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Culture
Goryeo: The Glory of Korea
From December 4, 2018, to March 3, 2019, the National Museum of Art present “Goryeo: The Glory of Korea”, a comprehensive overview of art in the Goryeo Dynasty. The special exhibition brings together 450 artworks, including works on loan from 45 institutions, 11 of them in the United States, United…
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South Asia
Indian Political Situation
As India gears up for its General Elections between April and May this year, the largest democracy is looking at politics from an unexpected and fresh perspective. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is no longer the larger than life face of a hopeful India because of failing to deliver on most…
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East Asia
South Korea: cellphone exports fall to 16-year low
Korea’s exports of mobile phones hit a 16-year low in 2018 after falling 23.2 percent year-on-year amid mounting competition from Chinese phone makers, data showed Sunday. Cellphones have been a major export item along with semiconductors. But the business has suffered a continued decline because of the slow global smartphone…
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East Asia
China’s Political Economy Under the Microscope
The “red swan” that gives this book its title refers to China’s Communist Party-state policy-making process, and is a play on the “black swan” of the induction fallacy, popularized by the former Wall Street trader and finance professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Sebastian Heilmann’s policy-centric work is a blend of…
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East Asia
North Korea slams UN rapporteur over human rights comment
North Korea’s party organ Rodong Sinmun on Monday criticized the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur of human rights Tomas Ojea Quintana’s recent visit to South Korea, saying it triggered unnecessary conflict between the two Koreas. “The U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of…
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East Asia
The Appalling Cost of Western Hubris
Given the vast literature on the Indochina wars, whether the French colonial conflict of 1945 to 1954 or the US war with North Vietnam of 1954 to 1975, it might be asked why the need for another study of a familiar subject. The value of this new, magisterial account, which…
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East Asia
Jogye Order hopes to launch templestay in North Korea
The Jogye Order, South Korea’s largest Buddhist sect, is planning to launch a templestay program at Shingye Temple on Mount Geumgang as part of their effort to open “a new chapter in inter-Korean Buddhist exchanges” amid their reformation movement, Ven. Wonhaeng said Wednesday. “We are going to discuss details of…
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East Asia
Korea: Jeju massacre victims get their names cleared in court
The Jeju District Court overturned military court rulings that imprisoned Jeju Islanders in a bloody ideological conflict from 1948 to 1954, Thursday, clearing the names of the 18 surviving plaintiffs and recognizing them as wronged victims of the Jeju April 3 Uprising and Massacre. The ruling panel said the national…
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East Asia
Sound and Fury: Does Abe’s Constitutional Revision Really Matter?
Much attention has been paid recently to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s desire to revise the country’s constitution in what would be the first and only change since it was adopted in 1947. The focus especially has been on his intent to change Article 9, which prohibits the country from…
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South East Asia
Challenging Duterte: Maria Ressa and the Philippine Media
With her sharp mind, unflinching attitude and acerbic humor, journalist and businesswoman Maria Ressa has built a news brand in the Philippines that is at the center of a struggle for the future of free expression in that country. Not one to back down from a fight, Ressa is just…
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