MARLENA NIP WRITES – Filipinos are fed up with their Malaysian neighbors, and claim that a large portion of the country rightfully belongs to the Philippines. Sabah, the northernmost state of Malaysia, has historically been part of the Philippines. The waters first became murky between the two countries when Malaysia…
Author: Asia Media Staff
BANGLADESH: Blasphemy No Longer Allowed
KIARA BRAMASCO WRITES – Rest easy, readers. The Bangladeshi government has been busy clearing the cyberworld of blasphemous content. The Daily Star reports a group of “Muslim Clerics” submitted a list of bloggers they believe are responsible for alleged insults to Islam made online. The list was handed to a…
JAPAN: Osaka Printing Company Raided by Labor Bureau
JEREMIAH FAJARDO WRITES – Seventeen cases of bile duct cancer later, Sanyo-CYP Co., an Osaka printing company, has finally come under the stern scrutiny of the city’s Labor Bureau. According to The Mainichi Daily, one of Japan’s prominent dailies, Sanyo-CYP’s headquarters and No. 2 factory were raided recently. The affected…
LEBANON: Shaping the Future?
NICOLE SABA WRITES – With expressive voices and growing influence at home and abroad, participants in Lebanon’s online community are finally getting their due. The First Annual Social Media Awards, sponsored by RAGMAG Magazine and Online Collaborative, an NGO that began at the American University of Beirut, will conclude with…
CHINA: Baby Food Blues
LEXIE TUCKER WRITES – It’s bad enough when regular food is messed with, but it’s even worse when the food is meant for babies. After a media report exposed safety problems, the Chinese subsidiary of Hero Group, a major Swiss baby formula producer, has been suspected of purposely mislabeling milk…
Pakistan: Everyone’s on the Same Page
LIZA HERNANDEZ WRITES – Mohammed Waseem Ahmed was recently ousted from the Karachi police force after a Supreme Court hearing concerning his alleged illicit activities as the man in charge of hundreds of illegal gambling dens in Karachi. Though Ahmed, according to government records, has flown the coop to Dubai,…
VIETNAM: American Reporting Trivial to Vietnamese Readers
YVONNE EPPS WRITES – The United States prides itself on being “number one” in most areas, but it seems that social culture is its main point of interest to outsiders nowadays. A quick search on the Vietnamese language version of ThanhNien News Network reveals that American social reporting seems to…
South Korea: Making Nice Via More Trade
RYAN LIPPERT WRITES- South Korea, China, and Japan are making progress in efforts to create a free trade zone that would potentially tower over the combined European Union and North American economic hulk. Despite successfully setting aside their otherwise tension-ridden relations to start such discussions, any hope of advancement may…
CHINA: Judgments Need to be Made Now
On March 15, Beijing’s National Library of China (NLC) said it will speed up work compiling historical files on the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, aka the “Tokyo Trials.” For the uninitiated, the IMTFE is where alleged Japanese war criminals were put on trial for acts committed during…
LAOS: Not Even Faint Praise for the Dams
Resources and Environment has also entered a partnership with the International Finance Corporation to create more sustainable ways to promotes socio-economic development. With this new partnership, the Vientiane Times has reported that Laos has the potential to build more than 100 dams on the Mekong River. Vientiane Times also interviewed…
Our Star Columnist Joins ‘Civil Dialogue’ in the Caribbean
The Asia Media Middle East correspondent Latifah RahmDel and her friend Ayesha Sayed, the licensee and curator of TEDxUAEU, are visiting Santo Domingo and Port-au-Prince from March 16 to April 4. They will join this year’s Civil Dialogue in the Caribbean states and interact with students, grassroot activists, and social…
PHILIPPINES: Can Media Cooperation Mediate the Sabah Crisis?
In the middle of the ongoing territorial dispute over the Sabah between the Malaysian government and the Sulu Sultanate, the Inquirer and GMA 7 are the first Filipino news teams to be accredited by Malaysian authorities to go in-country and cover the crisis. Despite the Malaysian government’s reported ban on…
JAPAN: The New PM Steps Boldly Into the Trade Morass
Pursuing avenues for economic revitalization has been an integral part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s agenda since he took office. Amongst the most contested options has been Japan’s recent decision to commit to negotiations for a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan’s more liberal dailies, argued that…
LEBANON: Hey, Who Was It That Hacked Us?
Lebanon is no stranger to electronic revolutions. It has become quite common for government websites to serve as platforms for hackers to raise their concerns. Last year, a group of Lebanese hackers known as Raise Your Voice (RYV) hacked approximately fifteen Lebanese government websites with demands for change, calling for…
PAKISTAN: None of Your Business, United States
Pakistan’s gutsy decision to continue building its share of the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline against the warnings of possible sanctions by the US has made its way into the headlines. Within the next two years (and 1.5 billion dollars later), Pakistan plans to finish the construction of 781 km of the…
VIETNAM: Beijing Ultra-Nationalist Acts Like a Bow-Wow
Maritime disputes are heating up between China, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam, all because of a sign. In February, an international outrage surged when a Beijing restaurant manager refused to apologize after removing a racist sign that excludes citizens of states in maritime disputes with China, and dogs. The sign…