Richard Javad Heydarian is a Manila-based foreign affairs and economics analyst, focusing on the Asia-Pacific and MENA regions. He is a lecturer on international affairs and governance at Ateneo De Manila University. and a regular contributor to Huffington Post, Asia Times, and InterPress Service. He is also a consultant on foreign affairs/energy security in the Philippine legislature and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (manila). He has been interviewed by Bloomberg, The New York Times, BBC, NPR, South China Morning post, among many other news outlets and publications on Asian geopolitical and economic affairs.