In The News

Korea Herald: #MeToo Movement Rejects South Korea’s Defamation Law

Claire Lee March 1, 2018
Uncivil behavior flourishes when governments impose defamation laws that protect reputations over public declarations of truth. The global “MeToo movement underscores the problems with South Korea’s defamation law, reports Claire Lee for the Korea Herald. “Women’s activists and some lawmakers criticized the defamation law as one of the biggest challenges that sexual violence victims here face,”...

Reuters: China’s Xi and the World

Peter Marino February 28, 2018
China plans to scrap term limits for its president, consolidating Xi Jinping’s power and reducing power for others in the Communist Party. Some in China contend the move promotes stability, but Peter Marino, writing for Reuters, suggests that assessing political events could become more challenging for insiders or outsiders assessing the country: “Xi has fractured what remains of global models...

Straits Times: Mixed Reactions Over Xi’s Expanded Power

Lim Yan Liang February 26, 2018
China’s Parliament plans to remove the term limits for China’s presidency. The rationale is to support reforms and a 30-year modernization plan. State-run media expressed approval for the plan to allow Xi Jinping to serve beyond 10 years while the response was mixed between criticism and support for stability on social media, reports Lim Yan Liang for the Straits Times. China's censors...

The Japan Times: Abe Calls for Foreign Employment Review to Bring in Overseas Skilled Workers

Reiji Yoshida February 21, 2018
Japan, with a low fertility rate, has an aging population and must either rely on foreign workers or do without some services. The number of registered foreign workers has increased from less than 500,000 in 2008 to to 1.28 million in 2017, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government makes plans for to allow more immigration. Cautious about abrupt cultural changes, he called for firm limits...

Asian Scientist: Plastic Degrading Enzyme Enhanced

February 16, 2018
A research group from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have modified enzymes in bacteria that degrade polyethylene terephthalate, a main ingredient in plastics. Non-bio-degradable plastics contribute to pollution. Ideonella sakaiensis is a bacteria that can use PET as a carbon source. The research team, using 3D modeling and biochemical studies, identified how the bacteria...

The Wall Street Journal: China Is Winning the Global Race to Control Batteries

Scott Patterson and Russell Gold February 15, 2018
China listed electric vehicles as one of seven strategic priorities in 2011 and now dominates the markets for batteries from mining cobalt in Africa to production. More than half of the world’s cobalt is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and a Wall Street Journal articles describes small-scale miners, often working in unsafe conditions, selling ore to Chinese buyers. “Those buyers then...

ESPN: Kid Fearless

Alyssa Roenigk February 13, 2018
Chloe Kim at age 17 won the snowboard halfpipe gold medal for the US Olympic Team. South Korea and the rest of the world, too, celebrate the story of immigrant success and a child who made her Olympic debut in her parents’ homeland. Her father came to the United States in 1982 at age 26. “With $800 and an English-Korean dictionary, Jong purchased a 1970 Nova, bought a carton of Kent cigarettes...