France 24 Hundreds of aircraft including two dozen stealth jets began training Monday as the United States and South Korea launched a massive combined air force exercise. The war games come a week after North Korea test-fired its most powerful missile ever, an ICBM that may be able to target the eastern seaboard of the United States.
France 24 South Korean President Moon Jae-In will meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing Thursday amid mixed US signals about potential talks to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis. Relations between Beijing and Seoul have encountered their own rough patch over the US military’s deployment of a powerful anti-missile defence system in the South to counter the… Read more »
France 2 A bid to make all sex outside marriage illegal was rejected by a top Indonesian court Thursday, in a ruling that surprised many as concerns grow about rising intolerance in the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country. Five out of nine judges on the Constitutional Court in the capital Jakarta narrowly rejected the push to criminalise extramarital relations, including gay… Read more »
As a member of the United States Department of State, I played the role of a spokesperson and a negotiator throughout the simulation. Before the first session, I felt prepared due to my previous research about the position of the current United States administration despite being unsure of the exact procedure of an international relations simulation. Although our class did… Read more »
In Indonesia, a volcano is creating a bit of a crisis. Although it posed a possible threat earlier this year, people are unsure whether this billowing of smoke will fade as just a false alarm, or will escalate to an eruption. This possible tragedy poses a large question to inhabitants of the surrounding area: should we leave our livelihoods because… Read more »
BBC A police investigation into child abuse in a Chinese kindergarten has dismissed all but one of the main accusations, causing widespread social media outrage, with parents turning to lawyers. It is also leading some to question China’s entire system of governance and accountability. When we arrived at the gates of the kindergarten on the eastern outskirts of Beijing, parents… Read more »
France 24 Papua New Guinea police have emptied a shuttered Australian detention camp where hundreds of refugees were holed up, police said Friday, ending a three-week-old standoff. The police operation, which started on Thursday and saw 50 men removed from the closed, Australia-run centre, resumed Friday morning with a fresh push to take the remaining 320 detainees to new, PNG-run transit… Read more »
France 24 Pope Francis flew to Myanmar on Monday in one of his most sensitive trips yet, as religious tensions fester in the mainly Buddhist nation that has bristled at global outrage over its treatment of Rohingya Muslims. Myanmar’s army chief Min Aung Hlaing said he told Pope Francis his country had “no religious discrimination” after the pair met late Monday, in a… Read more »
France 24 A volcano gushing towering columns of ash closed the airport on the Indonesian tourist island of Bali for a second day Tuesday, disrupting travel for tens of thousands, as authorities renewed their warnings for villagers to evacuate. Mount Agung has been hurling clouds of white and dark gray ash about 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) above its cone since the… Read more »
It seems that China and South Korea seem to be pursuing the same type of solution for the North Korea crisis. This solution is the more diplomatic approach. China wishes to avoid conflict by re-implementing the six-party talks in order to convince North Korea to denuclearize. Meanwhile, South Korea is refusing to fight fire with fire and, against the opinion… Read more »