Steve Mollman

Recent developments in the South China Sea might lead one to assume that Beijing is taking advantage of the coronavirus crisis to further its ambitions in the disputed waterway. But it’s important to note that China has been following a long-term game plan in the sea for decades. While it’s possible that certain moves were made slightly earlier than planned because of the pandemic, they likely would have been made in any case, sooner or later.

Kim Jong Un is back, Donald Trump is happy about it, and gunfire has been exchanged between North Korea and South Korea.

It’s very hard to know what’s really going in North Korea. If reports this week are credible, supreme leader Kim Jong Un is in dire condition following surgery. That could prove false tomorrow. Either way, it raises the question of who would take control of the nuclear-armed nation of 25 million should he surprise the world and abruptly pass away.

The coronavirus crisis has sparked all manner of unexpected consequences, including the Tokyo summer Olympics being postponed and auto insurers reaping extra profits as people stay home. In New Jersey, it’s resulted in something that few people outside that state’s tech department would have foreseen: a dire need for COBOL coders.

If you had been living in a cave since late last year and were now suddenly rejoining society, much about this coronavirus-tinged world would puzzle you, including the closed bars, sparsely stocked stores, and deserted landmarks. Adding to your confusion would be the occasional cryptic sign telling you, for some unknown reason, to STAY HOME and observe something called “social distancing.” What’s more, the signs would assume you already know why you should do these things. Some might mention “Covid-19,” which would leave you no less puzzled.

A man in his 50s in a Seattle suburb died of Covid-19, Washington state officials announced today. It marked the first such reported death from the disease in the US.

Amid the overblown media coverage of the Super Bowl each year, there are often a few stories about the unusual venues in which football fans are catching the big game.

Today the Trump administration said it will bar entry to the US of foreign nationals who’ve recently been to China. The temporary measure, which will throw many a travel plan into disarray, comes in response to a rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak that has sickened thousands of people around the world and killed hundreds in China, where it originated in the central city of Wuhan.

During the kind of virus outbreak that China and other nations are now contending with, time is of the essence. The earlier the warning, the better the chance to contain the contagion.

That didn’t take long. Amid fears of the deadly new coronavirus that’s spreading rapidly in China and beyond, Finnair today (Jan. 25) reversed an earlier decision to ban flight attendants from wearing face masks.

On Jan. 14, a Delta plane departing Los Angeles for Shanghai requested an emergency landing shortly after takeoff, citing engine problems. The pilot of Delta Flight 89 told air traffic controllers that dumping fuel was unnecessary, but then the Boeing 777-200 proceeded to do just that at low altitude over a densely populated area, drizzling students and teachers at elementary schools and playgrounds below.

North Korea is about to get more militaristic, if developments this weekend are any indication.

Sydney is ranked among the most livable cities in world. At the moment, however, it is surrounded by flames and blanketed by toxic smoke, as Australia contends with giant fires, dry conditions, and record-breaking temperatures.

North Korea warned in April that it would give the US until year’s end to be “more flexible” in denuclearization talks. Since then it’s continued with the warning, including recently when high-ranking official Kim Yong Chol said that ignoring the deadline “would be a mistake.”

In October 2015, Egypt, after much lobbying, scored a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for the two-year period of 2016-2017. While being among the council’s 10 rotating members isn’t as prestigious as being one of the permanent five that have veto power—Russia, the US, China, France, the UK—it still carries a vote and was a win for Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.

As China seeks ever more control over its population, it’s turning to one tool of particular note: people’s faces.

Accident investigators looking into the 737 Max crashes have implicated a key system known as MCAS. Now it appears that a version of the system Boeing created years earlier for a military fuel tanker had a better design.

China wants images from its upcoming military parade to be inescapable. To that end, it’s given away over 620,000 TVs.

Russia routinely holds military parades in Moscow showcasing its formidable hardware, with tanks, missile launchers, and armored personnel carriers rolling past high-ranking officials and foreign VIPs in attendance.

Donald Trump has another challenger from within his own party. Mark Sanford, the former governor and representative from South Carolina, announced today on Fox News Sunday that he’ll seek the Republican nomination for the 2020 presidential election.

Are you reading this on a handheld device? There’s a good chance you are. Now imagine how’d you look if that device suddenly disappeared. Lonely? Slightly crazy? Perhaps next to a person being ignored? As we are sucked in ever more by the screens we carry around, even in the company of friends and family, the hunched pose of the phone-absorbed seems increasingly normal.

Tensions surrounding the South China Sea have always been largely about oil and natural gas. But it’s often been argued that the strategic shipping lanes carrying Middle East hydrocarbons to East Asia are what really matter, whereas the sea’s own energy resources are relatively modest and unproven.

North Korea fired off a new type of short-range missile yesterday (Aug. 10), the latest in a series of weapons tests rattling neighbors in recent weeks. Today, a senior North Korean diplomat cited statements from Donald Trump in justifying the launch of the missiles, which mark significant advances and present a serious threat to South Korea, Japan, and US forces in the region.

North Korea has made headlines of late for launching new missiles, showing off its latest submarines, and publicly executing prisoners. Less noticed, it’s also recently released stamps featuring US president Donald Trump with Kim Jong Un.