Viewpoint by Midori Kurahashi The author is Project Associate Professor, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, the University of Tokyo, Japan. TOKYO (IDN) – Worldwide forest fires and the abnormal heat experienced last summer are still fresh in our memory. Many people throughout the world had a sense that some kind of unsettling change […]
Wickremasinghe’s Reappointment As Sri Lanka PM Opens Door To The ‘Indo-Pacific’
By Kalinga Seneviratne COLOMBO (IDN) – For the past two months Sri Lanka’s deeply divided political community has been fighting to protect democracy in one of the oldest democracies in Asia. One side wants a general election to elect a new parliament claiming the current one is corrupt and wants to divide the country. The […]
Providing New Bamboo Shelters in Bangladesh Refugee Camps
By UN Migration COX’S BAZAR (IDN-INPS) – Work has begun on one of the largest bamboo treatment plants ever installed in an emergency response, as IOM experts tackle a tiny insect that is devastating structures in the world’s biggest refugee settlement. An infestation of “boring beetles” means the bamboo in almost every shelter in the […]
Who’s Deceiving Whom? Open Source North Korea Under The Microscope
NYT Coverage of Think-Tank Report Risks Credibility of Open-Source Research on North Korea Viewpoint by Joshua H. Pollack The writer is a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and editor of the Nonproliferation Review. This article first appeared on NKNews.Org on December 11, 2018. NEW YORK | MONTEREY (IDN-INPS) […]
New Report Warns of the Perils of Scientific Collaborations with North Korea
Partner Countries Include China, USA, Australia and Germany By Ramesh Jaura NEW YORK (IDN) – Direct collaboration between North Korean and foreign scientists including those from China, Australia, the United States, Germany, and Romania, is playing “an expanding role” in the regime’s pursuit of technological advancement, a new study has found. Published on December 19, […]
Japan Shines with a Youth Forum to Commemorate Universal Human Rights Declaration
By Katsuhiro Asagiri TOKYO (IDN) – When the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in Paris on December 10, 1948, it came up with a milestone document in the history of human rights that took into account the horrendous experiences of the Second World War. With the end of that […]
‘Ugly’ Is the New Delicious in Singapore
By Nadia Amirah Binte Kamsani SINGAPORE (IDN) – As Asian societies become affluent, their modern lifestyles are leading to much wastage in the food chain to satisfy the high standards of hygeine and freshness consumers demand. To combat the issue of higher food wastage in Singapore – one of the most affluent countries in the […]
Behind Russian President Putin’s First Visit to Singapore
By Chris Cheang The author is a Senior Fellow with the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He served three tours of duty in the Singapore Embassy in Moscow between 1994 and 2013. A version of this article was first published on RSIS and then reproduced by the EastAsiaForum […]
China Chides U.S. for Portraying Silk Road as ‘Trap’
By Devinder Kumar PORT MORESBY (IDN) – China’s President Xi Jinping has rejected U.S. criticism of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, vowing it is not “a trap” and that it is not designed to serve any hidden geopolitical agenda. The project is also known as Silk Road Economic Belt. Xi was addressing a meeting of […]
ASEAN Refrains from Taking Sides as Trade Dominates Summit
By Kalinga Seneviratne SINGAPORE (IDN) – Addressing a media conference at the close of the three-day 33rd ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) Summit on November 15, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong expressed fears that “circumstances may come” where the regional organization would have to “choose one over the other”. Though not naming […]