Compared to South Korea, North Korea’s infrastructure is crumbling and in dire need of expansion and modernisation. The South evidently wants to help with new projects and special economic zones it envisioned at a recent summit between the two countries. Hussein Dia writes that progress will depend on the cooperation of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, who has been reluctant to accept help in the past.
Indonesia’s hard-won democratic advances may be under threat amid growing intolerance, including violence against minorities. Up until now opponents of the 1998 democratic transition might have felt politically constrained to accept democratisation as a necessary evil. But, warns Tim Lindsey, as the country prepares for presidential elections next year the temptation to resort to regressive identity politics and opportunistic populism will increase.
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Top Stories
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Hussein Dia, Swinburne University of Technology
North Korea's infrastructure is in dire need of expansion and modernisation. This is where the South can help.
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Tim Lindsey, University of Melbourne
Indonesia has long been held up as a model of democratic transition in the Muslim world. This view of the country now needs rethinking.
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Business + Economy
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Charles Hankla, Georgia State University
Despite sluggishness in the world economy, global trade reached an astonishing US$23 trillion last year. The World Trade Organization has been the primary guarantor of this extraordinary growth in global…
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Jason Dedrick, Syracuse University; Greg Linden, University of California, Berkeley; Kenneth L. Kraemer, University of California, Irvine
The president launched a trade war largely on the premise of a massive trade deficit with China. A closer look at the iPhone shows why he's wrong.
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Politics + Society
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Samantha Velluti, University of Sussex
Newly proposed 'controlled centres' in the EU must not breach migrants' human rights.
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Brian Porter-Szücs, University of Michigan
With its attempt to purge the country's courts of 40 percent of its judges, Poland's right-wing ruling party passed another milestone on the path towards establishment of a one-party state.
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