CHARLOTTE TRUONG WRITES – China is Vietnam’s largest market for agricultural and aquatic products, accounting for about 27% of total agricultural and fishery exports each year. According to the United Nations Comtrade database on international trade, during 2017 Vietnam exported US$35.39 billion from China. But now, due to the outbreak…
ASHLEY FLORES WRITES – Fear, anxiety, depression, and uncertainty are four words that many of us in the world are feeling right now. Don’t be fooled, though; this is also a time of love, cheer, warmth and mindfulness. Here’s how it all came down for me: February 3rd 2020, I’m…
DANICA CREAHAN WRITES- In the new Blumhouse horror film “The Invisible Man,” released on February 28, 2020, the Australian-American filmmaker (best known for co-creating Saw and Insidious) Leigh Whannell, proves that in the #MeToo era, men can do right by female characters, and maybe could have been doing better all…
SARAH SHARPE WRITES — Will the Asian tourism business ever fully recover from the coronavirus? A recent article in The Guardian, the brilliant London-based dally newspaper, details the effects that the COVID-19 outbreak has had on popular tourism sites, with pictures of popular Asian before and after sites: before the…
SENAY EMMANUEL WRITES — I am a fourth-year undergraduate student at a well-known university in Los Angeles, California. I am set to graduate in a few months and move to Washington D.C. to work at a non-profit. Life was all planned and prepared, and as commencement neared, I gradually filled…
EXCERPTED FROM THE ‘BUSINESS INSIDER’ — Medical workers in Wuhan, China, removed their masks after the city closed the last temporary hospital, which was panic-built to accommodate the overflow patients from the coronavirus outbreak. The viral video, which has been viewed more than three million times, showed a number of workers…
OUR COLLEAGUES AT THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON NORTH KOREA WRITE — As COVID-19 intensifies in the United States and elsewhere, the North Korean response to the pandemic is fading from the headlines. However, NCNK is continuing to monitor the situation through regular contact with a wide range of information sources.…
TOM PLATE WRITES – How bad will the global-corona epidemic get? ‘Only the future will tell.’ The problem with that lame cliché is that the future is not only with us now but – to scramble the possibilities – the future actually influences the past. Astrophysicist-author John Gribbin, whose challenging new book ‘Six…
DANIEL ZAND WRITES — Fake Wagyu beef, also known as Kobe beef, is commonly sold throughout Japan. Having expensive value, Japanese restaurants and butchers are selling other types of beef claiming it to be Kobe Beef. For this reason, Japan is now finally conducting DNA testing that uncovers beefy imposters. Kobe…
RASHID ALARMELI WRITES — This picture was taken at a protest. It was not a school protest, but the children were photographed as a way to show that inequalities in India hurt people of all ages. The protest took place at Jesse Brewer Jr. Park, in downtown LA, February 22. …
ERIC ANDERSON WRITES-The Olympic Council of Asia has a mission: to promote cultural awareness, equality, respect, and clean and fair play through the latest sports and trends. The Council controls all sports in Asia and is one of five continental associations recognized by the International Olympic Committee, headquartered in Kuwait. …
TOM PLATE WRITES (VIA THE KOREA TIMES OF SEOUL) — As horrible as the coronavirus spread looks right now, it may not be the worst that faces us. My worry is that even after the epidemic begins its remission, what happens is that everything returns to normal. And that’s the…
OTHMAN ALOTHMAN WRITES- Nike-sponsored Kuwaiti athlete Yaqoub Alyouha brought back a gold medal in the World Athletics Indoor Championships on February 4, 2020 in Dusseldorf, Germany. His time, 7.54s in the 60m hurdle, makes him the second- fastest Asian ever to run it. This came as a shock to the…
MANAAL ALI WRITES-Pakistani headlines took a devastating turn on February 16, in the wake of news that nine-year-old Madiha, a child in the Hangu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, was brutally raped and murdered. The Inspector-General of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa recently took 16 suspects into custody. As investigations continue, Twitter and Facebook…
STUART MULJADI WRITES–Earlier this year, it was announced that megastars Jay Z and Serena Williams would be investors in Kopi Kenangan (translation: “Coffee memories”), an ambitious, Jakarta- based, non-franchise coffee chain founded by CEO Edward Tirtanata in 2017. According to a local article profiling the CEO, Tirtanata was asked the…
SULAIMAN AL-ADSANI WRITES- Ever since the establishment of the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) in 1993, mixed martial arts has become one of the fastest growing and most popular sports worldwide. It started in the 1920’s, when Brazilian jiu jitsu founder Helio Gracie and his brother, Carlos Gracie, issued the “Gracie…
