"North Korea flew hundreds of trash-carrying balloons toward South Korea in one of its most bizarre provocations against its rival in years, prompting the South's military to mobilize chemical and explosive response teams to recover objects and debris in different parts of the country."
CBS News reports the action is "an apparent retaliation against South Korean activists for flying anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets across the border."
In Hoi An, Vietnam, this charming street is adorned with vibrant red silk lanterns that cast a warm, inviting glow on the rustic yellow walls. The scene captures the essence of traditional Vietnamese culture, offering a serene and enchanting ambiance under the night sky.
The BBC's Quentin Sommerville spent a month with revolutionary forces at jungle bases and on front lines in Myanmar....Two loudspeakers, as big as the men carrying them, are brought to the rocky hilltop. Some 800m below, in the town of Hpasang, lies a sprawling Myanmar army base....
#China is home to around 200 #tiankeng, which are mostly distributed from the central #Shaanxi province down to the #GuangxiZhuang autonomous region in the southwest. Roughly 1/3 of the country consists of #karst — the highest proportion of overall surface area of any country in the world — compared with just under 1/5 in the United States.
There’s a gravity hole — a spot where the Earth’s gravitational pull is weaker — in the Indian Ocean, causing the sea level to dip by over 328 feet (100 meters). The anomaly has puzzled geologists for a long time, but researchers think they’ve found a credible explanation: magma. Read more from CNN: https://flip.it/CC.EAZ #Science#Geology#Asia#Ocean#IndianOcean
It’s part of a broader trade overhaul for key American allies in #Asia, including major economies like #SouthKorea and #Japan. Both are seeing a bigger share of exports heading to the #US at the expense of #China
A blistering heat wave has been toasting Asia for several weeks, resulting in hundreds of deaths and canceling schools across the region. A scientist for the World Weather Attribution, a meteorological research group, says only human-caused climate change could be responsible for the increased probability of extreme heat in places like the Philippines. “The heat wave exacerbated already precarious conditions faced by internally displaced people, migrants and those in refugee camps and conflict zones across West Asia,” the organization said in a new study. Read more from CBS News.
Finally, @helmer and @NinaLamal argue that it is important to analyse #Dutch#emdiplomacy not only in its European context, but in its global dimension. The East India Company (#VOC) and its growing importance in #Asia played an important role in the rise of the Dutch republic. Unfortunately, both dimesions – the European and the global one – are far too often dealt seperately with by modern research. A problem that is generally true for research on #earlymodern diplomacy.
This leads to an overarching problem of how to competently connect national, European and global perspectives on diplomacy without blurring the focus. A question to be discussed elsewhere. (5/5)
According to @Joysauce, fewer women in East Asia and Southeast Asia are choosing to have children — Taiwan has the world's lowest birth rate and South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau and Japan aren't far behind (or ahead, depending on your point of view). Jiaying Grygiel takes a look at the societal and economic reasons for these steeply falling birth rates. “People are making a perfectly rational decision about childbearing under the circumstances,” says Stuart Gietel-Basten, a professor of social science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Heavy rains triggered flash floods and caused torrents of cold lava and mud to flow down a volcano’s slopes on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, killing at least 41 people and leaving more than a dozen others missing, officials have said. Monsoon rains and a major mudslide from a cold lava flow on Mount Marapi caused a river to...
Zuletzt beendet: "Last of the Talons" von @sophiekimwrites - #BeautyandtheBeast meets Joe Black in #Fantasy#Asia. Hat etwas gedauert bis ich es nicht mehr zugunsten anderer Formate (eBook, Print) beiseite gelegt sondern fertig hören wollte. Nach etwa der Hälfte, um genau zu sein. 3/5 Sternen 🌟🌟🌟 - okay, kann man lesen, die zweite Hälfte ist 4/5. #Bookstodon#Fantasyromane#Rezension@bookstodon@buchstodon
Jenny Erpenbeck opens #Spring 2024 with Sloughing Off One Skin, a haunting #ShortStory that explores truth and identity, translated by Michael Hofmann.
We're on the lookout for perspectives that are currently under-represented on bookshelves in the UK and in the US, and material first written in languages other than English.
Feature: Myanmar: Young insurgents changing the course of a forgotten war (www.bbc.com)
The BBC's Quentin Sommerville spent a month with revolutionary forces at jungle bases and on front lines in Myanmar....Two loudspeakers, as big as the men carrying them, are brought to the rocky hilltop. Some 800m below, in the town of Hpasang, lies a sprawling Myanmar army base....
Dozens killed in cold lava mudslides on Indonesian island of Sumatra (www.theguardian.com)
Heavy rains triggered flash floods and caused torrents of cold lava and mud to flow down a volcano’s slopes on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, killing at least 41 people and leaving more than a dozen others missing, officials have said. Monsoon rains and a major mudslide from a cold lava flow on Mount Marapi caused a river to...