By Dr. Lee Hong-Koo

Dr. Lee Hong-Koo, a former prime minister of Korea, is a trustee to The Asia Foundation, and an advisor to the JoongAng Ilbo. This article is a revised version of the article, first published in Korean in the JoongAng Ilbo.

If we want to maintain a special alliance with the United States under Obama, there is an urgent need to find shared values that both nations want to pursue.

An empire’s decline or fall depends mainly on its capacity for change and innovation. If this becomes paralyzed, the nation falls. The Roman Empire is a prime example. Of course, there are cases in history where defeat in war leads to a nation’s collapse. The end of Hitler’s Third Reich in Germany and the militarized imperial Japanese Empire are the most recent examples.

But even in these cases, they brought disaster upon themselves by institutionalizing inflexibility and uniformity which robbed them of their capacity for self-innovation and renewal. Consequently, they committed national suicide.
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By Scott Snyder

Scott Snyder is a Senior Associate at The Asia Foundation and based in the Foundation’s Washington, D.C. office. He can be reached at ssnyder@asiafound-dc.org.

There’s a lot of speculation about how President-elect Obama will organize his administration to address a truly daunting list of security challenges, including a global economic crisis, Iraq, and Afghanistan. On the list of potential crises that the Obama administration will inherit come January 20th will be the task of achieving the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

There’s already been considerable speculation regarding how an Obama administration will approach the North Korean issue, especially in Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing.  Much of that has tended toward the dramatic idea that Mr. Obama himself would seek an early breakthrough with North Korea through personal diplomacy at the highest levels. 
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By Rebecca Darling

The below was originally published in “Asia Miner” Magazine and was written by Rebecca Darling, the Director of Natural Resources and Development programs at The Asia Foundation in Mongolia. She can be reached at rdarling@asiafound.org.

In the northwest corner of central Mongolia’s Tov province, 80% of the land in Ugumuur town has been licensed to 18 Mongolian, Russian, and Chinese miners. Activity hums dusk to dawn.

Ugumuur is a boom-town but like many towns in Mongolia, it is deeply scarred by a legacy of poor mining practices in the 1990s. Citizens have been divorced from land-use decision-making, they observe environmental damage and often imported labor crowded them out of the local mining market. These are sore points with locals, who, according to one, say that they would support mining if “we are engaged and employed, and if companies reclaim land when extraction is completed.” These concerns are voiced by communities in Khentii, Hovsgol and other provinces across Mongolia.
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By Angie Bexley

Angie Bexley is a Ph.D. Scholar at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. The Asia Foundation funded her print-making project in Dili, described below.

In early October, the Timorese art collective Gembel launched its first major exhibition in Dili, with financial assistance from The Asia Foundation. The exhibit, Recovering Lives Across Borders, featured the print works produced from successful collaborations between Gembel and two unique art groups: Taring Padi from Indonesia, and Culture Kitchen from Australia. The collection of works explored the inter-connection among the three nations, particularly in terms of environmental and social justice. The collaborations and the themes in the artworks themselves promote young Timorese as productive, vital members of society.
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By Sarah Wan

Sarah Wan is a Junior Associate in The Asia Foundation’s San Francisco headquarters.

Last Thursday, I had the privilege of attending a special dinner where Dr. Muhammad Yunus discussed topics ranging from the current global economic crisis to recommendations for the Obama administration. Yunus, the world-renowned founder of Grameen Bank, Grameen America, and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, was accepting an award for excellence in the community from the World Affairs Council of Northern California.

Dr. Yunus said the award was important for its ability to bring attention to the problem of global poverty.  He first recognized his former students from Chittagong University who worked with him to reduce poverty in Bangladesh at a grassroots level. Yunus’s mission began with giving microloans, but he has expanded his work to improve the health and education systems in his homeland. He said, while these kinds of efforts can improve the lives of many the worlds’ poor, policy change is the key to making a widespread, sustainable difference.
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On Tuesday, October 28th, the Asia Foundation released findings from its most recent public opinion poll in Afghanistan, which covers the largest population sample ever surveyed at one time in all 34 of Afghanistan’s provinces. “Afghanistan in 2008: A Survey of the Afghan People” is the fourth poll conducted by the Foundation, which released previous polls in 2004, 2006, and 2007. Collectively, the four surveys establish an accurate, long-term barometer of public opinion across Afghanistan to help assess the direction in which the country is moving in the post-Taliban era.

A copy of the 2008 survey is available in its entirety on The Asia Foundation website.
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