In The News

Abe and Blair: Political Apologies, East and West

Joji Sakurai January 26, 2016
Globalized communications ensure that national wrongdoings do not go forgotten. Official apologies for past wrongs are strategic affairs, crafted for public scrutiny. Journalist Joji Sakurai explores the cultural nuances of recent public apologies by Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s for sex slavery involving Korean women associated with World War II and by former British Prime Minister Tony...

Worries Over China’s Slowdown Drive Global Markets

Farok J. Contractor January 21, 2016
Global markets are plummeting, in part a response to slowing growth in China and volatility in the nation’s stock markets. “World markets turn needlessly bearish – failing to understand that the Shanghai or Shenzhen markets are not necessarily good indicators of the fundamentals of the Chinese economy or cultural root causes driving Chinese investors,” writes Farok Contractor, a professor at...

How to Make Sense of Plummeting Global Markets

Neil Irwin January 21, 2016
The globe economy is in “reasonably solid state,” according to most leading forecasts as reported by the New York Times. Yet market “volatility and direction are consistent with the prospect of a new crisis or global recession, explains Neil Irwin. The evidence does not yet indicate whether such levels of market turbulence are rational or irrational, he explains, with the S&P 500 falling 9...

A Towering Chinese Debt Mountain Looms Over Markets

Enda Curran January 15, 2016
Slowed growth in the world’s second largest economy, combined with heavy debt and currency volatility, is dragging down global markets. Since 2007, China and other countries responded to the global financial crisis with loose monetary policy. China’s “government is constrained by a credit bubble that has ballooned to $28 trillion in an economy growing at its slowest pace in 25 years,” reports...

Filipino Catholic Church Continues to Fight Family Planning

Marilen J. Danguilan January 13, 2016
In 2012, the Philippines enacted the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act, providing for family planning. But implementing the law has not been easy with opposition from the Catholic Church. “The law polarized the Philippines, a predominantly Catholic country, with a growing 100 million population,” writes Marilen J. Danguilan for Asia Sentinel. Opponents have removed funding for...

North Korea’s Nuclear Test Deepens Chinese Dilemma

Shim Jae Hoon January 7, 2016
China continues to gamble on regional security by placating the Kim dynasty in North Korea. The world’s most populous nation, the second largest economy, is the North’s leading benefactor and trade partner. The country of 25 million is isolated, impoverished and backward, its leaders intent on amassing a nuclear arsenal. The regime surprised the world with an underground blast, claiming a...

North Korea Leader Touts “Thrilling Sound” of Hydrogen Bomb in Test Order

January 6, 2016
North Korea announced it has tested a “miniaturized hydrogen bomb,” reports the Times of India. North Korean state television showed a copy of Kim Jong Un’s signed order, anticipating “the thrilling sound” of the nation’s first hydrogen bomb. The test was in direct defiance to orders from the country’s ally, China. “While a fourth nuclear test had been long expected, the claim that it was a...