, the unwillingness to invest in MH services, and the challenges inherent in the system itself. The findings reveal cultural implications behind these challenges and suggest grassroots level initiatives that can be implemented within schools to reduce the barriers to service provision without the need for legislative changes at a national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying and explaining changes in the prehistoric material and social world is one of the greatest research interests in archaeology, palaeoclimate and environmental science. In the last two decades or so, a considerable number of studies have made significant contributions to the associated disciplines in eastern Asian archaeology. However, due to the more specialised scientific approaches and the rapid accumulation of new excavation materials, it becomes increasingly difficult for scholars to examine and correlate research outputs from different areas and achieve a holistic picture of the past. Using eastern Asian archaeology as an example, this Special Issue aims to break down the disciplinary boundaries and present the current research debate on how to correlate different climate, environmental and social changes and explain human past. One of the fundamental issues is the lack of adequate chronological resolution to order various archaeological events. To tackle this, a large number of radiocarbon dates, primarily derived from short- lived materials, are provided in the Special Issue. A great variety of changes in local environment, agricultural practice, animal husbandry, technologies, migration, demography and social organisations are revealed in the following papers but there are two profound drivers to all of these changes. One is the broad climate change since the start of the Holocene and the other is the communication between the West and the East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the population transition model for Vietnam, based on Grover's five stages of population transition. Compatible with the transitional model of Western Europe and other advanced Asian countries, this process in Vietnam has some significant differences: (a) the initial shift or transition of fertility of the population in Vietnam is later than in Asian countries by about 13 years while compared to Europe it is nearly 108 years later; and (b) while the period of initial transition of mortality in Vietnam may not be very different from other Asian countries, it is more than 100 years later than in European countries, especially those in Western Europe. One of the main factors influencing the late transition of Vietnam's population process is, of course, colonialism and the consecutive wars (1945–1954 and 1955–1975). After 1975, Vietnam's population was stable as industrialisation and urbanisation led to the development of health services, education and an urban lifestyle, as well as effective population policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the relentless logic of commodification has served to undermine a key element of the social cement of contemporary capitalism: home ownership. In addressing this issue, the paper explores the development of the post war ‘social project’ of home ownership with particular reference to mature home ownership societies such as the USA, Japan, Britain and Australia. The paper then outlines the new fault lines and fractures which have emerged in post-crisis home ownership systems and the way in which a more vigorous, financialised private landlordism has emerged from the debris of the subprime meltdown. A key argument is that in a new and more intensified process of housing commodification, the social project promise of home ownership for a previous generation has shifted to a promise of private landlordism for current generations. In summary, the social project of Keynesian-embedded liberalism has been undermined by the economic project of neoliberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A comprehensive and integrative view of East Asian monsoon evolution during the Holocene is still under debate, and additional high-resolution proxy records from climatically sensitive locations are requisite to solve this complex issue. In this paper, we present three well-dated mud/peat cores from a paleo-pingo depression in the Sanjiang Plain, a climatically sensitive region to monsoon variation, to reveal the paleoenvironmental history of the wetland and discuss the regional impacts from monsoon evolution. A paleolake developed in the study area before 5.5 ka BP, and a peatland initiated thereafter consequent upon the gradual shrinking of the paleolake. This transition lasted until 4.5 ka BP, when the paleolake changed entirely to a wetland. Considering the prevalent monsoon climate in the Sanjiang Plain, we suggest that the lake-to-wetland transition from 5.5 to 4.5 ka BP indicates a rapid decline of the East Asian summer monsoon in addition to autogenic basin infilling processes. Such a remarkable monsoon weakening event has been documented across northern China, and we associate this with ocean–atmosphere interactions throughout low-latitude regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent special issue of The Holocene, Miller et al. review the evidence for the spread of millet (Panicum miliaceum and Setaria italica) across Eurasia. Among their arguments, they contend that millet cultivation came to Eurasian regions with hot, dry summers when irrigation was introduced, as part of a region-wide shift toward agricultural intensification in the first millennium BC. This hypothesis seems to align with the pattern of agricultural change observed in the Khorezm oasis, a Central Asian polity of the first millennium BC and first millennium AD. While we wholeheartedly accept this hypothesis for its explanatory value regarding trends across Eurasia, in this paper we nevertheless suggest that the introduction of millet to Central Asia needs further explication. Specifically, we seek to address the underlying assumption that this introduction was predicated upon centrally organized, state-level land development, increased sedentism, and the rise of Mesopotamian-style social complexity. We describe how millet cultivation in Khorezm was preceded by multi-resource strategies that included the cultivation of summer crops, and emphasize that this earlier history mattered significantly to the evolution of Khorezmian society and agriculture in the first millennium BC. In contrast to the imperial systems of West Asia, in Khorezm the introduction of complex irrigation works supported the expansion and greater stratification of pre-existing agropastoral lifeways, and helped to buttress the rise of nomadic elites within an agrarian zone. We believe the example of Khorezm is important because it helps to explain the emergence of integrated mobilesedentist societies in the first millennium AD in Central Asia as a result of agricultural change. It also provides cultural and historical context to the spread of millet cultivation in the first millennium BC, suggesting that this phenomenon had significantly different implications for societies across Eurasia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a conceptual framework for increasing understanding of how teachers can contribute to a sustainable bullying-free learning environment in schools. Based on a review and analysis of extant literature, the paper argues for the facilitating roles of mindful social emotional learning implementation and teacher–student relationship quality in building and sustaining a bullying-free learning environment, which can impact the victim of a bullying act, the bully and their peers. The analysis leads to the research and practical implications that conclude the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents an analysis of the growth and diversification of international involvement in urban planning and development in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Over the past decade, a multiplicity of mainly intra-Asian connections have emerged alongside the continued involvement of Western donor aid. The paper shows how various forms of international finance capital, development capital and local capital vie for influence amongst a loose assemblage of alliances and conflicts linking elements of the Cambodian government, international donors and Cambodian and intra-Asian private-sector actors. The paper highlights the on-going efforts of government–private-sector alliances to ‘world’ Phnom Penh and to assert a greater claim to its significance in the world. These desires are seen to have overridden plans produced in partnership with the development sector. Attention is drawn to the intra-Asian mobilities through which these processes operate and which, in doing so, contribute to the on-going unsettling of existing geographies of urban knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines how growing conservatism among Muslims in Malaysia has been manifested in the architecture and urban design of Putrajaya, Malaysia’s new capital. Rather than drawing on vernacular design traditions or developing a design idiom that recognises a religiously and ethnically diverse population, the state has recently adopted a fantasy Middle Eastern style for secular national buildings in Putrajaya. In this paper, recent architectural change is examined as a manifestation of social, political and religious trends as well as a demonstration of how Putrajaya’s design can reinforce existing social hierarchies and legitimise the ideological agenda of the state. It is suggested that there are various reasons for the adoption of ‘High Islam’ that relate to broader transnational religious change, Malaysian identity politics and nation-building, and lingering influences of the colonial occupation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For well over a century, scholars from across the social and biological sciences have been trying to understand the origins and spread of agriculture. This debate is often intertwined with discussions of climate change and human environmental impact. Over the past decade, this debate has spread into Central Eurasia, from western China to Ukraine and southern Russia to Turkmenistan, a part of the world often thought to have been largely dominated by pastoralists. A growing interest in the prehistory of Central Eurasia has spurred a new chapter in the origins of agriculture debate; archaeobotanical research is showing how important farming practices in this region were in regard to the spread of crops across the Old World. While early people living in Central Eurasia played an influential role in shaping human history, there is still limited understanding of the trajectories of social evolution among these populations. In March 2015, 30 leading scholars from around the globe came together in Berlin, Germany, to discuss the introduction and intensification of agriculture in Central Eurasia and adjacent regions. At the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, DAI), these scholars presented novel data on topics covering East, South, and Central Asia, spanning a wide realm of methodological approaches. The present special edition volume deals with a selection of the papers given at this conference, and it marks a significant step toward recognizing the contribution of Central Eurasian populations in the spread and development of agricultural systems over the course of the Holocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Special Issue takes on a new cross-regional comparison between Southern Europe and East Asia in an attempt to identify ‘new politics’ of welfare state adjustments. Departing from the previous literature that overemphasized regional peculiarities of East Asian and Southern European welfare states, our Special Issue highlights family resemblances – among Italy, Japan, Korea and Spain. We argue that these four welfare states – often labelled as ‘familialist’ – share key common characteristics, which in turn experienced very similar policy problems in recent years. Interestingly, despite their initial similarities, these four countries have been trying to cope with new policy problems in different ways. In this process, some are clearly becoming less familialist. The main aim of this introductory article is to demonstrate the theoretical advantages based on the new cross-regional comparison. This article proceeds in three steps. First, it establishes the usefulness of the concept of family resemblances in our cross-regional comparison. Second, it presents a brief historical account of recent policy differences across the four countries going beyond familialism and shows that the existing theories fail to account for the new divergences. Third, it provides the overview of the Special Issue by explaining the research puzzles each paper tackles. We argue that these four welfare states, which are moving beyond familialism to varying degrees, represent heuristically helpful cases to explore the effects of both domestic and international political factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines three controversies that revolve around the Hong Kong government's efforts to privatise components of its property assets in the years following the Asian financial crisis in 1997. While the rolling back of welfare and privatisation of public goods are typical features of the 'neo-liberal turn', the consequences of and responses to these processes are highly contingent upon specific historical experience and social practices. By examining the narratives of different actors over the course of these controversies, this paper aims to elucidate the contradictions and mutual entanglements between the ideology of neo-liberalism and everyday discourse and how the contestation in each of the three cases worked to reshape and ultimately to preserve the existing regime of legitimation. It also illustrates how the long-running 'laissez-faire' principles of Hong Kong's colonial period have contributed to the ongoing absorption of political critique, thus exposing the limits of 'people power'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the most remarkable events in the world during the last half-century has been the notable economic growth, social transformation and poverty reduction that has taken place in Asia. The March 2002 issue of the 'Journal of Asian & African Studies,' contains nine papers, authored by economists, sociologists and anthropologists, covering five countries in the region including India, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. These papers suggest that rather than making land reform the centerpiece of the strategy for rural development and poverty reduction, the government should give priority to investments in physical and social infrastructures, agricultural research and technology transfer and enforcement of contractual arrangements and property rights. The paper by Saurabh Sinha, Michael Lipton and Shahin Yaqub is closely related to the Baulch and McCulloch paper in that it also is concerned with transitory changes in household welfare.

It is widely recognised that the 21st century is seeing a geopolitical shift in global power relations towards Asia, particularly China. This has led Australia to officially embrace Asia as its regional home. But the neoliberal economic logic underpinning this embrace leads to a narrowly transactional conception of Australia’s relationship to Asia, governed by an opportunity/threat dichotomy. By contrast, this article describes Sydney’s Chinatown today as an increasingly hybrid, porous and transnational space of uneven and mixed-up, embodied Asian-Australianness. Juxtaposing the dynamic on-the-ground reality of this contemporary Chinatown with government discourse on Australia’s relationship to Asia, as exemplified by the 2012 White Paper Australia in the Asian Century, illuminates that Australia is not yet at home in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides another look at the response of the Asian summer monsoon (ASM) to insolation forcing and oceanic feedback during the Holocene, using a fully coupled general circulation ocean–atmosphere model forced by Earth’s orbital variations. The model results revealed a recurrent circumglobal teleconnection (CGT) pattern in the summertime (June–July–August) mid-latitude circulation of the Northern Hemisphere during the Holocene. The CGT index showed a decreasing trend before ~5 ka BP and a slight increasing trend afterwards, affected by the combined effects of summer insolation, Indian summer monsoon (ISM), North Atlantic and Indian Ocean–western Pacific Ocean sea surface temperature (SST). The CGT showed a close relationship with ASM precipitation and surface air temperature during the Holocene and, therefore, could act as a bridge linking the ASM to insolation, high-latitude forcing (North Atlantic SST), and low-latitude forcing (tropical Ocean SST). We emphasize that the mid-latitude atmospheric circulation has been a key factor for the evolution of the ASM during the Holocene. In addition, the CGT provides a viable explanation for the out-of-phase relationship in the moisture evolution but an in-phase relationship in the speleothem δ18O between arid central Asia and the ISM region during the Holocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the reform trajectory of financial supervision in South Korea after the 1980s, focusing on external and internal political–economic factors. Research results indicate that the changed economic landscape led the government, which once utilized financial supervision as a tool to support industrial policy, to alter its aims and pursue the development of the financial market itself. During this transformational process, the 1997 Asian financial crisis functioned as a powerful stimulus for the reform of the previous supervisory system. The process was also marked by social actors’ efforts to affect related policies and the government’s efforts to control the reform process, as well as confrontations between organizations that supported contradictory reform plans. A multi-strategy approach including in-depth interviews with a senior staff member from a government financial regulatory agency, literature reviews, and secondary data collection, was adopted in order to enhance the validity and reliability of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent years have seen increased academic attention in urban studies on the flows of city artefacts and images. Conceptualised as ‘immutable mobiles’, the Macao Pavilion and its associated objects on show at Shanghai Expo 2010 are examined for the ways they encouraged and regulated uniformed flows of people and city images. Specifically, these immutable mobiles projected Macao’s lofty dreams of paradoxical affinity to and difference from mainland China—the city is a steadfast Special Administrative Region of China, but the immigration flow of Chinese citizens has been tightly regulated. This paper unpacks the ways in which urban actants articulate and perform such contradictory imaginings of the (im)mobilities of this post-colonial territory. Accordingly, it provides a basis for further study of post-colonial conditions in Macao, and adds to post-colonial research on mobilities in and of Chinese urban spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Aiwha Ong and Nancy Chen’s anthology Asian Biotech (Duke, 2010) wonderfully and incisively captures the initial results of a period of intense investment throughout much of Northeast, South and Southeast Asia in the most recent two to three decades in the emerging biosciences, grouping its collection of papers according to broad thematic clusters. Documenting a series of diverse, changing practices with respect to the use of bodies and human tissues in clinical trials, the related establishment of blood and tissue storage facilities, and even cutting-edge efforts to work with HESC technologies, the volume offers a comprehensive view of a rapidly emerging field in a part of the world that has only recently begun to appear as a major contributor to global techno-scientific activity, with state actors frequently leading the mobilization efforts. Juxtaposed against this thematic content, this review seeks to place the volume in conversation with a longer history, especially existing work in the history of the life sciences, which has until now been dominated by accounts of laboratories primarily based in the West. Rich with implications for a changing ethical practice driven by material changes in medical and scientific practice, Asian Biotech initiates any number of debates to open up a new field of inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In many land-scarce Asian cities, planning agencies have sought to reduce space for the dead to release land for the living, encouraging conversion from burial to cremation over several decades. This has caused secular principles privileging efficient land use to conflict with symbolic values invested in burial spaces. Over time, not only has cremation become more accepted, even columbaria have become overcrowded, and new forms of burials (sea and woodland burials) have emerged. As burial methods change, so too do commemorative rituals, including new on-line and mobile phone rituals. This paper traces the ways in which physical spaces for the dead in several east Asian cities have diminished and changed over time, the growth of virtual space for them, the accompanying discourses that influence these dynamics and the new rituals that emerge concomitantly with the contraction of land space. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the comparative research we present here as the introduction to a set of case studies, we first assess the quality of democratic procedures, content and outcomes in eight countries in the Asia-Pacific region on the basis of quantitative and qualitative data. Second, we investigate whether, to what extent, and how democratic qualities relate to one another. These investigations are carried out by applying an analytical framework that we developed elsewhere. In contrast to our previous empirical findings demonstrating that all the qualities go hand in hand, that participation and competition are the main determinants of democratic qualities, and that the democratic qualities form a funnel of causality, the present study suggests a different set of conclusions. In the Asia-Pacific region, the democratic qualities are weakly related to one another, do not form a funnel of causality, and participation and competition are not the main drivers of democratic quality. The data presented in the empirical section of the paper claim the existence of an Asia-Pacific exceptionalism. By carefully examining the cases included in our sample, we provide a detailed explanation for why, at least as far as democratic qualities are concerned, the Asia-Pacific region may be exceptional and unique. We reach the conclusion that responsiveness could be achieved by a transition from a rule by law – often coupled with the prominence of patronage, patrimonialist practices and privileges for the elite – to a proper rule of law. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focuses on recent developments in ‘ideal-typical’ welfare analysis, including findings on East Asia, Eastern Central Europe and, for the first time, Latin America. The characteristics of a new ideal-typical welfare regime in large parts of Latin America are singled out, looking at key features of major welfare state systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the pattern of the upper level of the world city network of knowledge as published in a series of earlier papers. The authors' aim is to update the findings and relate to the general world city discussion. The article addresses how the structure of the world cities of knowledge network has changed since 2000 in favour of south-east Asian and south European cities. The authors use bibliometric data on the world's 100 largest cities measured in terms of research output. The article also discusses the concept of world cities as an understanding that many cities are global service centres.

People today live within the context of a globalized world with people of many cultures and religions living together. This intermixing of peoples, cultures, societies and religions creates the opportunity for different religions and thoughts to combine into new perspectives and develop a more relevant Christianity. The basic tenets of Asian culture, religion and thought can instruct and develop theology so that theology can remain relevant to our modern world. In particular, the Asian understanding of Chi can nurture a stronger theological perspective of the Holy Spirit. This paper will examine Chi and illustrate the similarities it shares with the Holy Spirit to work towards a pneumatology which will encourage people to live harmoniously and peacefully with one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasingly significant role that English language teaching (ELT) is playing in Asian contexts, it is important to gain a better understanding of the use of English as a medium of intercultural communication in Asia. In doing so, ELT practices may be better able to adapt themselves to the intercultural communicative needs of local contexts. This paper argues that an essential element in fostering successful intercultural communication is developing cultural awareness as part of ELT pedagogy. To illustrate this, a case study of Thailand is presented examining English use, English teaching policy and practice, and local cultural attitudes towards ELT. This then leads to suggestions on how locally relevant intercultural communicative practices can form part of ELT classroom pedagogy in Thailand with the aim of developing learners' cultural awareness. It is argued that similar analyses may be applied to other Asian contexts, which may share features with the Thai context. This can lead to the development of teaching practices, which through engaging learners in intercultural reflection will result in English language users who are better able to manage intercultural communication through English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Most studies agree that mental illness brings a heavy objective and subjective burden of care on the family and especially the caregivers. However, very little attention has been paid to the wider context in which this burden is shaped and sustained. Material: In-depth interviews were conducted with 11 caregivers in Hong Kong and Taiwan and subsequent analysis identified four major themes: mystical knowledge beyond understanding, persistent self-blame and lay explanation, inertia of caregivers and non-responsive service system, and unsatisfying encounters with medical staff. Discussion: The results of the study indicate that these families did not get the services they needed. In spite of recounting many system failures, most respondents attributed their situation to tragedy and misfortune at personal and family levels. Such a discourse is closely connected to a wider context of health and social care. The Hong Kong subjects complained more, felt more helpless, and had more persistent self-blame and lay explanation than the Taiwanese subjects. Conclusions: To reduce such experiences, this paper calls for inclusive policies for the family, new education strategies and reflections on the roles of mental health professionals in empowerment and advocacy beyond conventional treatment, counseling and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of catchment-scale stream rehabilitation programmes in many parts of the world marks a shift from the application of reach-based engineering principles towards an adoption of ecosystem-centred, adaptive and participatory approaches to river management. From a biophysical viewpoint, this represents recognition of the importance of the inherent geodiversity of aquatic ecosystems and the benefits that are gained through enhancing natural recovery mechanisms. As this approach to river management matures, it is important that its key elements and assumptions are subjected to critical appraisal. In this paper, the main features of contemporary catchment-wide programmes are examined through a review of pertinent literature and through examination of various case studies from North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Emerging challenges and tensions include those of generating an authentic and functional biophysical vision at the catchment scale, of developing a proactive adaptive management approach, of achieving genuine community participation and of integrating biophysical and social factors in a transdisciplinary framework. Issues of scale, natural variability and complexity must be addressed in meeting these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following a description of the changing roles of library and information professionals, this paper will cover the issues of the What? and How? of education and training courses for such professionals, and the developments of distance learning programmes and virtual learning environments. Finally, case studies based on the author's experiences in education and training programmes in Wales, Slovakia and in the Asia-Pacific region will be described. Such courses are examples of attempts to ensure that today's library and information professionals are well prepared to meet the challenges of the future.

Highlights the 5th Asian Congress of Sexology held in Seoul, South Korea from November 25-27, 1998. Panel discussion on sex education; Background on the research papers submitted at the congress; Lecture on Korean sexuality and nationalism.