AIDAN SMITH-FAGAN WRITES – Tapio Tokunaga still remembers the first time he saw George Lucas’ Star Wars films. “I fell in love with it,” he tells me, recalling borrowing the DVDs as a seven-year-old in Yokohama, Japan. Tapio would go on to learn as much about the story, characters, and…
Full Article JAPAN AND STAR WARS: IN A SHOGUNATE FAR FAR AWAY
KIANA KARIMI WRITES – « Vous dépendez du pouvoir russe et vous dépendez de Monsieur Poutine…Vous avez contracté un prêt auprès d’une banque russe… Vous ne parlez pas à d’autres dirigeants, vous parlez à votre banquier Madame Le Pen…Vos intérêts sont liés au pouvoir Russe. » “You depend on Russian…
Full Article EUROPE: SELFIES FROM LE PEN AND THE FAR-RIGHT
TOM PLATE WRITES – Ever since my initial meeting with Lee Kuan Yew a quarter century ago, Singapore remained in my mind as special. By the time of the brilliant founding prime minister’s passing at 91 in 2015, that assessment was not so novel and was going global; even in…
Full Article SINGAPORE: CALIBRATING A ROLE BETWEEN CHINA AND THE U.S.
KIANA KARIMI AND LIAM ROGERS WRITE — What a scene: White, Blue, and Red stripes encapsulate a Moscow stadium with a crowd roaring in cheers and clad in Z’s giving a grand welcome to a celebration of “unity” while awaiting the illustrious dictator himself, President Vladimir Putin. The Russian government…
Full Article UKRAINE CONTROVERSY: MAKING THE CASE FOR ICC PROSECUTION OF PUTIN
GENEVIEVE KAMINSKI WRITES – Recently I took a birthday trip to San Diego. I tried new coffee shops, went to Balboa Park, and visited the zoo. I have never been a fan of San Diego due to the lack of entertainment and excessive quiet for this city kid. For my…
Full Article RESTAURANT REVIEW: SUSHI OTA IN SAN DIEGO
SERENA GONZALEZ WRITES – To celebrate the Year of the Tiger, Italian high-end luxury brand and fashion powerhouse Gucci has come under fire for using live tigers in its latest advertising campaign – a move that has shocked animal welfare organizations, conservationists, and consumers alike. The campaign, branded #GucciTiger, portrays…
Full Article THE YEAR OF THE TIGER: ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS ROAR BACK AT GUCCI FOR ITS NEWEST AD CAMPAIGN
This year’s GLOBAL POLICY INSTITUTE award-winning book is PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL: The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim (Clarity 2021), an endlessly insightful and opinionated autobiography by Princeton University’s Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice. PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL has received warm praise from some of the globe’s more prominent intellectuals.…
Full Article GLOBAL POLICY INSTITUTE’S BEST BOOK OF 2022
PRESTIN MCHUGH WRITES – I am a student enrolled in Psychology of Diversity, a course offered at Loyola Marymount University. A recent class topic has been current issues regarding the war between Russia and Ukraine. The course is discussion-based, consisting of ten students, so we are able to get detailed…
Full Article UKRAINE: THIS HELLISH WAR, AS TOLD BY AN AMERICAN LMU STUDENT OF UKRAINIAN/RUSSIAN DESCENT
ASIA MEDIA INTERNATIONAL WRITES — Academically distinguished as well as globally controversial, Princeton University emeritus professor Richard A. Falk is announced as the winner of the Best Book Award, 2021. by the Global Policy Institute of Loyola Marymount University. Past winners of the GPI’s prestigious annual award include Harvard University’s…
Full Article PRESTIGIOUS GLOBAL POLICY INSTITUTE AWARD GOES TO ‘PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL’ BY PRINCETON’S RICHARD FALK
ASIA MEDIA INTERNATIONAL FOUNDER TOM PLATE WRITES — In global diplomatic circles, what is not uttered publicly can reveal more than that which is out in the open. Perhaps no one captured this with more spice and sauce than Charles Maurice De Talleyrand-Périgord, the acknowledged French maestro of European diplomacy…
Full Article ENDING THE WAR: BUT IS BEIJING UP TO THE HISTORIC CHALLENGE?
A SPECIAL ESSAY BY KIANA KARIMI — “Red sky at night, sailors’ delight./Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.” The ancient rhyme holds as Russian forces signaled their descent with claps of roaring explosions and deadly sparks before first light on Thursday, February 24. Air sirens accompanied with malicious, global…
Full Article UKRAINE/RUSSIA: HEARTBREAKING PICTURES FROM THE ALL-SEEING ‘WARTOK’ CAMERA
CRISTINA PEDLER WRITES – At the annual gala dinner of the Pacific Century Institute (PCI) at the Beverly Hills Hotel, on Thursday night February 24, Loyola Marymount University was honored with PCI’s 2022 Institutional Building Bridges Award. The prestigious honor – previous recipients include the Council on Foreign Relations, the…
Full Article LOS ANGELES: LMU RECEIVES MAJOR INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION
PROFESSOR TOM PLATE WRITES — Suppose I stopped working so hard to stay on the sunny optimistic side of the street but instead defected to the dark side and always anticipating the worst? Consider the figure of Vladimir Putin. Just try to stay optimistic after reading the depressing but richly…
Full Article THE PUTIN SHADOW: DARKENING VISIONS OF OPTIMISM
CLINICAL PROFESSOR TOM PLATE WRITES — I look back in anger. There’s no other way emotionally to cope with the sense that, ever since the exit of the Clinton administration two decades ago, relations with China have gone from “the good and the bad” to mostly bad. It’s not that…
Full Article CHINA-US RELATIONS: MUDDLING THROUGH IS BETTER THAN BLOWING IT UP
SKYLER GALLARZAN WRITES — On April 14, 2021, the United States Senate voted on a bill that would speed up the review of reported attacks related to COVID-19, establish new methods in reporting these incidents and keep citizens safe. The bill’s name? The COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act. A report conducted…
Full Article ASIAN AMERICANS: THE SENATE TAKES ACTION AGAINST HATE CRIMES
On 16 April 2021, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng spoke with Ken Teizo Moritsugu of the Associated Press (AP) at an exclusive interview. The following is a transcript of the interview: Ken Teizo Moritsugu: First of all, thank you very much for taking the time to be with me…
Full Article CHINA RESPONDS: AN UNFAIR WESTERN MEDIA, A POORLY INFORMED PUBLIC