BA (Hons), MPhil, PhD, PgCE; Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (FRAS); Member of the Chartered Institute of Journalists (MCIJ); Specialist in South-East Asia and Near and Middle East; Specialist in Islamic World Affairs; former Defence and Strategic Affairs specialist;Features Editor of 'Arabia' magazine; columnist for 'Emel' magazine; Managing Editor of 'Q-News International'; UK Editor of 'Armada International'; Stringer for the 'New Straits Times' during the Bosnia War 1992-5;Ran a Middle East Desk in 1982 at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) in Whitehall; Former Regular Army Officer in the British Army (active service in Brunei at the end of the Azahari Rebellion, and in Sabah, Singapore, and Peninsular Malaysia, during most of the Confrontation War);Speaks Malay-Indonesian, as well as French and German;Did doctoral research at University of Kent at Canterbury under the supervision of Dennis J. Duncanson PRAS on "American Colonial Government of the Southern Philippines, 1898-1946".Freeman Burgess of the City and County of Swansea.