ALESSANDRA DALY-JOHNSON WRITES – The highly anticipated film adaptation of the novel Fifty Shades of Grey was deemed inappropriate by the United Arab Emirates’ National Media Council (NMC) this past week. While the infamous book series, written by E. L. James, is available in stores in the UAE, the NMC has…
Full Article UAE: Fifty Shades Gets Whipped by Censors
“The United States is an Asian-Pacific nation, and we take our enduring interests there very seriously. We know that America’s security and prosperity are closely and increasingly linked to the Asia-Pacific.” So spoke John Kerry, that peripatetic American diplomat. And so finally, if but for one excellent speech, the secretary…
Full Article THAILAND: Generals Should Defend But Not Rule Their CountriesMARLENA NIP WRITES – Update after update and still the families and friends of flight MH370 passengers have been given no hope. Media outlets around the world have provided constant coverage since the commercial plane went missing March 8. Some even provide live, update feeds to keep readers and viewers…
Full Article MALAYSIA: The Mystery of Flight MH370MARLENA NIP WRITES – Drug trafficking charges loom over a French woman, an Indonesian maid, and three Malaysian men. About a pound of processed cannabis and 36 pot plants were allegedly confiscated from the quintet by police in the nation’s capital Sabah. If found guilty, the group face the death penalty, with zero room…
Full Article MALAYSIA: Got Cannabis? See You on Death RowBRIAN 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…
Full Article TAIWAN: Murder-Kidnap Creates a Flurry from MediaSTEPHANIE GARCIA WRITES – As Singapore’s president, Dr. Tony Tan Keng Yam, made his first diplomatic visit to neighboring Malaysia, Singapore news outlets stressed the importance of a strengthened relationship, while Malaysia sang a better-off-without-you tune in its own media. The Straits Times and Singapore-based Channel News Asia stressed the value…
Full Article SINGAPORE: Malaysia Only Wants to be Friends in SecretMARLENA NIP WRITES – Malaysia is taking a stand against a smoking Uncle Sam. In ongoing trade talks with the U.S., it adamantly defended its right to set stiff rules on the sale of tobacco products within its own borders. In the process, it won the praise of everyone from…
Full Article MALAYSIA: Says “No” to Tobacco and the USSTEPHANIE GARCIA WRITES – The world weighs in as the Father of Modern Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, shares his most pugnacious opinions in his latest book. One Man’s View of the World, a fitting title for a book whose author single handedly took a nation from rags to riches, was…
Full Article SINGAPORE: One Man’s View Receives Mixed ReviewsMARLENA NIP WRITES- The National party of Malaysia is up in flames! Tuesday night, it quite literally was up in flames. Two bottles containing gasoline were found in the headquarters of the Barisan Nasional (BN) party. It is predicted that persons from the opposition party were aiming to burn…
Full Article MALAYSIA: Elections Up In Flames!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…
Full Article MALAYSIA: Excuse Me, That’s Our Island!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…
Full Article PHILIPPINES: Can Media Cooperation Mediate the Sabah Crisis?The Palestinian people welcomed Malaysia’s Prime Minister Dato’ Sri Najib Razak last week on a “Dakar Rally” type visit to the Gaza Strip. Najin Razak got a real feel for life on the Gaza Strip with a tour that consisted of zipping through the narrow streets in a 30-car…
Full Article MALAYSIA: ‘Dakar Rally’ of the Gaza StripA 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,…
Full Article MALAYSIA: Building a Bridge Between Christianity and IslamMalaysian sex bloggers Alvin Tan and Vivian Lee have confronted the media since their controversial videos and photos went viral this October. The couple has made headlines in major Malaysian and Singaporean press outlets after posting videos and photos of their sexual activity. They have also admitted to engaging in…
Full Article MALAYSIA: Any Press is Good Press Insist Sexy Malay SwingersTalk about a messy relationship – and she’s got the scars to prove it. “Ling,” a 16 year old, performed sadomasochism in hopes that she might save her boyfriend’s life. Ling heard from her boyfriend’s uncle, Alex Leung, a supposed royal or “datuk” and a sultan, that by depriving herself…
Full Article MALAYSIA: Romeo & Juliet Gone Very WrongWant to know what is really happening in Singapore’s inner-circle politics? Sometimes you have to read a newspaper in neighboring Malaysia. On September 1st, Malaysia’s big-circulation daily newspaper The Star ran a report on major speech by neighboring Singapore’s Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong’s at the National Rally Day. The…
Full Article SINGAPORE: Getting the Scoop from a Malaysian Newspaper