THE INDEPENDENT NEWS SITE ASIAN CORRESPONDENT WRITES – Thailand’s former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has criticized attempts by the ruling military junta to push forward a constitution, calling it “crazy” and part of a strategy to avoid a long overdue election. Speaking to the Financial Times in Singapore recently, the…
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AUSTRALIA: BE EXTRA CAREFUL IN MALAYSIA, TOURISTS!
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITES – Australia warned Sunday that terrorists may be plotting attacks in and around Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s largest city. The Australian High Commission in Malaysia said in a travel advisory that there was an ongoing terrorism threat in Malaysia, noting that authorities there have arrested a number of…
QATAR: World Cup Flub on Workers’ Rights
ALEXIS CRUZ WRITES- A corruption scandal is still brewing in international soccer, but it’s business as usual for Qatar, and the country’s top priority is making sure their chance to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup goes off without a hitch. Even if it means bumping into a few hitches…
JAPAN: Harvesting Technology for Sustainability
AMANDA KRETSCH WRITES – In a technology-saturated world, it seems no lettuce leaf is left untouched. Spread is a Kyoto-based Japanese company whose vision is to look for a sustainable way to bring fresh vegetables to the world, and they plan to open a robot-run farm in Kansai by 2017. CEO, Shinji…
QATAR: The Freedom to Censor
ALEXIS CRUZ WRITES – Usually it’s censors who block a controversial film from domestic distribution. Not so in Quatar, at least in the case of The Danish Girl. Following online outrage at the transgender tale, the country’s Ministry of Culture tweeted out this month: “We would like to inform you…
SPECULATION FROM SEOUL: PRESIDENT BAN KI-MOON?
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…
ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: BBC COMEDY LEGEND DOES ANGELA MERKEL
WRITES ASIA MEDIA – Imitation is not always the sincerest form of flattery. Like Tina Fey of ‘Saturday Night’ who pactically destroys Sarah Pallin with each satirical joust, BBC comic legend Tracey Ullman has now taken on Angela Merkel, the powerhouse German Chancellor. The result is pretty darn funny. …
SOUTHEAST ASIA: HOW THE ISIS SHADOW IS GROWING
ROHAN GUNARATNA WRITES FROM SINGAPORE (courtesy of the Pacific Forum CSIS) – The so-called Islamic State (IS) is likely to create IS branches in the Philippines and Indonesia in 2016. Although the Indonesian military pre-empted IS plans to declare a satellite state of the “caliphate” in eastern Indonesia, IS is…
JAKARTA: THE FIRES NEXT TIME – THERE ARE MORE TO COME
SINGAPORE-BASED SOUTHEAST ASIA EXPERT DERWIN PEREIRA WRITES (courtesy of the Business Times of Singapore) — The terrorist attack in Jakarta last week achieved little but foretells much. It signifies the renewal of an implacable religious insurgency that could cost Indonesia and the rest of the region dearly. From the point…
SINGAPORE: BEST NEW BOOK ON THE ‘REAL’ UN!
ASIA MEDIA WRITES: Singapore has been marking the 50th anniversary of its independence in many distinctive ways. One is with the launch of a book on the United Nations – on the 70th anniversary of its founding — that needs to be added to the short list of truly great…
CHINA: ‘Baidu’ Scandal Rocks the Mainland
THIS AUTHORITATIVE REPORT IS EXCERPTED COURTESY OF CHINA DAILY IN BEIJING – The central government has set up an investigation team to probe search engine giant Baidu, after the company was accused by a hospital patient, who since has died, of providing misleading medical treatment information. The team is made…
FOREIGN AFFAIRS: THE STRANGE CASE OF THE ODD COUPLE
Kishore Mahbubani and Lawrence O. Summers write in the current edition of FOREIGN AFFAIRS (excerpted with permission) – The mood of much of the world is grim these days. Turmoil in the Middle East, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of refugees; random terrorist attacks across the globe;…
KOREAN PENINSULA: NEGOTIATION REMAINS THE SUPERIOR OPTION – FAMOUS EXPERT CHUNG-IN MOON
The following analysis by internationally respected scholar and former South Korean official Chung-in Moon has just been published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Professor Chung-in Moon writes: “In an address to the Workers’ Party Congress on May 7, Kim Jong-un told his audience that North Korea was “a responsible…
FRANCE: EXTERNAL THREAT … OR INTERNAL CONDITION?
ERISA TAKEDA WRITES FROM PARIS – Everyone already knows what happened on the night of the night of November 13th in Paris. Social media, despite its questionable reliability, was the first to spread the word so widely about the horrible attacks. Instead of dwelling on this tragedy, I would like…
Asia Media: First ‘In Review’ Magazine Published
LMU student staffers have produced Asia Media International’s first magazine — a look back at the year past. Printed on the highest quality glossy stock, the 28-page magazine celebrates the journalism and photo-jounalism of its senior staffers during the 2014-2015 LMU year. The energetic, full-color design came courtesy of AM…
Qatar: Protecting the People From Themselves
ALEXIS CRUZ WRITES – Social media sites give users a platform to voice their opinions. They provide a means to communicate with others and express whatever they wish. Some people post disrespectful material, and that’s when censorship and social media ethics enter into the equation. This is a problem Qatar is mulling…