North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has made fewer public appearances throughout 2020 than he did during the same period a year ago, and whether that is due to the Covid-19 pandemic or other reasons is unknown. “Although only 36, he could be a candidate for a health event,” writes Mike Chinoy, author...
Top secret: The Kim family has controlled North Korea since 1948 and when leaders go out of sight, global security analysts speculate on transition – Kim Jong Un met with US President Trump in 2019, left, and his sister Kim Yo Jong joined a meeting...
Hollywood films represent more than half, and sometimes more than two-thirds of total box-office receipts in major markets. Films that succeed in the US market also tend to succeed in foreign markets. This suggests that a convergence of popular taste may be coming about, though in many countries...
A New James Bond Movie: Die Another Day starring Pierce Brosnan
From the early years of the twentieth century, right down to the present, the United States has been the world's major commercial producer of motion pictures. According to the US...
Surveys find solid disapproval of adultery in every country, yet technology and social media, modern lifestyles and flexible gender roles, films and news reports about the affairs of politicians and celebrities make the activity more visible worldwide. “Historically, most cultures consider the...
Adultery on trial: From Chinese leader Bo Xilai, with wife Gu Kailai, to a Pakistani commoner, adulterers in some nations face punishment and shame
NEW YORK: Adultery, despite near universal disapproval, has become more visible and prevalent...
In what some analysts label as a complete turnaround, the Bush administration is engaging in diplomatic activity with Iran, Syria and North Korea. US officials insist the new talks do not mark a change in policy. Presidential administrations are often divided by policymakers who urge a tough,...
Click here to read the article in "The New York Times."
The United Kingdom understands full well how empires tend to over-reach and shrink, and British historians – notably Yale’s Paul Kennedy, Harvard’s Niall Ferguson and Stanford’s Ian Morris – suggest that such patterns are playing out for the United States, explains Gideon Rachman for the Financial...
Click here for the article in the Financial Times.
India failed to anticipate China’s aggression along the shared border and now must respond to a deadly clash that left 20 Indian soldiers dead and, by some reports, twice as many Chinese – along with China’s claim to Galwan Valley. Both sides have engaged in road-building and moved troops in the...
Taiwan-born director Ang Lee won accolades for turning a Chinese novel into the fantastical, money-making movie, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. With undeniably Chinese martial arts action and a romantic story the Brothers Grimm would have praised, Lee's blockbuster appealed to audiences the...
Shu Lien and the rebellious Jen confront each other
Was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon a slickly made Chinese epic or a Hollywood blockbuster painted with a Chinese brush? Whichever way one characterizes Taiwan-born director Ang Lee's film, this...
Leading Asia’s growing power and influence, China takes an increasingly assertive stance on historical territorial disputes. This two-part series examines foreign-policy conflicts in Asia and the potential for cooperation among economic giants – China, US and Japan. In the first article, Marvin Ott...
Shoring up: President Barack Obama with Philippines President Benigno Aquino III and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, at the US-ASEAN summit meeting in New York
WASHINGTON: The second ASEAN-US leaders’ summit in New York may have conveyed the...
