Military tensions in the South China Sea have gradually increased in recent years. China’s claim on much of the maritime territory in the South China Sea – a territory China demarcates with the strongly contested “nine-dash line” – is what causes frictions with Southeast Asian littoral states and Western states such as the US ...

Although South Korea is still struggling with a large income gap and its current trade dispute with Japan, it is now Asia’s fourth-largest economy. This has raised the question of whether the country should retain or relinquish its status as a developing country at the World Trade Organization...

Home to roughly 300,000 people, Bougainville is an autonomous region of Papua New Guinea (PNG) in the Pacific Ocean that attracts little attention in international media. Bougainville’s forthcoming referendum on independence from Papua New Guinea, however, could entail financial and strategic risks that could affect the larger Asia-Pacific region ...

The 2019 Hong Kong District Council elections are scheduled for November 24, 2019. The District Councils are low-level bodies that are typically charged with neighborhood affairs, but the importance of this election has risen dramatically due to widespread political unrest in the city ...

Protests in Lebanon spanning two weeks in late October culminated in the resignation of the country’s Prime Minister. While the proximate cause for the protests was an increase in the tax rate applied to the use of WhatsApp, a messaging platform, the Lebanese public had long harbored dissatisfaction over the sectarian government’s corruption and failure to effectively run the economy ...

Smartphones, computers, and many other electronic devices are based on a simple but vital natural resource: sand. Sand appears to exist in abundance and is one of the most consumed natural resources on earth ...

The deep sea mining industry is poised for rapid growth over the next half-decade as companies, countries, and institutions react to changes in international demand for various minerals. Deep sea mineral deposits often hold reserves that are denser than those found on land ...

Fintech, short for financial technology, has become a central component of the banking and finance industries. Innovations in technology permit a host of new financial services in retail, corporate banking, private banking, and insurance ...