SEOUL, South Korea — It’s been a mixed week for North Korea. The country reportedly moved mid-range Musudan missiles away from a launch site at the east coast, a possible sign that leaders won’t test a rocket as feared. But the Supreme Court also sentenced Korean-American Kenneth Bae, who NK News says was an undercover missionary, to 15 years of hard labor.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Mar 7, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — A crowd of young women wait nervously in the lobby of a popular plastic surgery clinic in Apgujeong, the affluent neighborhood at the heart of Gangnam. Photographs of Korean pop singers and actresses line the walls, winsome customers who smile next to their cosmetic surgeons.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Feb 26, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — It’s official: the hyper-wired tech center of Asia, South Korea, has joined the global space club, just weeks after its isolated archrival North Korea accomplished the same.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Jan 30, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — South Koreans assumed that Lee Kun-hee was the equivalent of royalty, an untouchable oligarch at the helm of one of the world’s largest companies, the Samsung Group.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Dec 18, 2012
HO CHI MINH CITY – In what was once one of Asia’s most exciting emerging markets, Nguyen Van Nguyen sees only gloom ahead. Since 2008, his business in southern Vietnam’s economic capital has suffered through two volatile bouts of inflation, peaking in August 2011 at 23 percent — at the time, Asia’s highest inflation rate.
By Geoffrey Cain
Foreign Policy
Jul 11, 2012
In April 2011, a Vietnamese dissident explained to me why he gave up blogging critically about the government. “We have jobs, motorbikes, nice coffee shops, and big luxury buildings,” he said, pointing to the then-recently opened Bitexco Financial Tower, Ho Chi Minh City’s tallest edifice, with a helicopter landing pad jutting out of its side. “The Communist Party has made this blogging unprofitable. If we go up against them, how do we get a piece of that prosperity?”
By Geoffrey Cain
CARNEGIE COUNCIL for Ethics in International Affairs
Jun 28, 2012
How an idealistic spy in Asia challenged the American way of war, and what his tragedy teaches us about finding allies today.
By Geoffrey Cain
Washington Monthly
Jan 1, 2012
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — Four years ago, the future looked bright for Vietnam. Investors and economists proclaimed that this emerging market of 86 million people would grow into an “Asian tiger,” the next country to reach middle-income status by attracting foreign investment.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Oct 19, 2011
PHAN THIET and PHU QUOC, Vietnam — In 1910, a little-known nationalist named Nguyen Sinh Cung taught elementary school in Phan Thiet, a coastal town in southeastern Vietnam.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Mar 26, 2011
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam —Vo Van Toi’s high-tech laboratory clashes against its impoverished surroundings. Outside, cattle roam swampy fields and squatters sell sugarcane from wooden huts. Inside, he shows off his near-infrared spectroscopy machine, which measures oxygen content in blood, and a CT scanner.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Mar 1, 2011
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Geoffrey Cain is an award-winning author of bestselling books on leadership, business, technology, and finance.
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