Artigos de revistas sobre o tema "Southern Seaboard Development Project (Thailand)"

The Thai government’s project called “Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC)” was announced in 2016 to stimulate economic development and help the country escape from the middle-income trap. The project provides investment incentives for the private sector and the infrastructure development of land, rail, water, and air transportation. The EEC project encompasses three provinces in the eastern region of Thailand because of their strategic locations near deep seaports and natural resources in the Gulf of Thailand. Clearly, this policy will lead to dramatic changes in land uses and the livelihoods of the people in these three provinces. However, the extent to which land use changes will occur because of this project remains unclear. This study aims to analyze land use changes in the eastern region of Thailand using a Cellular Automata–Markov model. The results show that land uses of the coastal areas have become more urbanized than inland areas, which are primarily agricultural lands. The predicted land uses suggest shrinking agricultural lands of paddy fields, field crops, and horticulture lands but expanding perennial lands. These changes in land uses highlight challenges in urban administration and management as well as threats to Thailand’s agricultural cultures in the future.

The struggle of villagers in the Chana district of southern Thailand to resist the construction of the Trans Thai-Malaysia gas pipeline and its various spin-off industries illustrates some of the ways in which questions of ethnic, religious and class conflict are tightly bound up with industrial development, the global financial sector and human rights abuses. While the Thai elite and international investors portray the project as `socially responsible', the protesting villagers have increasingly turned to Islamic principles of waqf — land designated as given over to God and therefore available for common use — to articulate their opposition.

The impact of climate change and related hazards such as floods, heatwaves, and sea level rise on human lives, cities, and their hinterlands depends not only on the nature of the hazard, but also on urban development, adaptation, and other socioeconomic processes that determine vulnerability and exposure. Spatial planning can reduce climate risk not just by influencing the exposure, but also by addressing social vulnerability. This requires that relevant information is available to planners and that plans are implemented and coordinated between sectors. This article is based on a research project in Thailand, particularly on the results of multi-sectoral workshops in the case study region of the Andaman Coast in southern Thailand, and draws upon climate risk, spatial planning, and systems thinking discourses. The article formulates recommendations for planning in the context of Thailand that are relevant for other rapidly growing and urbanizing regions. Among other conclusions, it suggests that systems thinking approaches and cross-sectoral strategies are a way to grasp the interdependencies between and within climate risk and spatial development challenges.

For English as a Foreign Language learners, writing is often considered a difficult skill to grasp with. Studies show that both EFL learners and teachers face similar challenges in developing EFL writing ability. This includes inadequate exposure to English, class size, insufficient knowledge of how language works in context, and mother tongue interferences which are believed to be the major challenges for both learners and teachers. This paper reports on an action research project aiming to identify the overall development of pre-service teachers’ skills in writing discussion texts and explore how the Reading to Learn (R2L) intervention helps these teachers develop their control over the target genre. Under the R2L approach, thirty (30) second-year teachers majoring in English language teaching at the Prince of Songkla University, Pattani Campus involved in the study. Results of the study suggest that the teachers writing skill gap was relatively neutralised after the intervention. In addition, the development of the pre-service teachers’ control over the target genre and language features is evident in text analysis. Upon the intervention, it is found that the teachers developed better control of the features of the discussion genre. Specifically, they developed their control over the stages, phases, appraisal resources, and periodicity which are crucial to establishing well-presented rhetorical features of a discussion text. In relation to the results, some recommendations are proposed for further research, including applying R2L intervention program in the mainstream education in Thailand.

AbstractThis paper compares the ethnic (indigenous) movements in northern Thailand with the violent conflict in the southernmost provinces of the country, and considers how these movements relate to both the state and the local population. The construction of the nation as an 'imagined community' is a project of the national political elites. Similarly, the construction of an ethnic identity emerges from the local elites. This implies that national integration and minority formation are simultaneous processes, in which national elites enforcing a national identity confront local elites constructing minority identities. The potential conflict is reduced through co-opting the local elites into the ruling system. This has not been the case for the ethnic minorities of the north. There they either define themselves as representatives of the minorities, or monopolise administrative positions established through decentralisation policies. In the south the conflict in which the local elites lost their power positions dates back decades, if not centuries. There too co-optation did not take place until the 1980s. Then a relative pacification set in, when possibilities for political participation for these elites improved. The conflict escalated again when these possibilities were reduced after the election in 2001 with a new government policy.

To most Australians, Burma is still associated with the Second World War, and in particular the infamous ‘death railway’ from Thailand. In May 1942 some 3,000 Australian prisoners of war (POWs) were sent from Singapore, to provide labour for the construction of an airfield at Tavoy. They were subsequently joined by another 1,800 or so Australians from Java, making a total in southern Burma of 4,851 men. Together with other Allied prisoners and Burmese levies they were later put to work building a railway line over Three Pagodas Pass, to link Burma with the Siam-Malaya railway system. Before the project was completed in November 1943, 771 Australian POWs (nearly 16 per cent of those on the Burma side of the border) had died from disease, malnutrition and the brutality of their Japanese captors. Casualties among the POWs working on the railway in Thailand were even higher.

The research “teaching and learning process by integrating information and communication technology for Islamic private schools in the three southernmost provinces of Thailand in the 21st Century" aimed to determine the integration of information technology for the design and development of innovative forms of teaching in line with the current situation of Islamic private schools in the three southern border provinces. The research scope focused on the development process for teachers to develop innovative forms of teaching to enable learners with lifelong learning skills. Teachers also were able to apply ICT in designing and developing innovative models for teaching to meet the 21st century skills. The participation and action research methods were used by allowing teachers to play a researcher’s role in conducting joint research with the team. Project-based learning instruction method with ICT integrated was used. The results of this research is the innovative model of teaching that integrated information technology to provide students with the 21st century skills which is the 4P-2E model. The impacts of this research to learners are: (1) Learners are creative, they enjoy the project-based learning and the integration of ICT in learning. (2) Learners are able to extend their own knowledge and are equipped with the 21st century skills and (3) Learning achievement of learners has improved significantly. Keywords: 4P-2E Model, Teaching and learning process, ICT integration, Innovative teaching and learning, Project-based learning

The aim of the research is to analyse the effects on agricultural water demand in the Lower Pak Phanang River Basin area due to climate change. The climate data used in the analysis were rainfall, maximum, minimum, and average temperatures. The climate datasets were obtained from statistical downscaling of global circulation model under the CMIP5 project by means of bias correction with Optimizing Quantile Mapping implemented by the Hydro and Agro Informatics Institute. To determine agriculture water demand, reference evapotranspiration (ETo) based on Hargreaves method was calculated for both baseline climate data (1987-2015) and forecasted climate data in 2038. For agriculture water demand in the Pak Phanang river basin, we considered paddy field, palm oil, rubber, grapefruit, orchard, vegetable, ruzy and biennial crop, based on land use data of the Land Development Department of Thailand in 2012. The results showed that forecasted agriculture water demand in 2038 with existing land use data in 2012 will be increased with the average of 18.9% or 61.78 MCM as compared to baseline climate condition. Both water demand and supply management measures would be suitably prepared before facing unexpected situation.

In Thailand, the populations of a commercially important crab Portunus pelagicus (Linnaeus, 1758) have been decreasing due to overfishing, raising concerns about the conservation efforts of this crab species. The Crab Bank Project has recently been established to restore crab populations by releasing crab larvae from each crab bank station. However, the fate of crab larvae after the release is poorly understood. Here, we assessed the dispersal and settlement patterns of the larvae P. pelagicus released from crab banks along the coast of Trang Province, Southern Thailand. The Lagrangian particle tracking model was employed to simulate the larval dispersal and settlement patterns after release from the crab banks during the inter-monsoon, southwest monsoon, and northeast monsoon. Our simulation revealed that virtual larvae were predominantly retained within inshore areas after the release for 14 days, regulated by tidal-driven currents, wind-induced currents, and local coastal topography. Monsoon periods affected the larval dispersal, with some larvae being transported into estuaries due to the SW monsoonal effects. After the 14-day release period, our modelled simulations suggested that the crab larvae arrived at numerous seagrass meadows along the coast, indicating potential settlement and growth. This result highlights the connectivity of sources and sinks for crab larvae after release from crab banks. Moreover, significant implications for conservation efforts and the fishery management of P. pelagicus were also discussed based on our modelled simulations.

AbstractAgricultural settlement geared to capitalist commodity production and accompanied by massive ecological interventions has historically been central to the Zionist colonial project of creating a permanent Jewish presence in the “Land of Israel.” The hyperarid southern region known as the Central Arabah is an instructive edge-case: in the 1960s, after the expulsion of the bedouin population, cooperative settlements were established here and vegetables produced through “Hebrew self-labor,” with generous assistance from the state. In the 1990s the region was again transformed as the importation of migrant workers from Thailand enabled farmers to expand cultivation of bell peppers for global markets. But today ecological destruction, depletion of water resources, and global warming cast doubt over the viability of settlement in this climatically extreme region. I locate the settlements of the Arabah within the historical political ecology of the Zionist movement, arguing that their current fragility exposes the essential precarity of capitalist colonization.

Abstract. The primary background for the present study was a project to assist the authorities in Thailand with development of plans for how to deal with the future tsunami risk in both short and long term perspectives, in the wake of the devastating 26 December 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake and tsunami. The study is focussed on defining and analyzing a number of possible future earthquake scenarios (magnitudes 8.5, 8.0 and 7.5) with associated return periods, each one accompanied by specific tsunami modelling. Along the most affected part of the western coast of Thailand, the 2004 tsunami wave caused a maximum water level ranging from 5 to 15 m above mean sea level. These levels and their spatial distributions have been confirmed by detailed numerical simulations. The applied earthquake source is developed based on available seismological and geodetic inversions, and the simulation using the source as initial condition agree well with sea level records and run-up observations. A conclusion from the study is that another megathrust earthquake generating a tsunami affecting the coastline of western Thailand is not likely to occur again for several hundred years. This is in part based on the assumption that the Southern Andaman Microplate Boundary near the Simeulue Islands constitutes a geologic barrier that will prohibit significant rupture across it, and in part on the decreasing subduction rates north of the Banda Ache region. It is also concluded that the largest credible earthquake to be prepared for along the part of the Sunda-Andaman arc that could affect Thailand, is within the next 50–100 years an earthquake of magnitude 8.5, which is expected to occur with more spatial and temporal irregularity than the megathrust events. Numerical simulations have shown such earthquakes to cause tsunamis with maximum water levels up to 1.5–2.0 m along the western coast of Thailand, possibly 2.5–3.0 m on a high tide. However, in a longer time perspective (say more than 50–100 years) the potentials for earthquakes of similar magnitude and consequences as the 2004 event will become gradually larger and eventually posing an unacceptable societal risk. These conclusions apply only to Thailand, since the effects of an M 8.5 earthquake in the same region could be worse for north-western Sumatra, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, maybe even for Sri Lanka and parts of the Indian coastline. Moreover, further south along the Sunda arc the potentials for large ruptures are now much higher than for the region that ruptured on 26 December 2004.

For long-term food sustainability and security, it is crucial to recognize and preserve Indigenous rice varieties and their diversity. Yoom Noon is one of the non-glutinous rice (Oryza sativa L.) varieties being conserved as part of the Phanang Basin Area Development Project, which is administered by the Royal Initiative of Nakhon Si Thammarat in Southern Thailand. The goal of this research was to compare the nutritional profiles of Yoom Noon white rice, brown rice, and germinated brown rice. The results indicated that carbohydrate content was found to be the most plentiful macronutrient in all processed Yoom Noon rice types, accounting for 67.1 to 81.5% of the total. White rice had the highest carbohydrate content (p < 0.05), followed by brown rice and germinated brown rice. Brown rice had more protein and fat than white rice (p < 0.05). The maximum protein, dietary fiber, and ash content were found in germinated brown rice, followed by brown rice and white rice (p < 0.05). White rice had the highest amylose content, around 24% (p < 0.05), followed by brown rice (22%), and germinated brown rice (20%). Mg levels in all white, brown, and germinated brown rice ranged from 6.59 to 10.59 mg/100 g, which was shown to be the highest among the minerals studied (p < 0.05). Zn (4.10–6.18 mg/100 g) was the second most abundant mineral, followed by Fe (3.45–4.92 mg/100 g), K (2.61–3.81 mg/100 g), Mn (1.20–4.48 mg/100 g), Ca (1.14–1.66 mg/100 g), and Cu (0.16–0.23 mg/100 g). Se was not found in any processed Yoom Noon rice. Overall, brown rice had the highest content of macro- and micronutrients (p < 0.05). In all processed rice, thiamin was found in the highest amount (56–85 mg/100 g), followed by pyridoxine (18–44 g/100 g) and nicotinamide (4–45 g/100 g) (p < 0.05). Riboflavin was not identified in any of the three types of processed Yoom Noon rice. Individual vitamin concentrations varied among processed rice, with germinated brown rice having the highest thiamine content by around 1.5 and 1.3 folds compared to white and brown rice, respectively. The GABA level was the highest in germinated rice (585 mg/kg), which was around three times higher than in brown rice (p < 0.05), whereas GABA was not detectable in white rice. The greatest total extractable flavonoid level was found in brown rice (495 mg rutin equivalent (RE)/100 g), followed by germinated brown rice (232 mg RE/100 g), while white rice had no detectable total extractable flavonoid. Brown rice had the highest phytic acid level (11.2 mg/100 g), which was 1.2 times higher than germinated brown rice (p < 0.05). However, phytic acid was not detected in white rice. White rice (10.25 mg/100 g) and brown rice (10.04 mg/100 g) had the highest non-significant rapidly available glucose (RAG) values, while germinated brown rice had the lowest (5.33 mg/100 g). In contrast, germinated brown rice had the highest slowly available glucose (SAG) value (9.19 mg/100 g), followed by brown rice (3.58 mg/100 g) and white rice (1.61 mg/100 g) (p < 0.05).

</strong></p><p><em>A new era of resolving the conflicts in the three </em><em>s</em><em>outhern border prov</em><em>i</em><em>nces of Thailand began in the time of Field Marshal Sarit Thana</em><em>r</em><em>at (1959-1963), with an assimilationist policy toward the Malay Muslims of the th</em><em>r</em><em>ee southern prov</em><em>i</em><em>nces. This involved not only assimilation through educat</em><em>i</em><em>onal</em><em>, </em><em>econom</em><em>i</em><em>c</em><em>, </em><em>and social development policies but also assimilation of the Malay Muslims in the </em><em>s</em><em>outhe</em><em>r</em><em>n border provinces with the Muslims of the central a</em><em>r</em><em>eas of Thailand through variou sgovernment projects</em><em>, </em><em>such as the </em><em>dhammacharika </em><em>project. These p</em><em>r</em><em>ojects initially began with an emphasis on the </em><em>r</em><em>eligious leaders of the communit</em><em>i</em><em>es</em><em>, </em><em>on bringing Muslim students on field trips to Bangkok</em><em>, </em><em>and on provid</em><em>i</em><em>ng instruction and training for Muslim women</em><em>. </em><em>All of these projects received support from various M</em><em>u</em><em>s</em><em>l</em><em>im as</em><em>s</em><em>oc</em><em>i</em><em>ations and organizations </em><em>in </em><em>central Thailand. Eventhough this assimilationist policy might be v</em><em>i</em><em>ewed as destroying the religio</em><em>u</em><em>s and cultural identity of Malay-Muslims in Yala</em><em>, </em><em>Pattani, and Narathiwat provinces</em><em>. </em><em>The field research data show that not only their educat</em><em>i</em><em>on routes correlate with differences of status, family background</em><em>, </em><em>class, and degree of austerity inreligious practice</em><em>, </em><em>but the differences among the Muslim countries where they studied also have important effects on their identity formation and consequent Malay-Muslim consciousness</em><em>. </em><em>All of these differences also had significant effects on their social roles and statuses after returning to work in their hometown areas, and have also had important effects on the ways </em><em>i</em><em>n which Muslim women of this area display the</em><em>i</em><em>r piety.</em></p><p><strong><em> </em></strong></p><p> Era baru menyelesaikan konflik etnik Thailand di tiga provinsi perbatasan selatan telah dimulai pada saat Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat (1959-1963), dengan kebijakan asimilasi terhadap Muslim Melayu. Hal ini tidak hanya melibatkan asimilasi melalui kebijakan pendidikan, ekonomi, dan sosial tetapi juga asimilasi Muslim Mayu dengan Muslim dari daerah Thai pusat melalui berbagai proyek pemerintah, seperti proyek <em>dhammacharika</em>. Proyek-proyek ini awalnya dimulai dengan penekanan pada para pemimpin agama dari masyarakat, untuk membawa siswa Muslim dengan kunjungan lapangan ke Bangkok, dan pelatihan bagi perempuan Muslim. Semua proyek ini mendapat dukungan dari berbagai asosiasi dan organisasi Muslim di Thailand pusat. Meskipun kebijakan asimilasi ini mungkin dipandang merusak identitas agama dan budaya Melayu-Muslim di Yala, Pattani, dan Provinsi Narathiwat. Data penelitian lapangan menunjukkan bahwa mereka mampu berkorelasi dengan perbedaan status, latar belakang keluarga, kelas, tetapi juga memiliki efek penting pada pembentukan identitas dan kesadaran Melayu-Muslim. Semua perbedaan memiliki efek yang signifikan terhadap peran setelah kembali bekerja di kampung halaman, dan juga memiliki efek penting wanita Muslim untuk menampilkan kesalehan mereka.

Shell’s Namibia Wildcat Encounters Light Oil Supermajor Shell has struck light oil with its Graff-1 exploration well offshore Namibia, according to the country’s national oil company, a partner in the probe. The National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (Namcor) confirmed the discovery. Partners in the Orange Basin well included Shell Namibia Upstream and QatarEnergy. The probe was located about 270 km away from Oranjemund, and was drilled to a total depth of 5376 m in water depths of 2000 m. The drilling operations on Graff-1 utilizing the Valaris DS-10 drillship began in early December 2021 and were completed in early February. “While we can learn a great deal from the results of Graff-1, we anticipate that further exploration activity, including a second exploration well, will be required to determine the size and recoverable potential of the identified hydrocarbons,” Namcor said. TotalEnergies has drilled the Venus-1 well in a neighboring block to the west where results are imminent. Shell Namibia Upstream operates the Graff find with 45% interest; QatarEnergy also holds a 45% stake; Namcor holds the remaining 10% interest. Namcor said extensive laboratory analyses will be performed in coming months to gain a better understanding of the reservoir quality and flow rates potentially achievable. Eni’s First Offshore Exploration Well in Abu Dhabi Strikes Gas Eni has encountered gas shows in its first exploration well, XF-002, currently drilling in offshore Block 2, northwest of Abu Dhabi, in 115 ft water depth. The interim well results indicate a range of 1.5–2.0 Tcf of raw gas in place in multiple good-quality reservoirs of the Jurassic exploration targets. The drilling operations will continue targeting the deeper exploration targets of the Khuff and Pre-Khuff formations. Eni has a 70% stake and operates offshore Block 2, which was awarded in January 2019 as a result of the first-ever competitive bid round for exploration blocks launched by ADNOC. PTTEP holds the remaining 30%. Eni has been present in Abu Dhabi since 2018. The company is the operator of three exploration licenses and has a participation with ADNOC in three offshore development and production concessions: Lower Zakum (5%), Umm Shaif and Nasr (10%), and Ghasha (25%). W&T Offshore Acquires US GOM Producing Properties W&T Offshore closed an acquisition of oil-and-gas-producing properties in US GOM from ANKOR E&P and KOA Energy. The operator paid $30.2 million for stakes in the Ship Shoal 230, South Marsh Island 27/Vermilion 191, and South Marsh Island 73 fields. The deal adds (internally estimated) proved reserves of 5.5 million BOE (69% oil) and proved and probable, or 2P, reserves of 7.6 million BOE (75% oil). The deal also adds more than 50 gross producing wells (average working interest of 80%) across the three shallow-water fields. Myanmar Coup Leads to Operator Exodus Thailand state oil and gas explorer PTTEP looks set to take over Myanmar’s biggest gas field as TotalEnergies and Chevron confirmed their exits, citing the worsening humanitarian situation following a coup. A move by PTTEP to become operator of Yadana field, in which it already has a 25.5% stake, would keep vital gas supplies flowing to Thailand and Myanmar. Both TotalEnergies and Chevron were part of a group operating the Yadana gas project off Myanmar’s southwest coast along with the Moattama Gas Transportation Company that runs a gas pipeline from the field to Myanmar’s border with Thailand. PTTEP would have an 85% stake in Yadana if it took all the interest held by TotalEnergies and Chevron. PTTEP already operates Myanmar’s smaller Zawtika field with an 80% stake; Myanmar’s state energy firm Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise holds the remaining 20%. Yadana produced 770 MMcf/D of gas in 2021, of which 570 MMcf/D was supplied to Thailand and the rest used to generate Myanmar’s electricity. New Malaysian Bid Round Launched State-owned Petronas is offering 14 exploration blocks, six clusters of discovered resource opportunities (DRO), and one cluster of late-life assets (LLA) in its Malaysia Bid Round 2022 launched in late January. The 14 exploration blocks on offer are in prolific geological provinces within the Malay, Sabah, and Sarawak basins. Most of these blocks contain existing oil and/or gas discoveries. The six DRO clusters are Meranti, Ubah, Baram Jr., A, C, and D, mostly in shallow water and near existing production infrastructure. In addition, the single LLA, which includes a cluster of three fields named the Abu Cluster, provides the opportunity for a new operator to sweat the remaining oil in place using existing facilities. Petronas is also offering technical study arrangements for two exploration areas in southern Malay Basin and northwest Sabah Basin to offer investors a better understanding of the potential of the acreages prior to submitting a bid proposal. Petronas is hosting a virtual data room which will be accessible from launch until the end of June 2022, allowing potential investors to conduct data review during the bid-round period. Equinor Secures 26 New Production Licenses Equinor has been awarded 26 new production licenses by Norway’s Ministry of Petroleum and Energy in the 2020 Award in Predefined Areas. A dozen of the licenses have the company as operator with the remaining 14 as partner. The production licenses are divided as follows: 12 in the North Sea, 10 in the Norwegian Sea, and four in the Barents Sea. In 2022, Equinor plans to take part in around 25 exploration wells, mainly near existing infrastructure. Most of the wells will be drilled in the North Sea, some in the Norwegian Sea, and a few in the Barents Sea. Petrobras Details Potiguar Cluster Asset Sale to 3R Petrobras has signed a deal to sell 100% of its interest in 22 concessions of onshore and offshore production fields, along with its infrastructure situated in the Potiguar basin (together called the Potiguar Cluster) in the Rio Grande do Norte, north of Brazil, to 3R Potiguar, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of 3R Petroleum Óleo e Gás, for $1.38 billion. The transaction also includes the Potiguar Clara Camarao refinery with a processing capacity of 39,600 BOPD. 3R Potiguar will pay Petrobras $1.04 billion at closure and four annual installments of $58.75 million each until March 2024. The agreement will require regulatory approval from Brazil’s National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas, and Biofuels (ANP). The Potiguar Basin comprises three subclusters (Canto do Amaro, Alto do Rodrigues, and Ubarana), having an aggregate of 22 fields across 19 onshore and three offshore concessions, and incorporates access to the infrastructure necessary for processing, refining, logistics, storage, transportation, and export of oil and natural gas. Ubarana subcluster concessions are in shallow waters around 10 km and 22 km off the coast of the municipality of Guamaré-RN, while subclusters Canto do Amaro and Alto do Rodrigues are onshore. The average output from three of these subclusters last year was 20,600 BOPD and 58100 m3/d of natural gas. Neptune Energy Increases Production From Gjøa Platform Production from the Neptune Energy-operated Gjøa platform in the Norwegian North Sea increased by 2 million BOE from 2020 to 2021. Gross production over the Gjøa platform ended on 42 million BOE in 2021, compared with 40 million BOE in 2020. Just over three-quarters (76%) of the production was gas, all of which is exported through the FLAGS pipeline to the St. Fergus Gas Terminal in the UK. The increased production was due mainly to production startup from the Gjøa P1 infill development in February and the Duva field tieback in August. In addition, production from the tieback field Vega, operated by Wintershall Dea, and the Gjøa field itself, has been better than expected. Estimated reserves on the Gjøa field have increased by 38% since the Plan for Development and Production was approved in 2007. Neptune expects to add a fourth tie-in field to the Gjøa facilities—Wintershall Dea’s Nova field. In addition, the operator plans to drill two exploration wells in the area and will continue to mature other nearby discoveries and exploration opportunities as tie-in candidates. Kuwait’s KUFPEC Makes First Operated Offshore Discovery in Indonesia Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company (KUFPEC) has confirmed its subsidiary KUFPEC Indonesia has made a commercial discovery of natural gas and condensate in the Anambas Block, offshore Indonesia. The discovery was made via the Anambas-2X well, which was drilled using a jackup rig in 288 ft of water to a total depth of 10,509 ft. Located in the Natuna Sea near an existing block in which KUFPEC is a partner, the Anambas Block was awarded to KUFPEC Indonesia through a competitive bidding process in 2019. The block is fully operated by KUFPEC Indonesia with 100% interest. The company conducted two drillstem tests so far, one in the Lower Gabus formation and the other in the Intra Keras formation. These tests resulted in a stabilized combined flow rate of

Climate change induced sea-level rise (SLR) is on its increase globally. Regionally the lowlands of China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and islands of the Malaysian, Indonesian and Philippine archipelagos are among the world’s most threatened regions. Sea-level rise has major impacts on the ecosystems and society. It threatens coastal populations, economic activities, and fragile ecosystems as mangroves, coastal salt-marches and wetlands. This paper provides a summary of the current state of knowledge of sea level-rise and its effects on both human and natural ecosystems. The focus is on coastal urban areas and low lying deltas in South-East Asia and Vietnam, as one of the most threatened areas in the world. About 3 mm per year reflects the growing consensus on the average SLR worldwide. The trend speeds up during recent decades. The figures are subject to local, temporal and methodological variation. In Vietnam the average values of 3.3 mm per year during the 1993-2014 period are above the worldwide average. Although a basic conceptual understanding exists that the increasing global frequency of the strongest tropical cyclones is related with the increasing temperature and SLR, this relationship is insufficiently understood. Moreover the precise, complex environmental, economic, social, and health impacts are currently unclear. SLR, storms and changing precipitation patterns increase flood risks, in particular in urban areas. Part of the current scientific debate is on how urban agglomeration can be made more resilient to flood risks. Where originally mainly technical interventions dominated this discussion, it becomes increasingly clear that proactive special planning, flood defense, flood risk mitigation, flood preparation, and flood recovery are important, but costly instruments. Next to the main focus on SLR and its effects on resilience, the paper reviews main SLR associated impacts: Floods and inundation, salinization, shoreline change, and effects on mangroves and wetlands. The hazards of SLR related floods increase fastest in urban areas. This is related with both the increasing surface major cities are expected to occupy during the decades to come and the increasing coastal population. In particular Asia and its megacities in the southern part of the continent are increasingly at risk. The discussion points to complexity, inter-disciplinarity, and the related uncertainty, as core characteristics. An integrated combination of mitigation, adaptation and resilience measures is currently considered as the most indicated way to resist SLR today and in the near future.References Aerts J.C.J.H., Hassan A., Savenije H.H.G., Khan M.F., 2000. Using GIS tools and rapid assessment techniques for determining salt intrusion: Stream a river basin management instrument. 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Purpose — Muslim communities in Thailand have lately used cash waqf as a creative strategy to raise seed money from Muslim contributors to implement religious projects such as building religious institutions like mosques and Islamic schools. The factors influencing this unique kind of giving have, to date, rarely been studied. This research attempts to examine the motivational and economic elements that impact people’s willingness to donate (WTD) cash waqf to such religious projects. Design/Methodology/Approach — The study utilised a Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) and an ordinal logistic regression method to examine the effects of various independent variables on the WTD. A validated structured questionnaire was utilised to collect primary data from 404 cash waqf donors in the southernmost provinces of Thailand. Findings — When comparing donors with medium income levels to those with higher salary levels, the findings show that donors in the higher salary category were more likely to generate a higher WTD propensity. The probability of donors’ WTD was positively influenced by any reductions in debt levels. Furthermore, factors such as belief in the afterlife, the salience of one’s Muslim identity, and the experience of a warm glow were found to have a positive impact on individuals’ WTD cash waqf to religious projects. Originality/Value — This study utilised the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) to examine the cash waqf practices, which has received limited attention in previous scholarly works. Furthermore, the variables employed in this research serve to broaden the scope of understanding in the realm of Islamic philanthropy, surpassing the confines of the attitude-intention framework. Research Limitations/Implications — The factors used in this study encompass the internal drives of potential donors. In reality, a number of external circumstances, such as the validity of the waqf project and the donor’s accessibility to other options, may have an impact on the donor’s choice. Additionally, the scope of this study was restricted to the southern border provinces of Thailand. It would be of interest to conduct additional research that broadens the sample size and geographical scope to include other regions within the country or even other countries with diverse cultural and socioeconomic contexts. This would enable the generalisation of the findings obtained from this study. Practical Implications — Waqf fundraising organisations should focus on boosting awareness among high-income, low-debt people. This population group donates more than middle- and lower-class people. Mosques and religious organisations can use a strategy to help donors reassess the spiritual benefits of waqf giving in relation to the afterlife, the reinforcement of their Muslim identity, and the emotional satisfaction of giving. These motivators will increase the likelihood of mosque donations.

The Don Sahong Hydro Power Project (DSHPP), located in the Khone Falls area of Khong District, Champasak Province, southern Laos, near the border with Cambodia, has been amongst the most controversial hydropower dams in the Mekong River Basin. Despite considerable regional and international opposition, the dam was finally constructed, becoming commercially operational in 2020. In 2011, I expressed serious concerns about the project’s potential impacts on long-distance migratory fish and associated fisheries, especially fish that migrate from Cambodia and Vietnam up the Mekong River to Laos and Thailand. However, my concerns have somewhat changed along with the circumstances, although they continue to focus on dam impacts on migratory fish. I am now particularly concerned about the indirect impacts of the DSHPP on the fishing livelihoods in the Khone Falls area, and the impacts of the dam on fish larvae and fish passing through the dam’s turbines when migrating downstream. Using a political ecology approach, this paper considers how infrastructure, in this case a large hydropower dam located on the Mekong River, has altered the spatialities associated with the project in particular ways.

05–206Chan, Tun-Pei & Hsien-Chin Liou (National Tsing Hua U, Taiwan, China), Effects of web-based concordancing instruction on EFL students' learning of verb–noun collocations. Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) (London, UK) 18.3 (2005), 231–251.05–207Chang, Mei-Mei (National Pingtung U of Science and Technology, Taiwan, China), Applying self-regulated learning strategies in a web-based instruction – an investigation of motivation perception. Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) (London, UK) 18.3 (2005), 217–230.05–208Coleman, James A. (The Open U, UK; J.A.Coleman@open.ac.uk), CALL from the margins: effective dissemination of CALL research and good practices. ReCALL (Cambridge, UK) 17.1 (2005), 18–31.05–209Eslami-Rasekh, Zohreh (Texas A and M U, USA; zeslami@coe.tamu.edu), Raising the pragmatic awareness of language learners. ELT Journal (Oxford, UK) 59.3 (2005), 199–208.05–210Foley, J. (SEAMEO RELC, Singapore; jfoley@relc.org.sg), English in…Thailand. RELC Journal (Thousand Oaks, CA, USA) 36.2 (2005), 223–234.05–211Frankenberg-Garcia, Ana (ISLA, Lisbon, Portugal; ana.frankenberg@sapo.pt), Pedagogical uses of monolingual and parallel concordances. ELT Journal (Oxford, UK) 59.3 (2005), 189–198.05–212Hansson, Thomas (U of Southern Denmark, Denmark), English as a second language on a virtual platform – tradition and innovation in a new medium. Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) (London, UK) 18.1/2 (2005), 63–79.05–213Hu, Guangwei (Nanyang Technological U, Singapore), Using peer review with Chinese ESL student writers. Language Teaching Research (London, UK) 9.3 (2005), 321–342.05–214Jung, Udo O. H. (Bonn, Germany; hmejung@gmx.de), CALL: past, present and future – a bibliometric approach. ReCALL (Cambridge, UK) 17.1 (2005), 4–17.05–215Kaltenböck, Gunther & Barbara Mehlmauer-Larcher (U of Vienna, Austria; gunther.kaltenboeck@univie.ac.at), Computer corpora and the language classroom: on the potential and limitations of computer corpora in language teaching. ReCALL (UK) 17.1 (2005), 65–84.05–216Lasagabaster, David & Juan M. Sierra (U del País Vasco-Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, Spain), Error correction: students' versus teachers' perceptions. Language Awareness (Clevedon, UK) 14.2/3 (2005), 112–128.05–217Liu, Gi-Zen (National Cheng Kung U, Taiwan, China; gizenliu@gmail.com), The trend and challenge for teaching EFL at Taiwanese universities. RELC Journal (Thousand Oaks, CA, USA) 36.2 (2005), 211–221.05–218Lundy, Garvey F. (Pennsylvania U, USA; garvey@pop.upenn.edu), School resistance in American high schools: the role of race and gender in oppositional culture theory. Evaluation & Research in Education (Clevedon, UK) 17.1 (2003), 6–30.05–219Nemtchinova, Ekaterina (Seattle Pacific U, USA; katya@spu.edu), Host teachers' evaluations of non-native-English-speaking teacher trainees: a perspective from the classroom. TESOL Quarterly (Alexandria, VA, USA) 39.2, 235–262.05–220Nickerson, Catherine, Marinel Gerritsen & Frank v. Meurs (Radboud U, Nijmegen, the Netherlands; c.nickerson@let.ru.nl), Raising student awareness of the use of English for specific business purposes in the European context: a staff–student project. English for Specific Purposes (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) 24.3 (2005), 333–345.05–221Palfreyman, David (Zayed U, Dubai, UAE), Othering in an English Language Program. TESOL Quarterly (Alexandria, VA, USA) 39.2, 211–234.05–222Sonck, Gerda (U Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium), Language of instruction and instructed languages in Mauritius. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (Clevedon, UK) 26.1 (2005), 37–51.05–223Svalberg, Agneta M. L. (U of Leicester, UK), Consciousness-raising activities in some Lebanese English language classrooms: teacher perceptions and learner engagement. Language Awareness (Clevedon, UK) 14.2/3 (2005), 170–193.05–224Wegerif, Rupert (Southampton U, UK; R.B.Wegerif@soton.ac.uk), Reason and creativity in classroom dialogues. Language and Education (Clevedon, UK) 19.3 (2005), 223–237.

Introduction The aim of this paper is to examine whether recent catastrophic tsunamis have driven a cultural shift in the awareness of Australians to the danger associated with this natural hazard and whether the media have contributed to the emergence of “tsunami” as a new Australian catastrophe. Prior to the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami disaster (2004 IOT), tsunamis as a type of hazard capable of generating widespread catastrophe were not well known by the general public and had barely registered within the wider scientific community. As a university based lecturer who specialises in natural disasters, I always started my public talks or student lectures with an attempt at a detailed description of what a tsunami is. With little high quality visual and media imagery to use, this was not easy. The Australian geologist Ted Bryant was right when he named his 2001 book Tsunami: The Underrated Hazard. That changed on 26 December 2004 when the third largest earthquake ever recorded occurred northwest of Sumatra, Indonesia, triggering the most catastrophic tsunami ever experienced. The 2004 IOT claimed at least 220,000 lives—probably more—injured tens of thousands, destroyed widespread coastal infrastructure and left millions homeless. Beyond the catastrophic impacts, this tsunami was conspicuous because, for the first time, such a devastating tsunami was widely captured on video and other forms of moving and still imagery. This occurred for two reasons. Firstly, the tsunami took place during daylight hours in good weather conditions—factors conducive to capturing high quality visual images. Secondly, many people—both local residents and westerners who were on beachside holidays and at the coast at multiple locations impacted by the tsunami—were able to capture images of the tsunami on their cameras, videos, and smart phones. The extensive media coverage—including horrifying television, video, and still imagery that raced around the globe in the hours and days after the tsunami, filling our television screens, homes, and lives regardless of where we lived—had a dramatic effect. This single event drove a quantum shift in the wider cultural awareness of this type of catastrophe and acted as a catalyst for improved individual and societal understanding of the nature and effects of disaster landscapes. Since this event, there have been several notable tsunamis, including the March 2011 Japan catastrophe. Once again, this event occurred during daylight hours and was widely captured by multiple forms of media. These events have resulted in a cascade of media coverage across television, radio, movie, and documentary channels, in the print media, online, and in the popular press and on social media—very little of which was available prior to 2004. Much of this has been documentary and informative in style, but there have also been numerous television dramas and movies. For example, an episode of the popular American television series CSI Miami entitled Crime Wave (Season 3, Episode 7) featured a tsunami, triggered by a volcanic eruption in the Atlantic and impacting Miami, as the backdrop to a standard crime-filled episode ("CSI," IMDb; Wikipedia). In 2010, Warner Bros Studios released the supernatural drama fantasy film Hereafter directed by Clint Eastwood. In the movie, a television journalist survives a near-death experience during the 2004 IOT in what might be the most dramatic, and probably accurate, cinematic portrayal of a tsunami ("Hereafter," IMDb; Wikipedia). Thus, these creative and entertaining forms of media, influenced by the catastrophic nature of tsunamis, are impetuses for creativity that also contribute to a transformation of cultural knowledge of catastrophe. The transformative potential of creative media, together with national and intergovernmental disaster risk reduction activity such as community education, awareness campaigns, community evacuation planning and drills, may be indirectly inferred from rapid and positive community behavioural responses. By this I mean many people in coastal communities who experience strong earthquakes are starting a process of self-evacuation, even if regional tsunami warning centres have not issued an alert or warning. For example, when people in coastal locations in Samoa felt a large earthquake on 29 September 2009, many self-evacuated to higher ground or sought information and instruction from relevant authorities because they expected a tsunami to occur. When interviewed, survivors stated that the memory of television and media coverage of the 2004 IOT acted as a catalyst for their affirmative behavioural response (Dominey-Howes and Thaman 1). Thus, individual and community cultural understandings of the nature and effects of tsunami catastrophes are incredibly important for shaping resilience and reducing vulnerability. However, this cultural shift is not playing out evenly.Are Australia and Its People at Risk from Tsunamis?Prior to the 2004 IOT, there was little discussion about, research in to, or awareness about tsunamis and Australia. Ted Bryant from the University of Wollongong had controversially proposed that Australia had been affected by tsunamis much bigger than the 2004 IOT six to eight times during the last 10,000 years and that it was only a matter of when, not if, such an event repeated itself (Bryant, "Second Edition"). Whilst his claims had received some media attention, his ideas did not achieve widespread scientific, cultural, or community acceptance. Not-with-standing this, Australia has been affected by more than 60 small tsunamis since European colonisation (Dominey-Howes 239). Indeed, the 2004 IOT and 2006 Java tsunami caused significant flooding of parts of the Northern Territory and Western Australia (Prendergast and Brown 69). However, the affected areas were sparsely populated and experienced very little in the way of damage or loss. Thus they did not cross any sort of critical threshold of “catastrophe” and failed to achieve meaningful community consciousness—they were not agents of cultural transformation.Regardless of the risk faced by Australia’s coastline, Australians travel to, and holiday in, places that experience tsunamis. In fact, 26 Australians were killed during the 2004 IOT (DFAT) and five were killed by the September 2009 South Pacific tsunami (Caldwell et al. 26). What Role Do the Media Play in Preparing for and Responding to Catastrophe?Regardless of the type of hazard/disaster/catastrophe, the key functions the media play include (but are not limited to): pre-event community education, awareness raising, and planning and preparations; during-event preparation and action, including status updates, evacuation warnings and notices, and recommendations for affirmative behaviours; and post-event responses and recovery actions to follow, including where to gain aid and support. Further, the media also play a role in providing a forum for debate and post-event analysis and reflection, as a mechanism to hold decision makers to account. From time to time, the media also provide a platform for examining who, if anyone, might be to blame for losses sustained during catastrophes and can act as a powerful conduit for driving socio-cultural, behavioural, and policy change. Many of these functions are elegantly described and a series of best practices outlined by The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency in a tsunami specific publication freely available online (CDEMA 1). What Has Been the Media Coverage in Australia about Tsunamis and Their Effects on Australians?A manifest contents analysis of media material covering tsunamis over the last decade using the framework of Cox et al. reveals that coverage falls into distinctive and repetitive forms or themes. After tsunamis, I have collected articles (more than 130 to date) published in key Australian national broadsheets (e.g., The Australian and Sydney Morning Herald) and tabloid (e.g., The Telegraph) newspapers and have watched on television and monitored on social media, such as YouTube and Facebook, the types of coverage given to tsunamis either affecting Australia, or Australians domestically and overseas. In all cases, I continued to monitor and collect these stories and accounts for a fixed period of four weeks after each event, commencing on the day of the tsunami. The themes raised in the coverage include: the nature of the event. For example, where, when, why did it occur, how big was it, and what were the effects; what emergency response and recovery actions are being undertaken by the emergency services and how these are being provided; exploration of how the event was made worse or better by poor/good planning and prior knowledge, action or inaction, confusion and misunderstanding; the attribution of blame and responsibility; the good news story—often the discovery and rescue of an “iconic victim/survivor”—usually a child days to weeks later; and follow-up reporting weeks to months later and on anniversaries. This coverage generally focuses on how things are improving and is often juxtaposed with the ongoing suffering of victims. I select the word “victims” purposefully for the media frequently prefer this over the more affirmative “survivor.”The media seldom carry reports of “behind the scenes” disaster preparatory work such as community education programs, the development and installation of warning and monitoring systems, and ongoing training and policy work by response agencies and governments since such stories tend to be less glamorous in terms of the disaster gore factor and less newsworthy (Cox et al. 469; Miles and Morse 365; Ploughman 308).With regard to Australians specifically, the manifest contents analysis reveals that coverage can be described as follows. First, it focuses on those Australians killed and injured. Such coverage provides elements of a biography of the victims, telling their stories, personalising these individuals so we build empathy for their suffering and the suffering of their families. The Australian victims are not unknown strangers—they are named and pictures of their smiling faces are printed or broadcast. Second, the media describe and catalogue the loss and ongoing suffering of the victims (survivors). Third, the media use phrases to describe Australians such as “innocent victims in the wrong place at the wrong time.” This narrative establishes the sense that these “innocents” have been somehow wronged and transgressed and that suffering should not be experienced by them. The fourth theme addresses the difficulties Australians have in accessing Consular support and in acquiring replacement passports in order to return home. It usually goes on to describe how they have difficulty in gaining access to accommodation, clothing, food, and water and any necessary medicines and the challenges associated with booking travel home and the complexities of communicating with family and friends. The last theme focuses on how Australians were often (usually?) not given relevant safety information by “responsible people” or “those in the know” in the place where they were at the time of the tsunami. This establishes a sense that Australians were left out and not considered by the relevant authorities. This narrative pays little attention to the wide scale impact upon and suffering of resident local populations who lack the capacity to escape the landscape of catastrophe.How Does Australian Media Coverage of (Tsunami) Catastrophe Compare with Elsewhere?A review of the available literature suggests media coverage of catastrophes involving domestic citizens is similar globally. For example, Olofsson (557) in an analysis of newspaper articles in Sweden about the 2004 IOT showed that the tsunami was framed as a Swedish disaster heavily focused on Sweden, Swedish victims, and Thailand, and that there was a division between “us” (Swedes) and “them” (others or non-Swedes). Olofsson (557) described two types of “us” and “them.” At the international level Sweden, i.e. “us,” was glorified and contrasted with “inferior” countries such as Thailand, “them.” Olofsson (557) concluded that mediated frames of catastrophe are influenced by stereotypes and nationalistic values.Such nationalistic approaches preface one type of suffering in catastrophe over others and delegitimises the experiences of some survivors. Thus, catastrophes are not evenly experienced. Importantly, Olofsson although not explicitly using the term, explains that the underlying reason for this construction of “them” and “us” is a form of imperialism and colonialism. Sharp refers to “historically rooted power hierarchies between countries and regions of the world” (304)—this is especially so of western news media reporting on catastrophes within and affecting “other” (non-western) countries. Sharp goes much further in relation to western representations and imaginations of the “war on terror” (arguably a global catastrophe) by explicitly noting the near universal western-centric dominance of this representation and the construction of the “west” as good and all “non-west” as not (299). Like it or not, the western media, including elements of the mainstream Australian media, adhere to this imperialistic representation. Studies of tsunami and other catastrophes drawing upon different types of media (still images, video, film, camera, and social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and the like) and from different national settings have explored the multiple functions of media. These functions include: providing information, questioning the authorities, and offering a chance for transformative learning. Further, they alleviate pain and suffering, providing new virtual communities of shared experience and hearing that facilitate resilience and recovery from catastrophe. Lastly, they contribute to a cultural transformation of catastrophe—both positive and negative (Hjorth and Kyoung-hwa "The Mourning"; "Good Grief"; McCargo and Hyon-Suk 236; Brown and Minty 9; Lau et al. 675; Morgan and de Goyet 33; Piotrowski and Armstrong 341; Sood et al. 27).Has Extensive Media Coverage Resulted in an Improved Awareness of the Catastrophic Potential of Tsunami for Australians?In playing devil’s advocate, my simple response is NO! This because I have been interviewing Australians about their perceptions and knowledge of tsunamis as a catastrophe, after events have occurred. These events have triggered alerts and warnings by the Australian Tsunami Warning System (ATWS) for selected coastal regions of Australia. Consequently, I have visited coastal suburbs and interviewed people about tsunamis generally and those events specifically. Formal interviews (surveys) and informal conversations have revolved around what people perceived about the hazard, the likely consequences, what they knew about the warning, where they got their information from, how they behaved and why, and so forth. I have undertaken this work after the 2007 Solomon Islands, 2009 New Zealand, 2009 South Pacific, the February 2010 Chile, and March 2011 Japan tsunamis. I have now spoken to more than 800 people. Detailed research results will be presented elsewhere, but of relevance here, I have discovered that, to begin with, Australians have a reasonable and shared cultural knowledge of the potential catastrophic effects that tsunamis can have. They use terms such as “devastating; death; damage; loss; frightening; economic impact; societal loss; horrific; overwhelming and catastrophic.” Secondly, when I ask Australians about their sources of information about tsunamis, they describe the television (80%); Internet (85%); radio (25%); newspaper (35%); and social media including YouTube (65%). This tells me that the media are critical to underpinning knowledge of catastrophe and are a powerful transformative medium for the acquisition of knowledge. Thirdly, when asked about where people get information about live warning messages and alerts, Australians stated the “television (95%); Internet (70%); family and friends (65%).” Fourthly and significantly, when individuals were asked what they thought being caught in a tsunami would be like, responses included “fun (50%); awesome (75%); like in a movie (40%).” Fifthly, when people were asked about what they would do (i.e., their “stated behaviour”) during a real tsunami arriving at the coast, responses included “go down to the beach to swim/surf the tsunami (40%); go to the sea to watch (85%); video the tsunami and sell to the news media people (40%).”An independent and powerful representation of the disjunct between Australians’ knowledge of the catastrophic potential of tsunamis and their “negative” behavioral response can be found in viewing live television news coverage broadcast from Sydney beaches on the morning of Sunday 28 February 2010. The Chilean tsunami had taken more than 14 hours to travel from Chile to the eastern seaboard of Australia and the ATWS had issued an accurate warning and had correctly forecast the arrival time of the tsunami (approximately 08.30 am). The television and radio media had dutifully broadcast the warning issued by the State Emergency Services. The message was simple: “Stay out of the water, evacuate the beaches and move to higher ground.” As the tsunami arrived, those news broadcasts showed volunteer State Emergency Service personnel and Surf Life Saving Australia lifeguards “begging” with literally hundreds (probably thousands up and down the eastern seaboard of Australia) of members of the public to stop swimming in the incoming tsunami and to evacuate the beaches. On that occasion, Australians were lucky and the tsunami was inconsequential. What do these responses mean? Clearly Australians recognise and can describe the consequences of a tsunami. However, they are not associating the catastrophic nature of tsunami with their own lives or experience. They are avoiding or disallowing the reality; they normalise and dramaticise the event. Thus in Australia, to date, a cultural transformation about the catastrophic nature of tsunami has not occurred for reasons that are not entirely clear but are the subject of ongoing study.The Emergence of Tsunami as a “New Australian Catastrophe”?As a natural disaster expert with nearly two decades experience, in my mind tsunami has emerged as a “new Australian catastrophe.” I believe this has occurred for a number of reasons. Firstly, the 2004 IOT was devastating and did impact northwestern Australia, raising the flag on this hitherto, unknown threat. Australia is now known to be vulnerable to the tsunami catastrophe. The media have played a critical role here. Secondly, in the 2004 IOT and other tsunamis since, Australians have died and their deaths have been widely reported in the Australian media. Thirdly, the emergence of various forms of social media has facilitated an explosion in information and material that can be consumed, digested, reimagined, and normalised by Australians hungry for the gore of catastrophe—it feeds our desire for catastrophic death and destruction. Fourthly, catastrophe has been creatively imagined and retold for a story-hungry viewing public. Whether through regular television shows easily consumed from a comfy chair at home, or whilst eating popcorn at a cinema, tsunami catastrophe is being fed to us in a way that reaffirms its naturalness. Juxtaposed against this idea though is that, despite all the graphic imagery of tsunami catastrophe, especially images of dead children in other countries, Australian media do not and culturally cannot, display images of dead Australian children. Such images are widely considered too gruesome but are well known to drive changes in cultural behaviour because of the iconic significance of the child within our society. As such, a cultural shift has not yet occurred and so the potential of catastrophe remains waiting to strike. Fifthly and significantly, given the fact that large numbers of Australians have not died during recent tsunamis means that again, the catastrophic potential of tsunamis is not yet realised and has not resulted in cultural changes to more affirmative behaviour. Lastly, Australians are probably more aware of “regular or common” catastrophes such as floods and bush fires that are normal to the Australian climate system and which are endlessly experienced individually and culturally and covered by the media in all forms. The Australian summer of 2012–13 has again been dominated by floods and fires. If this idea is accepted, the media construct a uniquely Australian imaginary of catastrophe and cultural discourse of disaster. The familiarity with these common climate catastrophes makes us “culturally blind” to the catastrophe that is tsunami.The consequences of a major tsunami affecting Australia some point in the future are likely to be of a scale not yet comprehensible. References Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). "ABC Net Splash." 20 Mar. 2013 ‹http://splash.abc.net.au/media?id=31077›. Brown, Philip, and Jessica Minty. “Media Coverage and Charitable Giving after the 2004 Tsunami.” Southern Economic Journal 75 (2008): 9–25. Bryant, Edward. Tsunami: The Underrated Hazard. First Edition, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001. ———. Tsunami: The Underrated Hazard. Second Edition, Sydney: Springer-Praxis, 2008. Caldwell, Anna, Natalie Gregg, Fiona Hudson, Patrick Lion, Janelle Miles, Bart Sinclair, and John Wright. “Samoa Tsunami Claims Five Aussies as Death Toll Rises.” The Courier Mail 1 Oct. 2009. 20 Mar. 2013 ‹http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/samoa-tsunami-claims-five-aussies-as-death-toll-rises/story-e6freon6-1225781357413›. CDEMA. "The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency. Tsunami SMART Media Web Site." 18 Dec. 2012. 20 Mar. 2013 ‹http://weready.org/tsunami/index.php?Itemid=40&id=40&option=com_content&view=article›. Cox, Robin, Bonita Long, and Megan Jones. “Sequestering of Suffering – Critical Discourse Analysis of Natural Disaster Media Coverage.” Journal of Health Psychology 13 (2008): 469–80. “CSI: Miami (Season 3, Episode 7).” International Movie Database (IMDb). ‹http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0534784/›. 9 Jan. 2013. "CSI: Miami (Season 3)." Wikipedia. ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSI:_Miami_(season_3)#Episodes›. 21 Mar. 2013. DFAT. "Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Annual Report 2004–2005." 8 Jan. 2013 ‹http://www.dfat.gov.au/dept/annual_reports/04_05/downloads/2_Outcome2.pdf›. Dominey-Howes, Dale. “Geological and Historical Records of Australian Tsunami.” Marine Geology 239 (2007): 99–123. Dominey-Howes, Dale, and Randy Thaman. “UNESCO-IOC International Tsunami Survey Team Samoa Interim Report of Field Survey 14–21 October 2009.” No. 2. Australian Tsunami Research Centre. University of New South Wales, Sydney. "Hereafter." International Movie Database (IMDb). ‹http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1212419/›. 9 Jan. 2013."Hereafter." Wikipedia. ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hereafter (film)›. 21 Mar. 2013. Hjorth, Larissa, and Yonnie Kyoung-hwa. “The Mourning After: A Case Study of Social Media in the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in Japan.” Television and News Media 12 (2011): 552–59. ———, and Yonnie Kyoung-hwa. “Good Grief: The Role of Mobile Social Media in the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in Japan.” Digital Creativity 22 (2011): 187–99. Lau, Joseph, Mason Lau, and Jean Kim. “Impacts of Media Coverage on the Community Stress Level in Hong Kong after the Tsunami on 26 December 2004.” Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 60 (2006): 675–82. McCargo, Duncan, and Lee Hyon-Suk. “Japan’s Political Tsunami: What’s Media Got to Do with It?” International Journal of Press-Politics 15 (2010): 236–45. Miles, Brian, and Stephanie Morse. “The Role of News Media in Natural Disaster Risk and Recovery.” Ecological Economics 63 (2007): 365–73. Morgan, Olive, and Charles de Goyet. “Dispelling Disaster Myths about Dead Bodies and Disease: The Role of Scientific Evidence and the Media.” Revista Panamericana de Salud Publica-Pan American Journal of Public Health 18 (2005): 33–6. Olofsson, Anna. “The Indian Ocean Tsunami in Swedish Newspapers: Nationalism after Catastrophe.” Disaster Prevention and Management 20 (2011): 557–69. Piotrowski, Chris, and Terry Armstrong. “Mass Media Preferences in Disaster: A Study of Hurricane Danny.” Social Behavior and Personality 26 (1998): 341–45. Ploughman, Penelope. “The American Print News Media Construction of Five Natural Disasters.” Disasters 19 (1995): 308–26. Prendergast, Amy, and Nick Brown. “Far Field Impact and Coastal Sedimentation Associated with the 2006 Java Tsunami in West Australia: Post-Tsunami Survey at Steep Point, West Australia.” Natural Hazards 60 (2012): 69–79. Sharp, Joanne. “A Subaltern Critical Geopolitics of The War on Terror: Postcolonial Security in Tanzania.” Geoforum 42 (2011): 297–305. Sood, Rahul, Stockdale, Geoffrey, and Everett Rogers. “How the News Media Operate in Natural Disasters.” Journal of Communication 37 (1987): 27–41.

This keynote lecture is a product of many years of hard work but today this is delivered in honor of Professor and Founding President of ORLIAC, Professor Emeritus Jan Veldman. Thank you for the opportunity to host ORLIAC in Manila way back in March 2018. For those who attended this, I gave a special lecture during the celebration of World Hearing Day on March 3, 2018, when ORLIAC was held in Manila and this gives an update on how we managed in the past four and a half years, with a COVID-19 pandemic in the past two and half years. The Philippines is an archipelago of more than 7,100 islands during high tide and up to 7,600 when it is low tide. It is situated in the Southeast Asian region. It is one of the countries with the highest population density, with a total population of 110 million spread over 300,000 square kilometers. The crude birthrate is at 19.9 per 1000 – in stark contrast with surrounding Southeast Asian nations now with a decreasing population such as Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia among others There have been three World Health Assembly (WHA) resolutions that emphasized the prevention of deafness and hearing loss. WHA 38.19 in 1985 then ten years later WHA 48.9 in 1995 and the last WHA 70.13 in 2017. These resolutions from the World Health Assembly emphasized that prevention of deafness and hearing loss should be incorporated in primary health care. As a result of the 2017 WHA 70.13 resolution, a World Hearing Report1was formulated and released last year in 2021 (Figure 1). The WHO Call to Action in 2000 recommended that Universal Newborn Hearing Screening (NHS) be implemented in all countries where rehabilitation services are established.2 In 1998, we did the first cochlear implantation in my country3 and established as well the graduate program of Masters in Clinical Audiology at the UP College of Medicine where I now work as Dean. This graduate program is one of only two in the country and is government-subsidized such that slots are limited and entry is quite competitive. It is jointly offered with the College of Allied Medical Professions.4 We consider this program to be a key element in producing the necessary healthcare workforce needed for the implementation of programs to defeat deafness in my country. The world hearing report published last year by the World Health Organization (WHO) highlighted the increasing number of people living with hearing loss and in need of services. There is of course the disproportionate burden of hearing loss in low-to middle-income countries like the Philippines.6Our publications from 2003, from a study looking at results of newborn hearing screening in the neonatal intensive unit in the hospital7,8 then to the community, thus providing the evidence for the eventual policy on UNHS that we proposed to the Department of Health (DOH) and to congress for legislation.We initially embarked on basic epidemiological studies using otoacoustic emissions testing in the hospital then in the community. We noted the age of referral at our hospital for children with hearing impairment to be at around 34 months.9 Our focus then was just providing otological clinical services so we decided to work for the establishment of the Philippine National Ear Institute (PNEI) – a research institute formed by Republic Act 9245 and part of the National Institutes of Health of the University of the Philippines – Manila.10 The PNEI laid down the researches needed for the stable foundation of a national health program focused on newborn hearing. From 2003 to 2008, we conducted several studies to establish the prevalence of bilateral permanent hearing loss in newborns both in the hospital and community settings as a prelude to the enactment of the law, and in order to defend having a program on newborn hearing, we conducted a cost-analysis of hospital-based universal newborn hearing screening.11 Notably in 2007, a population-based study showed the prevalence of bilateral profound Congenital Hearing Loss at 1.4 per 1000 births.12 This translates to more than 3,000 babies annually or 8 babies per day who may be profoundly deaf in my country.13 If there were proper intervention for a child with hearing impairment, the cost of treating hearing translates to a lifetime savings of about 80,000 dollars or about PhP 4.3M for the patient’s family. The government and the family would have spent about PhP 4.3 M to raise, educate, and support a deaf-mute child to adulthood. This was presented to the Senate of the Philippines and highlighted during the Inaugural Congress of the ASEAN Academy of Neuro-Oto-Audiology (AANOA). This was supported by Senator Loren Legarda, PNEI Director Dr. Generoso Abes, AANOA founding member Dr. Helmi Balfas, IFOS Regional Secretary Chong Sun Kim, PSOHNS President Gil Vicente, AANOA President Dato Lokman Saim, and Hearing International Secretary Dr. Norberto Martinez (Figure 2). Mandating NHS in the country also entailed involving stakeholders, including otolaryngologists from the different regions who committed to convince their local officials and local hospital administrators the need for instituting these newborn hearing screening programs. After we had the local data at hand, the PSOHNS created a task force on NHS and crafted a position statement on the need for UNHS. As then Vice President, we drafted the position paper that will be presented to Congress while at the same time seeking support from the Department of Health under DOH Secretary Francisco Duque who agreed that Philhealth should be able to support this program when enacted into law. A Technical Working Group was formed, gathering all stakeholders and service providers. Multiple meetings were held, groundwork for launch, and implementation of newborn hearing screening program were instituted with ten Collaboration for Newborn Hearing Screening Advocacy (CONHScA) annual symposia with otolaryngology, audiology, and other hearing screening advocates all over the country.14 (Figure 3). On August 12, 2009, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed RA 9709, an act that established universalnewborn hearing screening program for the prevention, early diagnosis, and intervention of hearing loss.15 On the modality to be used, reporting, accreditation and training, monitoring and evaluation, and most especially costing of the services and financing for sustainability were also done. We advocated for legislation on UNHS, and once ratified, developed a national program with the Department of Health as lead agency and continued with policy implementation as part of a national technical working group under the DOH. This led to the creation of national Newborn Hearing Screening Reference Center (NHSRC) that was inaugurated in 2013 at the National Institutes of Health with Professor Cor Cremers of Radboud University Nijmegen as special guest. We also started to increase the awareness on the importance of NHS even on national television (Figure 4). Aside from the cost-effectiveness study of hospital-based newborn hearing screening program, we also looked at the budget impact of a community-based UNHSP in the Philippines from both the public payer and the societal perspectives. This study of Rivera et al. published in 201716 showed that cost effectiveness is sensitive to treatment rate, prevalence, follow-up rate, number of rehabilitation sessions, and coverage of the program. It was not sensitive to cost per rehabilitation session, cost of diagnosis with OAE and ABR, education costs, refer rates, recurrent costs, cost of machines, and sensitivity rates. From the societal perspective, the UNHSP was found to be cost-saving for the full range of parameters tested for cost of screening, amplification, education, rehabilitation, and fixed program costs. Ensuring treatment of at least 31 percent and follow-up rate of 24% for a community-based newborn hearing would likely be important benchmarks. The technical arm of the lead agency for this program, the Department of Health, is the Newborn Hearing Screening Reference Center that gives assistance in defining and recommending NHS testing and follow-up protocols which include hearing screening methods, devices used, location, manner, and timing of newborn hearing screening testing. The current protocol uses the 2007 JCIH recommendation of 1-3-6 rule, with screening at 1 month, confirmation of hearing loss at 3 months, and appropriate intervention at 6 months of age.17 With respect to the preferred method of screening, the recent study by Neumann K et al. showed OAE as most prevalent in the country.18 Ten years ago in 2010, an initial web registry for reporting of the OAE results was formulated up to 2014 it was used in 9 centers which allowed gathering of preliminary data on the NHS program. From the data, there was a registry card that needed manual data encoding and in order to sustain operations, a 1 USD fee was levied per registration and was reimbursable thru Philhealth that paid around 4 USD per hearing screening test done. Personnel training, device, and facility certification standards were implemented for centers that chose to perform newborn hearing screening testing. Tiered categorization of centers was also done with screening centers as Category A, screening and diagnostic centers as category B, screening, diagnostic, and essential intervention with hearing aid amplification as category C, and the highest category D for centers with genetic testing and counselling, cochlear implantation surgery and speech rehabilitation services. Recent data showed there were 1072 category A, 18 category B and C, and 9 category D centers distributed all over the country (Figure 5). While some services were initially hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic, NHSRC defined safety protocols that needed to be followed. In an updated advisory, first released in April 2020, and is still in effect to date, NHSRC emphasizes that the centers should follow hospital/institution’s procedural protocol regarding disinfection and attire. Hearing tests in infants are non-invasive and non-aerosol producing procedures. The advisory also included recommendations in terms of timing, preparation, and testing procedures. One significant development that was accelerated during the pandemic was the online adaptation of the NHS personnel certifying course that was reported in recent publications by Rozul et al.19,20 To date, there have been about 3403 trained personnel in 1099 centers with significant increase noted in 2019 compared to previous years. This was not however reflected in the report of Neumann probably due to the time when data for this publication was collected prior to 2019. From the registry alone, the percent screened in the Philippines has been reported to be at least 7-13 percent of live births from the years 2019-2021. The report from Philhealth of 800 claims for NHS from 2018-2019 is still under verification. In 2020, based on manual submission, out of 1099 facilities, 26 percent submitted reports. In 2019, 95% already submitted reports so the pandemic impacted significantly on reporting of results by excel file and paper reports (Figures 6 and 7). The program is still beset with challenges like poor compliance with data submission, loss to follow-up, poor connectivity, sustainable funding of the program from both local and national government, lack of human resources, and a need of much awareness among stakeholders regarding the importance of newborn hearing screening. In a country where 60 percent die without seeing a doctor, there is much work to do. The cost of screening equipment is a major barrier so we conceptualized a biomedical device development project working with engineers in the university to create an AABR screening device which is now on phase two with a TLR 5 early phase rating scale and will now include recruitment of more subjects and refinements for improvements. Harnessing technology and making this more affordable remain as strategies for developing a sustainable hearing screening program and is the subject of HELE, which aims to increase the rates of newborn hearing screening with novel technologies and telehealth. “Hele” stands for lullaby a mother sings to a child. We thought this as very apt for emphasizing the importance of hearing from birth for optimal development. This received a substantial phase 1 grant in 2016 and a phase 2 was launched this year for the premarket development which now stand at technology readiness level 5. It has already spawned many products like the computer-based e-learning training modules, capacity building with provision of basic OAE equipment, and many research publications. It is hoped that a pre-production HELE device can already be produced soon with validated efficacy and reproducibility of all the AABR responses in a clinical setting. With the collaboration of University of California Berkeley and UC Davis, a formidable team has been created. The electronic national newborn hearing screening registry was launched during WORLD HEARING DAY in 2022 and the usability testing results have been published by Ricalde et al.21 In the recent manual of operations and procedures, success indicators were outlined. This is aligned with the WHO standards for monitoring and evaluation, and determining success of programs. Beyond NHS, what else have we learned? Our studies on the genetic causes of the more common causes of hearing impairment such as otitis media showed a unique mutation A2ML1 that affected protease inhibitors allowing better mucosal defense of the middle ear mucosa. Our findings showed microbiome shifts and when we looked at gingivitis, this was what we found. The genetic counseling we embarked on for this indigenous community taught us clinicians many lessons. Speaking to them in their native language was important and house to house invitations were more effective. What about genetic basis of congenital hearing loss? We have found that SLC26A4 mutations were more common than GJB2. There were novel mutations seen in our cohort suggesting the need for studies looking at genetic predisposition. We saw commonalities with Indonesia in terms of the prevalence of GJB2 mutations. From our studies on A2ML1 mutations predisposing to otitis media, we are monitoring this with ongoing study on Hispanic populations. Meanwhile, a seed fund for a national cochlear implant program was approved by Congress and 20 children underwent surgery (Figure 8), while two centers, one in Visayas (Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital in Bacolod) and another in Mindanao (Southern Philippines Medical Center in Davao) were capacitated. Virtual multidisciplinary meetings to discuss the cases were held and provided a model for optimizing use of resources and outcomes. The initial data from the 20 implanted children are very encouraging. There are goals of expanding this program to more beneficiaries by having a Z package for Cochlear implantation, funding from DOH medical assistance fund for indigent patients, and development of services for other implantable hearing devices at the Philippine General Hospital. Moreover, research on hearing need more support given that our studies on genetics of hearing loss among Filipinos yielded very important data on novel genes, uniqueness of our genetic pool as well as mutations predisposing to increased prevalence of otitis media among our marginalized and indigenous population.22-26 As a low- to middle-income country, these researches will need to be continued and may provide valuable lessons for similarly challenged countries in the works as we highlighted in 2017 during the United Nations World Hearing Assembly Advocacy Event on hearing health (Figure 9). The recent National Academy of Science and Technology health policy forum where Professor Xing Kuan Bu was featured as keynote lecturer gave important data on experiences on hearing health program development in China and in the world (Figure 10). Clearly the sustainable development goals especially 3,4,8 and 10 covered by hearing health ensures equity and should be aspirational goals for national development. This is congruent with the vision of PNEI: “No Filipino shall be deprived of a functioning sense of hearing and balance.” Lastly, as the theme of this congress is East Meets West, the Philippines had a strong history of shipbuilding in an era when the galleon trade was very active and 148 of 200 ships that plied that route were ships built in the Philippines with our hardwood. Tracing therefore the history of the countries in ASEAN in particular with the Dutch, French, British, and Spanish influences, we need to dig deeper and look at genetic markers for both health and disease so that while we develop our friendship and scientific connections, history will prove that we have always been connected in so many ways and further exploration can be done in many dimensions. Charlotte M. Chiong, MD, PhDResearch Professor 12Project Leader of HeLeDean, UP College of Medicine (2018-present) _____________________________Paper presented in the Otology Rhinology Laryngology International Academic Conference, September 26, 2022, Auditorium Antonianum, Rome, Italy. Paper prepared in fulfillment of the Alfredo T. Ramirez Professorial Chair for 2022.