BY THE AMI STAFF – The Asian and Asian-American Studies professor’s ‘Future of the United Nations’ course is not the usual kind of university class. There is no extended lecture, and the enrolled students do much of the talking. That’s because the design for this experimental course empowers them as…
TOM PLATE WRITES — Maybe the United Nations – fumbling, hopelessly bureaucratic, partly-corrupt – is in fact beyond redemption. Just forget about it: Let it career down the slippery slope of mediocrity and geopolitical irrelevance and splash ignominiously into New York’s East River — like some waterside condo with a…
KATRINA CROSBY WRITES – With so much tragedy occurring in the world, it is always refreshing to see some good news, especially if it involves the recognition of a political visionary who has gone above and beyond to share knowledge and on international development. This year, the Asia Foundation invited…
ASIA MEDIA WRITES — Dr. Ban Ki-moon, 8th Secretary-General of the United Nations, Elected as President and Chair of GGGI SEOUL, Feb 20 2018 (GGGI) – Dr. Ban Ki-moon, 8th Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), has been elected as the President of the Assembly and Chair of the Council…
MARY GRACE COSTA WRITES – Asia Media International staff joined the Pacific Century Institute Feb 23 at the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles to honor global citizens Dr. Charles Morrison and former Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki Moon. The theme of the evening was “Building Bridges Between Countries…
Los Angeles – His Excellency Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General for the last ten years (2007-2016), and the esteemed East-West Center in Hawaii, founded in 1960, will be honored at the annual gala awards dinner of the Pacific Century Institute later this month in Los Angeles. Ban, who stepped down…
ASIA MEDIA INTERNATIONAL WRITES — A visit by the UN Secretary General is always a big event in Los Angeles. Arriving after world-wind visits to various international trouble spots, Mr and Mrs Ban Ki-moon made appearances at the home of TV legend Normal Lear (lunch Wednesday, 10 Aug.) and producer-director Brett…
ASIA MEDIA WRITES — Does the UN have a future? Of course it does; in a sense this is a silly and misleading question. The real question is what quality of future this world organization will have. The surpassingly competent Ban Ki-moon wraps up his second five-year term at year’s…
ASIA MEDIA WRITES – On April 6, LMU had the esteemed honor to bestow an Honorary Degree of Humane Letters on United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon. The UNSG gave a keynote address on the morning of the degree conferral ceremony, wherein he gave a short policy speech. Afterward, Ban…
Exerpted with permission from Joongang Daily from Soul – Amid speculation about the possibility that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon may run for president next year, multiple diplomatic sources told the JoongAng Sunday that the UN chief is establishing a foundation to support his domestic activities. The sources indicated that…
TOM PLATE WRITES – Like each of his seven predecessors, the current occupant of the Office of Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, gets to pick his own impossible dream to imagine solved, and he certainly has his. However, the SG disagrees that he’s tilting at windmills, as…
WRITES TOM PLATE FROM LOS ANGELES IN HIS SYNDICATED ASIA COLUMN – ‘Ukraine Isn’t Armageddon.’ Now, how bold and direct is that?! This was the banner headline splashed over the most incisive journalism I have read on Vladimir Putin and the Crimea crisis. It led the April edition of Le Monde Diplomatique, the…
TOM PLATE WRITES: The stakes in the outcome of the ongoing Thai Crisis are huge and go beyond the strict parameters of the country itself. Geopolitically, Thailand has been a solid U.S. ally, particularly during the Cold War and the Vietnam War. Economically, it has been a vital force amid…
CHINA DAILY, the official English language daily newspaper of the world’s most populated country, is careful about what is published, whether in the actual newspaper or online as the official e-paper. So it is probably significant that it recently ran an op-ed with the headline: “It Pays to Be Caution…
TOM PLATE WRITES IN HIS SYNDICATED NEWSPAPER COLUMN: I used to find flying on a Chinese carrier a dreadful experience. No more. A recent nonstop from Los Angeles to Guangzhou on China Eastern was as smooth as silk; and the return to Los Angeles from Beijing on Air China was…
TOM PLATE WRITES – You have to admit that the timing of the Russian ploy to trip up (or at least drag President Obama’s feet on) any U.S. bombing of Moscow ally Syria was exquisite. I for one would now not only want to avoid playing Russian roulette with Vladimir…
