domestic policy

On 15 November 2018, a magnitude-5.4 earthquake struck the environs of the Pohang-si city, located in the North Gyeongsang Province. It was the second most powerful temblor in the modern history of South Korea since instrumental earthquake monitoring had begun in the nation in 1978. The most powerful earthquake occurred in 2016 in Gyeongju-si, its magnitude was 5.8. However, far more damage was caused in Pohang-si.

The sound of machine gun fire in Tripoli after the start of Khalifa Haftar’s military campaign to “liberate the city” is accompanied by a bitter squabble between two conflicting sides aired by media outlets and on social networking sites.

We recently wrote about the acquittal of one of the women accused of poisoning Kim Jong-un’s half-brother. On 11 March, Indonesian citizen Siti Aisyah was released from jail, because prosecutors refused to press charges against her.

On 1 April, Chief Cabinet Secretary (i.e. head of the executive body under the Prime Minister), Yoshihide Suga, showed journalists two kanji characters, written in calligraphy, that represent the name of the country’s new epoch. They have been adopted from ancient Japanese poetry, and in Latin alphabet the characters depict the word Reiwa.

“Fake news” is a rather ubiquitous term that has come to be used in US and international media. This term is mainly attributed to President Donald Trump, in reaction to false media narratives about him and his campaign, and after his election to the Presidency, fake news became the modus operandi by which the media establishments sought to destroy the Trump Presidency by inundating the American populace with information that would serve to discourage them from supporting him.