Asia Review

Turmoil at News Corp

Lachlan Murdoch's decision to leave his secure and well paid position at his father's company, News Corp. will not result in a break up of the multinational media empire. There are a number of capable magazine executives already in place. Furthermore, James Murdoch, the chief executive at BSkyB is well poised to take over the reins when his energetic father finally passes the baton. I met James in Hong Kong a few years back when he was engaged with Star TV. He's smart and in tune with the new generation's media desires.

The Daughter from Mindanao-

Amost seven years ago, I was invited to dine with Nurallaj “Nur” Misurai, the former firebrand revolutionary leader of the Moro National Liberation Front who once sent tremors and shockwaves into living rooms of northern Filipinos as they watched the grim progress of death and destruction unfold on their television screens.

On that humid early summer evening at the Manila Hyatt, the wiry, goateed and visibly tired 58 year-old Muslim leader, who had brokered an earlier peace agreement with former Philippines President Fidel Ramos, turned to an honored guest at the table, the elegant and dark-eyed Zamboangan, Yolanda Ortega Stern and calmly stated, “ I am so happy to call her not only my friend, but also the true daughter from Mindanao.”

Vietnam Novels Make Great Summer Read

As a friend of Vietnam and frequent traveler to the country, I have found that literature offers a excellent prism into the soul of the nation. Modern Vietnamese literature has evolved from romanticism to realism, from heroism in wartime to the revelations offered in ordinary and hardscrabble Vietnamese lives.

Fortunately, Vietnam has exported its writers and literature, and I have written about this in Asia Times. There are two must read titles for the end of the summer- Duong Thu Huong’s "No Man’s Land", beautifully translated by Nina McPherson and Phan Huy and the new memoir/novel by Uyen Nicole  Duong, "Daughters of the River Huong".

Surfin’ the Pacific; rather than the Net

One of the ancient functions of travel is to wake us up from our slumber. I recently found myself not only sailing through the pristine Pacific around the Hawaiian islands, but also grabbin’ a vintage Hobie surfboard (circa 1960s wide-body style) and catching a wave on Maui. Mind you, it was only a three foot splash, not the pipeline that serious surfers dream and search for their entire life. But I can assure you I woke up with my heart racing and arms aching from paddling on my big board.

Tabloid Newspaper War in Hong Kong

In the South China Morning Post, reporter Frederick Yeung provides the latest on Hong Kong’s daily newspaper wars. Not since the infamous Jimmy Lai, the barrel-chested and feisty publisher and editor of the popular Apple Daily newspaper dramatic departure four years ago from Hong Kong to Taiwan have the local media dished so much about itself.  Yeung writes, “A war between free newspapers will start today with the launch of Sing Tao News Corp's Headline Daily. The new tabloid will hit the streets this morning with an initial print run of 400,000 copies.”

Good Morning Vietnam! IDG Ventures Invests in Vietnam

IDG Ventures Vietnam, is a solid cornerstone in the global building blocks of IDG media titan, Patrick McGovern. It is, after all, a $3 billion IT media company, which includes IDC, the influential research and analysis division. McGovern is banking on Vietnam’s admission to the WTO and the hands-on management of a 31 year-old Vietnamese-American, Henry Nguyen, who heads up IDG's $100 million investment fund to insure that Vietnam repeats IDG's earlier achieved China success.

Vietnam’s Media Embraces Digital Tools: From the shores of the Red River to Harvard

At a time when American public support for and trust in the media is eroding each day, Vietnam's young, Internet-savvy reporters and editors eagerly strive to improve professional skills, enhance integrity and use technology to integrate with the West and globalization. Online reporting has been adopted by many of Vietnam's major media, and digital-era publishing has become widely popular.

China Blogs

Blogging in China is like a rising tide and shows no signs of receding. In two separately conducted e-mail interviews with Xiao Qiang, the evangelic director of the China Internet Project  at the University of California at Berkeley and Edwyn Chan,the optimistic entrepreneur blog developer, I invite you to learn more about the present ebb and flow of blogs in China.

Inside Look at Popular BlogChina

Last year, in the New Scientist,  Xiao Qiang, the director of the China Internet Project at the University of California at Berkeley and also the editor of China Digital News blog at chinadn.org, wrote about how the ‘blog revolution is sweeping across China. With close to 10 million blogs now on the World Wide Web and with nearly 50,000 new ones added each day, including this one, it’s no wonder that the academic and business communities continue to focus on a rising Digital China in the second half of 2005.

James Borton on Web Journalism, Digital Technology and Life in a More Connected World.

It’s a wired world and even the most isolated neo-luddhite is now informed about the impact of weblogs. Asia, now home to more than 3.3 billion citizens, making up nearly three fifths of the world’s population is now logging on and joining the Web conversation through emergent weblogs.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia defines the term weblog (usually shortened to blog, but occasionally spelled web log) as a web application used for entering, modifying and displaying periodic posts.  There’s even an avalanche of new books on the subject including the vastly popular and influential blogger, Hugh Hewitt. His pioneering opus is Blog: Understanding The Information Reformation That’s Changing Your World.

Did I say networked global community? The search engine Technorati tracks in excess of 12 million blogs. This valuable source has proven itself to be one of the most comprehensive information links for the current conversations on the Web.