What's New?

• What does the New Government of Japan Mean for Australia?

  At a general election on 30 August, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) for the first time received the largest number of votes of any party in the House of Representatives, and the Liberal Democractic Party which had been in power more or less continuosly since 1955 lost office. The DPJ, which now controls both the upper and lower houses of the Diet, duly formed a coalition with two small parties, the Social Democratic Party and People's New Party, and was sworn in on 16 September. Having promised a new syle of government and criticised its predecessor for fostering excessive bureaucratic influence over government policy, and with a distinctively “progressive” philosophy, what does the new Japanese Government presage for Australia and Australia-Japan relationship?

• The Great Crash of 2008: Podcast

  Public forum to discuss The Great Crash of 2008 by Ross Garnaut, with David Llewellyn-Smith, Melbourne University Press, to be released on 12 October 2009.

• Vietnam Update 2009: Migration Nation

  19-20 November 2009
  University House Common Room
  Australian National University, Canberra

• Trade and Industry in Asia Pacific
  Registration now open

• Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, Issue 22

  Title: 'Face(t)s of Woman: Gender in the Indian Cultural Context', guest edited by Subhash Chandra

• China Heritage Quarterly

  Announcing Issue Nineteen
  FOCUS ON: The Heritage of T'ien Hsia, All-Under-Heaven

• Call for Papers - PIPSA Conference on 'Pacific Democracy. What's Happening?'

  3-4 December 2009 in Auckland, New Zealand

• Asia Pacific Week 2010

  8-11 February

• Tenth International Women in Asia Conference

  Crisis, Agency, and Change
  29 September � 1 October 2010
  ANU College of Asia and the Pacific
  The Australian National University, Canberra