The demography of school-level Chinese studies student cohort has been a popular topic since early 2000, which hints the arduous growing of number of local young talents who can achieve a high-level proficiency of this language. Following the development of Australia-China relationship, and its profound influence in Australia national defence, foreign trade, and domestic job market, fostering local school graduates who are able to acquire sufficient language for communication, and encouraging them to pursue further study in this language at tertiary level laid in the centre of Victorian school-level language policies. The hereafter commission to the Late Jane Orton from Australia China Relations Institute yielded the introduction of a new VCE Chinese studies from early 2017, VCE Chinese Language Culture and Society. This article is to investigate if the design of the new VCE Chinese study can address the issues brought out in Orton’s 2016 report. Within the course of two year’s provision, some issues become visible, and thus this chapter propose a review of the study design and a more straightforward and feasible definition of L2 learners, as Orton suggested in her report.

Islamic Arabic culture in the past extended to what is known as “Western Sudan”. In academic literature, “Western Sudan” refers to a large part of West Africa and, in this article, the researcher will be using “West Africa” instead of “Western Sudan”. Associated with this extension were trade and commercial networks. Many historians emphasise the caravan trade routes that connected West Africa and Egypt, North Africa (modern Tunisia), and the far west.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s been a great deal of evidence showing a surge of Sinophobia and anti-Asian racism in Australia. This wave of racism is concerning and alarming but not surprising or novel, given the discrimination faced by Chinese immigrants during the Gold Rush in the mid and late-19th century, Asian immigrants in the early and mid-20th century, and Muslim immigrants in the post 9/11 era, among others. The recurrence of anti-immigrant racism in Australia suggests that its root cause remains, and more systematic diagnosis is needed.

This chapter discusses civil society in contemporary Japan, shedding light on two major actors—NPOs and social movements. Since the launch of the first NPO (nonprofit organization) in 1998, the number has increased dramatically. The analysis focuses on co-production, a policy collaboration technique between NPOs and the Japanese government under the framework of New Public Governance. Social movements are also examined, focusing on anti-nuclear activism—one of the most consistent activisms in Japan, which has been reignited since the nuclear disaster of March 11, 2011. In particular, this chapter presents a brief reflective account of the No Nukes Asia Forum, a pan-Asian transnational activism that originated in Japan.

The vertebrate RNA-binding proteins, Musashi-1 (Msi-1) and Musashi-2 (Msi-2) are expressed in multiple stem cell populations. A role for Musashi proteins in preventing stem cell differentiation has been suggested from genetic analysis of the Drosophila family member, dMsi, and both vertebrate Msi proteins function co-operatively to regulate neural stem cell behaviour. Here we have identified a second Drosophila Msi family member, Rbp6, which shares more amino acid identity with vertebrate Msi-1 and Msi-2 than dMsi. We generated an antibody that detects most Rbp6 splice isoforms and show that Rbp6 is expressed in multiple tissues throughout development. However, Rbp6 deletion mutants generated in this study are viable and fertile, and show only minor defects. We used Drosophila spermatogonial germline stem cells (GSC's) as a model to test whether Drosophila Msi proteins function redundantly to regulate stem cell behaviour. However, like vertebrate Msi-1 and Msi-2, Rbp6 and Msi do not appear to be co-expressed in spermatogenic GSC's and do not function co-operatively in the regulation of GSC maintenance. Thus while two Msi family members are present in Drosophila, the function of the family members have diverged.

The ribosome is critical for all aspects of cell growth due to its essential role in protein synthesis. Paradoxically, many Ribosomal proteins (Rps) act as tumour suppressors in Drosophila and vertebrates. To examine how reductions in Rps could lead to tissue overgrowth, we took advantage of the observation that an RpS6 mutant dominantly suppresses the small rough eye phenotype in a cyclin E hypomorphic mutant (cycE(JP)). We demonstrated that the suppression of cycE(JP) by the RpS6 mutant is not a consequence of restoring CycE protein levels or activity in the eye imaginal tissue. Rather, the use of UAS-RpS6 RNAi transgenics revealed that the suppression of cycE(JP) is exerted via a mechanism extrinsic to the eye, whereby reduced Rp levels in the prothoracic gland decreases the activity of ecdysone, the steroid hormone, delaying developmental timing and hence allowing time for tissue and organ overgrowth. These data provide for the first time a rationale to explain the counter-intuitive organ overgrowth phenotypes observed for certain members of the Minute class of Drosophila Rp mutants. They also demonstrate how Rp mutants can affect growth and development cell non-autonomously.

Over recent weeks, the US and China have used increasingly strong rhetoric around the COVID-19 pandemic. The relationship between the US and China was already bad before the crisis, and distrust and animosity have only grown with the war on words over who is responsible for the global pandemic. This had real-life consequences in late March when a meeting of the G7 failed to agree on a joint statement following the US State Department’s insistence on referring to the coronavirus as the “Wuhan Virus” (1). How have the two countries been constructing the other as the enemy and what effect has this had on diplomacy in the region?