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West Asia

“The Harley Revolution” in Lebanon

“The Harley Revolution” in Lebanon : A New Lifestyle Freedom, power, manhood, searching for adventure, and contact with nature; These are the feelings of many meanings that could express the world of amateur Harley Davidson Bicycle driving in Lebanon. For those young men and women, driving motorcycles is both fun…
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Trade between S. Korea and Turkey jumps over 30 pct under free trade pact

Trade between South Korea and Turkey has jumped more than 30 percent over the past year under a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) aimed at lowering the overall trade barriers, customs data showed Monday. The two countries enacted the FTA for goods on May 1, 2013, lowering or removing their…
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Afghan election unlikely to be decisive in first round

Amidst the biggest security operation in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, the country held a landmark presidential election on Saturday. There was high overall turnout of an estimated 7 of 12 million eligible voters, a third of them women, well in excess of the approximately 4.5 million people…
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Cross-border love weathers war

Iraqi ambassador’s wife sees a shift in Iran-Iraq ties after war in 1980s Iraqi Ambassador to Korea Khalil Al-Mosawi had a secret that he never shared with any other family members for many years after he tied the knot with his wife Avazeh Kasrai in 1982. His wife is an…
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East Asia

[Books] An Afghan Odyssey from Within

A Fort of Nine Towers: An Afghan Family Story By Qais Akbar Omar | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 2013 Unlike many books on Afghanistan written by foreigners and Afghan expatriates, A Fort of Nine Towers is a memoir of native Afghan Qais Akbar Omar. Omar presents a rare first…
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West Asia

A forgotten story of rebellion in British Raj

“Once upon a time” the British ruled in the Indian sub-continent. I find this phrase “once upon a time” rather interesting in our context. It creates a distance between the events of the story and the reader: distance in time, connection or direct relevancy. Today, the history of the sub-continent…
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South East Asia

[Asia Round-up] Keeping people and tigers safe

Editor’s note: Followings are summaries of editorials from major Asian media on current issues. Keeping people and tigers safe As conservation of wild species becomes more successful, higher levels of human-wildlife conflict are being reported. The “man-eating tiger” incident in the Nilgiris district, which ended in the gunning down of…
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East Asia

Iranian President Rouhani urges closer economic ties with South Korea

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called for closer economic ties with South Korea here on Monday, semi-official Fars news agency reported. “The South Korean private sector and companies should come closer to Iran’s private sector and expand the scope of their cooperation,” Rouhani said in a meeting with the visiting South…
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East Asia

[Books] Israel, living on the edge

[BOOKS] My Promised Land The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel By Ari Shavit | Spiegel & Grau | 2013 Winner of the Natan Book Award, My Promised Land, by esteemed Israeli journalist Ari Shavit presents an honest, balanced and comprehensive view of Israel. Shavit uses the past to shed…
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West Asia

Egyptian workshop on Korean poems

The very first question addressed to me was: “Why did you choose to translate the book of the Korean monk and poet Cho Oh-hyun?” I was sitting surrounded by an elite audience of Egyptian writers, poets, novelists, critics and journalists. It seemed like a testing start, but I was keen…
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