COURTESY OF THE NEW YORK TIMES…WRITES SOMINI SENGUPTAAUG: The United Nations HAS named Alison Smale, a veteran correspondent and editor at The New York Times, as its most senior official in charge of shaping the 193-member organization’s global public image. As the next under secretary general for global communications, Ms.…
MIRANDA PAK WRITES – The U.S. this week (Feb. 2) joined calls for Chinese authorities to release five Hong Kong booksellers whose main crime appears to have been embarrassing Communist Party officials. What’s proving the bigger embarrassment is that no one doubts it is Beijing behind the kidnapping/detentions. Since October,…
ADRIAN NARAYAN WRITES — With more than 15 million users in 24 countries, Facebook’s Internet.org, has charmed the eyes of many Indians. The program aims to bring free Web access to the developing world, but because of controversy over the number of websites a user can visit, the project’s been renamed “Free Basics.”…
SABRINA VERDUZCO WRITES – The United States and South Korea displayed a new desire to cement a lasting relationship between the two countries on October 16. Obama and South Korean President Park Geun-Hye demonstrated an eagerness to strengthen the US-South Korea alliance on October 16. In a statement from the White…
MIRANDA PAK WRITES – Twitter, which has been blocked in China since 2009, opened an office in Hong Kong on March 10. Tweeting was blocked in China because officials were worried that citizens would use social media for their own benefit and plan large anti-government protests. Despite what many people think,…
YVONNE EPPS WRITES— It seems that 2015 is beginning to look promising for the modernization of Vietnam’s regime. It’s true that you can’t ban social media, but you can always issue regulations that squeeze the life out of the industry. Mike Ives of the New York Times recently wrote about…
YVONNE EPPS WRITES— Since the beginning of Fall, I’ve been bemoaning the lack of press freedom in Vietnam, beating this dead horse and watching talented journalists battle the nooses around their necks. However, this sad story is taking a turn. It’s about time someone with a powerful voice said something about this…
BRIAN CANAVE WRITES – In the wake of New York Times reporter Austin Ramzy’s unceremonious departure from Beijing, neighboring Taiwan has warmly welcomed him for a temporary stay while he continues his coverage of the mainland. Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported that the government “welcomes international media enterprises and their staff” such…
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,…
AUSTIN SZABO WRITES – Media darling or not, the Western press has largely ignored Malala Yousafzai’s stance against U.S. drone strikes — and capitalism. Malala has been praised for her efforts to raise awareness of the importance of education in Pakistan, particularly for girls, but her voice against drone strikes…
ELODIE INTROIA WRITES – Religious violence has flared in Myanmar for more than a year. Now a disturbing neo-Nazi-like movement has emerged that aims to contain the rights of minority Muslims. The man critics say is behind the effort: Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu. Wirathu’s 969 Movement has been widely described as…
LAUREN CHEN WRITES – Gone are the days of handing out flyers or haranguing your friends on the phone to support a worthy cause. Now all it takes to turn out a mega-march is a juicy scandal and populist call to arms on Facebook and Twitter. Filipinos gathered August 26…
ELODIE INTROIA WRITES – In view of recent events, journalists and activists have come together to call on Aung San Suu Kyi to raise awareness and be the voice of what the United Nations has called the world’s most persecuted people – The Rohingya.
Bangladesh news coverage this month has been dominated by demonstrations in Dakha demanding stiffer sentences for war criminals from the country’s 1971 Liberation War. Now, hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis have been gathering as they also seek justice for the killing of Ahmed Rajib Haider, a blogger who helped organize…
Hong Kong media’s reaction to the reelection of President Barack Obama has proved to be diverse, to say the least. Just compare the Hong Kong edition of the New York Times Rendezvous Blog to the China Daily’s Hong Kong Opinion section! The two sources seem to differ significantly. While the…
If you’ve ever done business in China, you would be very familiar with the term “guan-xi,” translated as connections. Without any guan-xi, it is nearly impossible to get things done. China is a nation built on guan-xi, a business deal-making strategy embedded in the culture. From a Western democratic perspective,…
