In The News

Japanese-type Downturn

July 22, 2004
The governor of South Korea’s central bank publicly expressed on Tuesday what many have already been speculating: that Korea might be headed for a Japanese-style, decade-long slump. An aging population, a falling interest rate and consumer price index, and a switch from low wages and high profitability to high wages and low profitability have all alerted government officials to this possibility...

'Bad Press' Causing Headaches for Beijing

Paul Mooney July 22, 2004
Although SARS may have served as a wake-up call to China's leaders on the importance of free speech and openness, over the past year and a half Beijing seems to have been backsliding. Writing from Beijing, Paul Mooney notes that one newspaper was shut down in March 2003 for criticizing Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and Jiang Zemin for being autocratic. Another paper's editors were...

A Global Power Shift in the Making

James F. Hoge, Jr. July 21, 2004
China has an economy that by 2010 will be double the size of Germany’s. Japan has fed off this growth to pull itself out of its 1990s economic malaise and enjoyed a real GDP growth rate of 6.4% in the last quarter of 2003. Elsewhere in Asia, the “tigers” have recovered from the 1997 financial crisis, and India’s economy is growing at 8% per year with some economists predicting that India could...

Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore Launch Coordinated Patrol of Malacca Strait

July 20, 2004
Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore started joint naval patrols of the Malacca Strait on Tuesday. The move comes as a response to piracy in one of the world’s busiest sea lanes, where approximately 50,000 commercial ships pass per year. Ships of the three countries will be able to enter each other’s territorial waters while in pursuit of pirates after obtaining official permission. Other...

America's Korea Policy Needs an Overhaul

Stephen W. Linton July 20, 2004
Despite decades of American economic and military support for South Korea, in recent years younger South Koreans have begun to express virulently anti-US views. It is no longer only in meetings with North Korea's communist government that American visitors to the Korean peninsula confront charges of US economic imperialism, war-mongering, and colonial intentions. In fact, says Korea...

Hmong Journey

Ben Stocking July 18, 2004
Over the next several months, 15,000 of the Laotian Hmong currently living in Thailand will move to the USA, settling in California, Minnesota and Wisconsin, where there are large pre-existing Hmong communities. This population-in-transition is composed of soldiers or the descendents of soldiers who fought alongside American troops during the Vietnam War, a conflict which resulted in the death...

Manila's Iraq Pullout Due to Clout of Overseas Workers

Luz Baguioro July 16, 2004
Philippine President Gloria Arroyo faced a political conundrum of global proportions this week when deciding whether to pull troops from Iraq after Iraqi militants threatened to behead a Filipino truck driver. In deciding to withdraw troops from Iraq, the Philippines angered the United States, a country with whom military and trade connections are of the greatest importance. Arroyo's final...