Vietnam Hopes for a Free Press

Published on Apr 18, 2018 by Luke Hunt

A free press has been an anathema in Vietnam ever since the communists seized control of the north in 1954 and annexed the south 21 years later. But there are hopes that Hanoi’s rigid control of journalism might ease amid its growing dependency on the West as a bulwark against Beijing’s expanding military reach across the region.That dependency was highlighted by the recent visit by the United States aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, a show of military strength in Vietnamese waters which coincided with the scrapping of two-term presidencies in China, enabling Xi Jinping to rule for life as paramount leader.Read more..

The Last Foreign Correspondents

Published on Mar 19, 2018 by Luke Hunt

As Britain handed its cherished Hong Kong back to China in 1997 and Cambodia endured a coup that would bring decades of civil war to an end, American journalist Dan Boylan filed the following.PHNOM PENH  – “Strange … peace kills business,” one reporter said on a recent night at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Cambodia. Sitting alone, he stared into his Angkor beer while the sun sank against the Tonle Sap River outside.Just last summer, as AK-47’s rattled nearby, the club was packed. Reporters from around the world had descended upon Phnom Penh to cover Cambodia’s latest war, a short-lived affair that smashed a short-lived coalition government. With the action came the out-of-town professionals.“Yeah, it was wall to wall then,”....

Ayu Mandala

Published on Jan 1, 2018 by Luke Hunt

Ayu Mandala was born in Denpasar, September 16, 1980. As a Balinese, her career choices are quite different from those of Balinese women in general, namely audio-visual communication.A job that demands high verbal, physical and intellectual abilities. The passion to develop skills and a career in communication has been cultivated for 17 years, starting with working in radio stations, television stations, the cinema industry.Until finally challenged to combine their abilities together with colleagues in Bali and internationally to develop platforms to be able to introduce the Balinese language so that can be learned easily by a wide audience.One of the media that is still being developed today is BASAbali wiki is a combination of multi-language multi-language reference dictionaries, encyclopedias, and....

Myanmar Acquits Journalist’s Killers Amid Muslim Exodus

Published on May 24, 2015 by Luke Hunt

With the world focused on thousands of people left stranded on board rickety fishing boats in waters that divide Southeast Asian countries, Myanmar’s courts turned their attention to the killing of journalist Aung Kyaw Naing, also known as Par Gyi.Read more from Luke Hunt in The Diplomat..

Human Rights Press Awards

Published on Mar 13, 2015 by Luke Hunt

Amnesty International and the Human Rights Press Awards in Hong Kong awarded a Certificate of Special Merit for Outstanding Contribution in 2015 to journalists Luke Hunt, Shane Worrell and Denise Hruby for a package of stories about human trafficking, published by the Edge Review. .