The East · Geography · Cinema · Society · Ethnography
The Briton Katharine Round has made a documentary about Kamaishi, a town on the Pacific coast of Iwate Prefecture that was engulfed by the tsunami in March 2011. Round set up cameras in the cabs of taxis and left them running. In the frame are four drivers, Toru Konno, Yoshiji
The East · In the Press · Geography · Society
Grant Newsham, a retired US Marine Corps officer and former diplomat, has published a column in Asia Times on the elections in the Northern Mariana Islands. The islands form a Commonwealth, that is, a US territory in the western Pacific whose inhabitants hold American citizenship. On 3 November some 50,
The East · Geography · Society · Nature
A catastrophic fire broke out in the Nömrög Strictly Protected Area in the far east of Mongolia because of a nature outing by employees of a mobile operator. The Khalkhin Gol river flows through this reserve, where in 1939 Soviet-Mongolian forces fought the Japanese army. The incident took place
Geography · Heritage · Society
The staff of US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have broken a globe that Dwight Eisenhower used during the Second World War. Hegseth was taken with the story of the globe, and his staff asked for it to be moved to the Secretary's office. Historic objects in the
The East · Archaeology · Geography · Science · Nature
Around 7,300 years ago, on the sea floor off the southern tip of the island of Kyushu, the Kikai volcano erupted. It is known as the Kikai-Akahoya eruption, after the layer of orange volcanic ash, "akahoya", that it left behind. The eruption caused violent earthquakes, enormous
Archaeology · Geography · Science · Nature
White Sands National Park in New Mexico preserves human footprints that scientists regard as the oldest evidence of people in North America. A new study has refined their age: between 23,500 and 21,700 years. This was the time of the Last Glacial Maximum, that is, the period when
The East · Geography · Science · Palaeontology · Nature
In 2024 the journal Scientific Reports described a giant snake, Vasuki indicus. The snake was named after Vasuki, the mythical king of snakes who coils around the neck of the god Shiva. The scientists found 27 vertebrae in the Panandhro lignite mine in the state of Gujarat. The find is
The East · Archaeology · Geography · Science
Off the island of Kekova on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, in the province of Antalya, the remains of a vessel have been found at a depth of about 30 metres, and are believed to be the oldest known shipwreck in the Mediterranean. The find is dated to the Bronze
Geography · Maps · Monarchies · Society
Alexander I, King of Poland, Tsar and Autocrat of All the Russias Just a reminder of Russia's borders before 1918: in 1815 the greater part of the Duchy of Warsaw became part of the Russian Empire as the Kingdom of Poland, or the Vistula Land, until everything fell
The East · Archaeology · Geography · Maps · Science · Rome
I have read an interesting article by the Italian archaeologist Marco Galli of Sapienza University of Rome, "Beyond the Borders: Ancient Rome and Eurasian Trade Networks". Galli examines the Roman Empire's part in trade with India and China in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd centuries AD,
The East · Geography · Science · Society · Nature
Analyst Arvind Kumar and Him Lal Gautam, Chief Surveyor of Nepal's Department of Survey, have published an article on the Himalayan flood of 26 August 2026. A rock-and-ice avalanche broke away that day from the northern slope of Langtang Lirung and turned into a debris flow,
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