On the fifth anniversary of the establishment of the Kyoko Selden Memorial Translation Prize through the generosity of her colleagues, students, and friends, the Department of Asian Studies at Cornell University is pleased to announce the winners of the 2018 Prize.

Shin Sugok is an advocate of human rights in Japan and a leader of “Norikoe Net,” an “international network to overcome hate speech and racism.” Norikoe Net's broad purview encompasses discrimination against Koreans, women, Okinawans, Burakumin, children born out of wedlock, the disabled, LGBT people, and other disadvantaged minority groups. In essence, their aim is to champion human rights in Japan as a universal value.

John Dower, who is now emeritus professor of Japanese history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was an essential influence during my years as a correspondent in Japan. I (and I know numerous others) considered him a giant in his field, one of the few scholars who were required reading for anyone with a serious commitment to covering a nation notorious for its opacity, its complex history, and the ideological shroud Americans draped over it during the Cold War decades. Dower held fast against that corruption of scholarship in everything he wrote over a career that now spans five decades.

As China's financial commitments in Latin America grow, so does its influence. But some countries resent Beijing throwing its weight around

Over the past two decades, China has become a significant player in Latin America. The process began slowly, but as the Chinese economy began to hit spectacular levels of growth in the 1990s, it drove the price of several key raw materials higher. China became the leading buyer of many commodities produced in the region, making it an influential player in Chile (copper), Argentina and Brazil (soybeans), Peru (mining), as well as Ecuador and Venezuela (petroleum).

Indonesia's last regional conflict remains intractable. We are reminded of this by demonstrations and mass detentions in 2018 around the 1 December anniversary of Papua's ‘Independence’ Day and the killing a day later of at least 16 construction workers in the central highlands district of Nduga with the military operations that followed. These events will be discussed further in the paper after a brief outline of the conflict in Papua.