BRIAN CANAVE WRITES – What happens when an 18-year-old Taiwanese-Brazilian boy, who was the focus of a custody battle between his parents’ families, returns to Taiwan after nearly a decade? Essentially what you’d expect. The local media latched on to his return, covering it with the same intensity as his childhood custody…
Author: Asia Media Staff
NORTH KOREA: Squabble over Name-Calling an Obstacle to Progress
RYAN LIPPERT WRITES – Tension between North and South Korea is old news, but a recent offer by the North offers a ray of hope that it’s possible for relations to cool down. Earlier this week, North Korea proposed that the two countries tone down their usually confrontational language. If…
JAPAN: ANA Commercial Sparks Social Media Wildfire
JEREMIAH FAJARDO WRITES – On paper, promoting a sense of international awareness sounds like a logical quality for an airline to convey in its commercials. Such ads can assure customers of a friendly, welcoming environment. Yet, as All Nippon Airways (ANA) has found, this is hardly achieved by poking fun at…
INDIA & PAKISTAN: Female Journalists Face Dangers in the Field and Workplace
AUSTIN SZABO WRITES – Though they’ve reported on floods, bombings, wars, and protests in some of the most dangerous places in the world, female journalists in Pakistan and India are still threatened and mistreated at home. Despite repeated calls for change from groups ranging from the United Nations to the Women’s…
AUSTRALIA: You’ve Got Mail…Online
AMBER VERNETTI WRITES – The U.K.’s Daily Mail — surprisingly, the world’s most-read online English-language newspaper — will soon open an Australian edition. The move follows a similar down-under launch by rival The Guardian earlier this year. Mail Online, Daily Mail’s international online publication and the world’s most popular English-language newspaper,…
CAMBODIA: Cambodian National Rescue Party Breaks Free From CPP Control
ARACELI PALAFOX WRITES – With control over the nine television stations in the country, the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) continues to be the head puppet master of Cambodia. Its success in the July election reminded the people of Cambodia who’s hands pull the strings. Yet, this same election came with…
JAPAN: New Bill a Bid for State Security or Gateway to Orwellian Dystopia?
JEREMIAH FAJARDO WRITES – As China works to impose (and handle blow back from) a controversial air defense zone, Japan’s parliament is tied up in its own controversy in the form of a divisive state secrets bill. Already passed by the Lower House in November, the contentious law aims, via…
VIETNAM: Guerrilla Warefare on the Internet
YVONNE EPPS WRITES- Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse, they just did. Vietnam’s war on peaceful protest has reached guerrilla warfare of the monetary kind. Hey, Uy’s atrocities were unforgivable, so why not take the rest of the Internet down, right? Two decrees have been posed against social…
NORTH KOREA: Public Executions Perpetuate Rumors
RYAN LIPPERT WRITES – These days, public executions are all the rage in North Korea. Over the summer, twelve musicians were sent to the firing squad for producing porn. More recently, seven North Korean cities held public executions on the same day, killing approximately 80 people. What were the charges? The people…
HONG KONG: South China Morning Post–Captivating Readers for 110 Years
LAUREN CHEN WRITES – Hong Kong’s premier English language newspaper, the South China Morning Post, celebrates 110 years of captivating Hong Kong’s most affluent readers. SCMP has reported on Hong Kong, China and the rest of the world “from the rickshaws and the start of the electric tram.” By the early 20th century,…
TAIWAN: Murder-Kidnap Creates a Flurry from Media
BRIAN CANAVE WRITES – Taiwanese people and media are outraged by the murder of a Taiwanese national and kidnapping of the victim’s wife in the Malaysian island of Pom Pom. Throughout late November, Taiwanese and Malaysian media covered the incident from all sides, ranging from international paper press, television news coverage…
SINGAPORE: Six Years a Stalker
STEPHANIE GARCIA WRITES – It has been said “imitation is the highest form of flattery.” Perhaps stalking is second highest? And the new frontier seems to be taking place on the cyber highways. Sure, stalkers may be a problem that has existed since the dawn of civilization, but Web avenues…
CHINA: The New Era of Petitioning
LEXIE TUCKER WRITES – It’s time for an upgrade to China’s decades-old petitioning system. According to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China’s website, the State Bureau of Letters and Calls announced new reform measures that would be put into effect following the investigation of…
NEW ZEALAND: Spying Here, There, and Almost Everywhere
E.J. DE LARA WRITES – Several reports have criticized New Zealand for its intrusion of privacy. Many have raised concerns over Parliament passing a bill for the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) – the intelligence agency of the New Zealand government – to spy on people with a search warrant.…
AFGHANISTAN: Bombs Blow up People but Media Blows up Morality
VITTO BANEZ WRITES – Western Afghan religious leaders claim the media is displaying material that is un-Islamic. The mullahs assert that said material is inflicting more harm than a suicide bomb. Farouq Hussaini, the spokesman for the council of Muslim scholars, articulated this belief in his statement that “suicide attackers…
ISRAEL: 21st Century Ethnic Segregation
AHMAD ALKHUZAM WRITES – One would assume that civilization has come a long way since the injustices of apartheid. But Negev Bedouins face the reality of being forced to pack up and leave. The Israeli government will finalize the parliamentary bill for the Prawer plan, which will forcibly relocate up to 70,000 Negev…