Throughout history the role of Malay merchants and traders in the Malay-Indonesian archipelago was very imminent. Their presence was very important in the Malay waters and it was they who were the collector and distributor of goods and commodities that arrived at many major port-towns in the archipelago. Although their presence in the intra-Asian trade is very clearly documented in the VOC Dutch and English records, research and writing on their role in trade has been neglected by scholars. The importance of Malay merchants and traders was seldom highlighted and if they were mentioned their role were not written in greater detail. Malay traders were an important group of traders from the archipelago and their presence was clearly seen right from the Srivijaya period until in the nineteenth century. However, while trade and commerce expanded in Southeast Asia, the nineteenth century saw the decline of Malay merchants and traders when fewer of them appeared to have the means and resources to participate in long distance trade.
 It is the aim of this paper to highlight the role of the Malay merchants and traders which was an important group of merchants that had been plying in the Malay waters. Who were these traders and where they came from and the commodities they carried and the various types of ships they travelled will be discussed in the paper. The study will also look at the importance and the role of these merchants in early Penang.

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From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, the mangrove in Ngoc Hien district, Ca Mau province, suffered serious environmental degradation from human activities such as the conversion from mangrove wetland to arable land or to shrimp farming ponds. However, in the years 1994 to 2000, while the population of the area and gross output of shrimp grew, the forest area also rapidly increased. This paper examines why these phenomena occurred by focusing on the role of formal institutions for natural resource utilization.
 The provincial authorities had made several regulations to promote forest since the 1970s, but these had only stimulated local organizations and residents to exploit forests for their own benefit. The formal institutions did not result in collective action based on incentives for forest conservation, particularly after a land allocation policy was applied in the district. The enforcement of land allocation to households imposed costs on local organizations, such as land use investigation and the selection of households for land tenure. Moreover, households then had to invest in preparation for shrimp farming and tree planting on their land.
 Under the national forest conservation program 327-CT, implemented in Ca Mau province in 1993, local institutions were able to fulfill their functions because budget resources created a common interest in forest conservation among local organizations and residents. Moreover, the new Land Law of 1993 permitted households to sell or lease land use rights. This affected forest conservation because preserving trees was a precondition if a household wanted lawfully to sell or lease their land. The increase in forest area in Ngoc Hien district was the result of formal institutions reducing the transaction costs of local organizations and residents.

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As is well known, Cambodia was plunged into five years of internal warfare in 1970 and suffered under totalitarian state rule during the Pol Pot era of 1975-79.These historical facts evoke various images of social change. However, the reality of those changes has not been well researched until quite recently. This paper, based on long-term rural fieldwork, examines in detail the demise and reconstruction of a Cambodian village in the eastern region of the Tonle Sap Lake since 1970 and explores changes and continuities in the village as a geographical and organizational entity.
 The research area fell under communist control in 1970, and in February 1974 most of the villagers were relocated to the provincial capital by Lon Nol government forces. After their return to the village following the communist victory in April 1975, they were categorized as “new people,” and most were not allowed to live in their own houses. By analyzing the history of each household compound and the villagers' accounts of their own relocation, the paper reveals differences in villagers' experiences before, during, and after the era of turmoil. In this way, this paper demonstrates how Cambodian village society is composed of people living together who once held various attitudes to the revolutionary state.
 Moreover, this paper examines what drove the reconstruction of village society. After the Pol Pot period, survivors returned to their original villages and took ownership of their previous household compounds in the process of re-defining the local social order. This means that the continuity of village residents shaped the fundamental conditions for village reconstruction. In addition, although the socialist government in the 1980s denied private land ownership, the villagers could request and obtain new household compounds. This facilitated the expansion of the village's geographic scope. Furthermore, analysis of village organization from a diachronic perspective illustrates the uxorilocal residence pattern as a continuous organizational characteristic of village society.
 In the historical processes since 1970, the village landscape changed and many lives were lost. However, the village has reconstructed itself based on continuity in both its residents and its organizational characteristics.

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After World War I, the International Communism Movement, led by the Third International (the Comintern), was one of the major threats to the British Empire. The Comintern constructed a worldwide liaison network of comrades called the Comintern Network to try to penetrate the “Western World.” In order to police this Comintern Network, the British Empire constructed its own Security System consisting of the Intelligence Service (the Political Intelligence Bureau or the Special Branch) and the Passport Control System. This paper uses “the Lefranc Affair” as a case study to demonstrate how the British Security System policed the Comintern Network, particularly in Asia. A French agent of the Comintern named Serge Lefranc, alias Joseph Ducroux, who worked in Asia from 1926, was arrested in Singapore on 1 June 1931. This paper describes how the British Security System monitored his activities and took action against him, and summarizes the structure of the British Security System by focusing on cooperation between the Intelligence Service and the Passport Control System.

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