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East Asia
Seoul vows to improve refugee protection, simplify review process
South Korea will work to better protect international refugees arriving in the country while greatly speeding up its refugee review process to help ease their pains and sort out fake asylum seekers, the country’s justice minister said Wednesday. Minister Park Sang-ki said the country will also boost its assistance for…
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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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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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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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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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East Asia
Asia and Europe in a New Era of Great-Power Rivalry
In the post-Cold War era, economic growth, multilateralism and increased connectivity have marginalized the security agenda in both Asia and Europe. In 1994, Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong launched the idea of an Asia-Europe Meeting as a platform for dialogue between Asia and Europe, and it was only fitting…
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East Asia
South Korea: Primary Textbooks Show Racial Biases
Some textbooks for primary and secondary students contain racial biases at the risk of implanting stereotypes at an early age and perpetuating them for life. This conclusion was made at the July 20-21 Conference for Racial Discrimination in Korean Society, with the participation of 47 NGOs. In the “Guidebook for…
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