SEOUL, South Korea — This sprawling East Asian capital is renowned for its epic commutes, hard-charging work force and money-making ethos. But Seoul’s beloved mayor, Park Won-soon, is determined to soften the city’s aesthetic and transform it into a greener, cooler, more creative and livable place.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Jul 8, 2014
SEOUL, South Korea — The biggest shock to Dr. Robert Jiao wasn’t Tinkerbell’s size. He had heard of teacup puppies: cute canines bred to grow so small that they can, as the marketing gimmick goes, supposedly fit in a teacup.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Jun 16, 2014
1. You can watch the sun rise and set from the city’s four peaks You can also gaze upon the coolest, most sprawling neon-lit cityscape you’ll ever see.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Jun 10, 2014
SEOUL, South Korea — Japan is without a doubt America’s most stable and prosperous ally in East Asia. Yet today, President Barack Obama became the first American president since Bill Clinton in April 1996 to visit the country as a state guest.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Apr 23, 2014
SEOUL, South Korea — South Koreans were taken aback Monday when President Park Geun-hye decreed that the captain and crew of the Sewol, the 6825-ton sunken ferry, conducted themselves in a way “akin to an act of murder,” fleeing the listing ship without ensuring the safety of the 476 passengers on board.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Apr 22, 2014
SEOUL, South Korea — Get ready. North Korea’s fourth nuclear test may be upon us. There’s been an uptick in activity at the underground test site at Punggye-ri, in the garrison kingdom’s desolate and remote northeast, Yonhap reports.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Apr 21, 2014
SEOUL, South Korea ― Wednesday’s ferry sinking off Korea’s west coast is being called one of the country’s worst peacetime disasters in modern times. Although 14 are confirmed dead, close to 300 are still missing in the frigid waters. Hopes are dwindling of finding more survivors.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Apr 17, 2014
SEOUL, South Korea — The scene on the Seoul subway these days resembles any other modern underground network: throngs of high school students and commuter droids, hunched over, aloof to their surroundings, unable to stop playing with their handheld thingies.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Apr 14, 2014
SEOUL, South Korea — The news yesterday that Kim Jong Un purged his uncle and de facto number two leader of North Korea, Jang Sung Taek, has all the trappings you’d expect from a mysterious and ruthless dictatorship.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Dec 4, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — The news today that North Korea removed Jang Sung Taek, the powerful uncle of Kim Jong Un and vice chair of the body that heads the military, could amount to the boy dictator’s greatest leadership shake-up yet.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Dec 3, 2013
What to read next:
Geoffrey Cain on Investigative Journalism, Authoritarian Power, and The Perfect Police State | In a wide-ranging conversation with Jennifer Grossman, CEO of The Atlas Society, investigative journalist Geoffrey Cain reflects on years spent reporting inside some of the world’s most restrictive regimes — and on the research behind his book The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey into China’s Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the Future.
For years, Tim Cook insisted Apple could change China from the inside. Instead, China changed Apple.
The latest evidence? Apple spent billions developing cutting-edge electric vehicle battery technology with Chinese automaker BYD, only to watch its innovations become the cornerstone of BYD’s rise to global electric vehicle dominance. Apple walked away with nothing. China walked away with everything.
This isn’t just another story about corporate research and development gone wrong. It’s a cautionary tale about how even America’s most valuable company has become trapped in China’s web of technological control — and how that web is about to tighten even further.