ELIZABETH NAAI WRITES – China and the U.S. are not alone in the trenches of cyber warfare. The 4th Army Region has taken up mouses and keyboards to uphold lese majeste in an increasingly connected Thailand. Task Force 45 of the Thahan Phran — hunter soldiers — left a deluge…
Author: LMU
ART SPOTLIGHT: Kris Soguilon Emphasizes Our Similarities with Pomp, Circumstance and a Dash of Sex
The artist’s take on his work: “A sense of fusion may emerge from a multiracial society even as each individual culture manifests its own uniqueness. Cultures may clash, but the differences also draw together in a particular way to present perspectives peculiar to the mix, as can be enjoyed in London, New York and Singapore. The spectator who steps back to look at the differences may encounter the experience of an elaborate celebration.” […]
THAILAND: Social Media Enlightens Locals who were Left in the Dark
ELIZABETH NAAI WRITES – On Tuesday, May 21st Thailand’s largest blackout to date engulfed fourteen southern provinces, including major business industries and tourist destinations in Hat Yai, Koh Sumai, and Phuket. After losing power at 6:30 p.m., many residents and businesses did not recover electricity until 9:30 p.m. that night.…
Asia Insight #4: Singapore and American Journalism
THE TOM PLATE COLUMN: Thatcher and the Asian Century
Margaret Thatcher, who died earlier this week, may not have been one “for turning”, as she dubbed her putative inability to not ever alter basic principled direction. But when the first woman ever to become British prime minister first met the maximum leader of China — Deng Xiaoping in 1982,…
Asia Insight #3: The Majestic Mahbubani Explains the Future
SANTA MONICA: Does the UN Have a Future?
Santa Monica College will host a late morning lecture by LMU Prof. Tom Plate this Thursday on its main campus. The prof’s presentation — “The Role and Realities of the UN Brokering Global Issues” — comes as part of this famously forward-thinking college’s 2013 lecture series “The World in 2013:…
JAPAN: Support, Hopes Grow for 2020 Olympic Bid
Tokyo’s effort to host the 2020 Summer Olympics has finally hit its stride. According to The Daily Yomiuri, one of Japan’s leading newspapers, popular support for the capital bid hit 83% in a February survey. That’s up 11% from January, and the poll found an equally encouraging decline in people…
SANTA MONICA: Free Lecture and Discussion on the UN This Thursday
The World in 2013: How does the Leadership of the United Nations Matter? Global Journalist and Author Tom Plate discussing “The Role and Realities of the UN Brokering Global Issues” Thursday, April 4, 2013 – 11:15 a.m. HSS-165 In today’s interconnected world Global awareness is…
Asia Insight #2: A Trip to Japan
SINGAPORE: ‘Tom Plate on Asia’
Marshall Cavendish, one of Asia’s preeminent English-language book publishers, has announced contract agreement to bring out a major new nonfiction book by American journalist Tom Plate this Fall. The book – which is tentatively titled TOM PLATE ON ASIA: Tracing Asia’s Phenomenal Rise Through an American Journalist’s Eyes – will…
LMU LOS ANGELES: Prof. David Kang Explains East Asia
East Asia, for so long a seeming model of geopolitical stability, has become dangerously tense. Territorial disputes involving Korea, China and Japan over the Dokdo/Takeshima and Senkaku/Diaoyu islands comprise just the top layer of the troubles. To explain what is driving the current tension, LMU’s Center for Asian Business has…
LOS ANGELES: Shanghai Calling! But Hurry Up …
Imagine a steady stream of immigrants, traveling across a vast ocean to a foreign country, searching for new jobs and better lives. But the immigrants are Americans, and the country they are moving to… is China! SHANGHAI CALLING is a romantic comedy about modern-day American immigrants in an unfamiliar land.…
MALAYSIA: Building a Bridge Between Christianity and Islam
A bridge is being built between the Christian and Islamic worlds to bring more unity between the two. And what better place to start this process than Malaysia, one of the most Islamic, and also peaceful, nations in the world? Pope Benedict XVI has recently appointed American Archbishop Joseph Marino,…
SINGAPORE: Ten Simple Rules for Being a Happy Person — Courtesy of Tommy Koh in The Straits Times
Foremer UN Ambassador Koh is ambassador at large in the Ministry of Forign Affairs in Singapore and a widely admired savant about life. He writes in the Straits Times, the leading newspaper of that country: “The results of the recent Gallup poll, as well as other surveys, seem to indicate…
LOS ANGELES: How to Handle Difficult North Korea
A GUEST COLUMN BY SPENCER KIM, A MEMBER OF THE U.S. COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS — North Korea has successfully, sort of, launched a long-range missile. We are outraged. We want more sanctions; we want to pressure them till they say uncle or collapse. We wonder how China could be…