Posted on Dec. 29th Australia’s military is looking to recruit foreign troops, particularly those let go in Britain where the government has announced cutbacks on defense spending, according to a Dec. 27 report. The Australian Defence Force has struggled to fill recruitment quotas and was seeking highly skilled specialists such as fighter pilots and submarine [...]

Posted on Dec 21st SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea test-fired a short-range missile off its east coast on Dec. 19, the same day it announced the death of leader Kim Jong-Il, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said. The agency quoted an unnamed government official as saying the missile launch was unrelated to the announcement [...]

Posted on Dec 21st The death of North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il over the weekend, and the uncertainty surrounding the transition of power to his youngest son, Kim Jong-Un, has raised new questions about a project to pipe natural gas from Russia across the secretive state to its southern neighbor. Since the Monday announcement of Kim’s [...]

Posted on Dec 21st WASHINGTON (Kyodo) — Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton agreed Monday to keep in close contact with each other as well as with South Korea on how to deal with North Korea following the death of its leader Kim Jong Il over the weekend. Stressing [...]

Posted on Dec.21st SEOUL — In the wake of leader Kim Jong Il’s death, North Korea is likely to shift for the first time to a collective leadership model, with a small circle of older caretakers advising — and sharing power with — untested heir apparent Kim Jong Eun, Seoul’s intelligence agency said this week. The [...]

Posted on Dec 14th INCHEON, Dec. 14 (Yonhap) — Hundreds of fellow officers and family members gathered at the Incheon Coast Guard pier on Wednesday to mourn an officer killed during an operation to arrest the crew of a Chinese vessel illegally fishing in the Yellow Sea.    A casket carrying the officer’s body arrived [...]

Posted on Dec 14th SYDNEY – Australia said Dec. 13 it had invited three companies from France, Germany and Spain to submit designs for its new submarine fleet, a project expected to span the next 30 years. Defence Minister Stephen Smith said Canberra had asked French naval defense firm DCNS, Spain’s Navantia and HDW of [...]

Posted on Dec 1st YANGON, Myanmar — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on a historic visit to this long-isolated nation, met for the first time on Thursday with the acclaimed leader of its opposition movement and announced that the United States would loosen some restrictions on financial aid to reward Myanmar’s nascent political and economic [...]

Posted on Nov 28th Sino-US ties were in focus at the recent Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit inHonolulu and the just concluded East Asia Summit (EAS) in Bali, especially because of theEuropean economic and political crises. It was not a good time for US President Barack Obamato attend the EAS, given the unstable state of the American economy, and the Congressionalsuper committee’s failure on the federal budget. The frictions between the United States and China - from the yuan’s exchange rate to theSouth China Sea disputes - are nothing new. But the problem now is that the two countriesseem unable to narrow their perception gap. Obama met with Premier Wen Jiabao twice during the EAS to say that China should allow theyuan to revalue more rapidly. At the APEC summit in Hononulu, Obama had complained toPresident Hu Jintao that the yuan was undervalued and said it ”disadvantages Americanbusiness; it disadvantages American workers. And we have said to them that this is somethingthat has to change”. The Chinese leaders responded that the yuan’s exchange rate was not responsible for the US’high trade deficit with China, instead structural problems in the American economy were toblame for that. In fact, China has been emphasizing the need for a new mechanism for globaleconomic governance to increase ”the voice of emerging markets and developing economies”. Before the summits, US officials had said countries concerned should exercise self-restraintand refrain from taking any action that could escalate or complicate the territorial disputes inthe South China Sea. The US remark was directed at China, too. But before that, Obama hadissued an indirect message to China saying: “We want you to play by the rules”. He warned that”where we see rules being broken, we’ll speak out and, in some cases, we will take action.” Chinese leaders and people, however, think that the US dragged the South China Seadisputes, an irrelevant issue, to the EAS to fulfill its own agenda. To them, the US’ intention isclear: It is using the South China Sea disputes to drive a wedge between China and some of itsSoutheast Asian neighbors, which have enjoyed ”20 years of steady friendship”. To read the whole article at the  China Daily  

Posted on Nov 28th Tensions between China and India rose on after scheduled talks on outstanding border issues were cancelled following a row over a speech by the Dalai Lama, the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism, at a religious event in New Delhi. The spat is the latest in a series of rows as the emerging Asian giants manoeuvre for [...]