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East Asia
“Save my brother from Myanmar prison”
ASAN, South Chungcheong Province ― Lee Sang-beom, 48, a Korean businessman and father of two children, was full of hope and optimism when he opened a medical device sales firm in Myanmar five years ago. In the country, dubbed “the last frontier in Asia,” Lee was excited to start a…
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East Asia
Investments in the online comic market
Kakao Corp., the operator of South Korea’s top mobile messenger, KakaoTalk, has joined forces with major talent agency YG Entertainment Inc. to tap deeper into the online comic market in Japan, industry sources said Monday. Although the two firms have not signed official tie-up deals, the collaboration is drawing attention…
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East Asia
Korea’s largest Buddhist sect in chaos
Under the monster heat wave that has gripped the nation for weeks, Venerable Seoljo, 88, has gone on a hunger strike. His fast ― albeit he drinks water with bamboo salt ― marked its 40th day on Sunday. The senior monk’s sit-in protest in a tent set up near Jogye…
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Column
IMF in Mongolia for the Fifth Review of the Country’s Performance as Part of the Bailout Package
[ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia] The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Staff Team visited Ulaanbaatar to conduct the fifth review of Mongolia’s performance under a program supported by a $434 million three- year Extended Fund Facility (EFF). It is part of a quarterly review process designed to ensure Mongolia’s reforms remain on track. The delegation met…
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East Asia
Heatwaves sweep northern hemisphere, causing scores of deaths
Temperatures have risen to record levels in several parts of Europe and Asia this week, with dozens of people killed in wildfires and many others dying from heat stroke. “Extreme weather, including record temperatures and heatwaves, drought and disastrous precipitation, has marked the first half of summer in the northern…
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Culture
Rural activist promotes traditional alcohols
Kyeong Ki-ho, who runs Sejong Brewing jointly with his wife in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, introduces himself as a rural activist. He led a campaign to develop underdeveloped rural communities while living in Goesan, North Chungcheong Province, but had to leave as it lacked an education infrastructure for his children.…
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East Asia
Australia and South Korea: Strengthening Middle-Power Bonds
Australia-South Korea relations, although strong, have never quite reached their full potential, and it’s time that they did — economically, in people-to-people social and cultural terms, and above all, given the present fraught and fragile regional environment, in political and security terms. That will be the theme of my talk…
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East Asia
[Book Review] President Duterte: How and Why?
Easy answers came fast on the heels of his May 2016 election, most putting him down for a fool or a tool. Two new books take a closer look at both Rodrigo Duterte the man and the initial phase of his presidency. In A Duterte Reader, sociologist Nicole Curato gathered…
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Culture
Improvisation extends possibilities of Korean music
At the Yeowoorak Festival, which celebrates unlimited possibilities of Korean music, there is something new and unique every year. This year, the festival set stages for reunions of legendary Korean music performers such as master pansori singer Ahn Sook-sun and her friends for “Ahn Sook-sun & Jieum” and the return…
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East Asia
[Book Review] Charting China’s Contradictions
The vote by the Chinese National People’s Congress in March to abolish presidential term limits marked a dramatic, if unsurprising, step along President Xi Jinping’s path toward centralizing power. As he moves to entrench his authority at home as the country’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, he also seeks…
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