When it began in 2004, the CSL was closer to a hobby than the top-tier professional league it made itself out to be. Back then, 12 teams, composed of mostly domestic footballers, played half-hearted games in front of near-empty stadiums. Match fixing and bribery were so common that many scores were set before the ball was rolled onto the pitch.

"Singapore is concerned about this recent turn of events," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in response to a recent Chinese media report on new rules that will allow police in the southern Chinese province of Hainan to board and seize control of foreign ships which "illegally enter" its waters from January 1.

Since 1948, Israeli-Turkish relations have been through periods of disagreement and tension, as well as periods of cooperation and understanding. Relations developed gradually over the years and eventually reached their peak in the 1990’s when the two countries forged a strategic partnership, supported and strengthened by the United States. During those years, the Turkish general staff and the Israeli defense establishment were the main proponents for an enhanced relationship between the two countries.

Indiana University has received a grant totaling $1.5 million from the Korea Foundation and three Korean IU alumni to establish the university's first endowed chair in Korean studies.The chair will be based in the new School of Global and International Studies on IU's Bloomington campus and will be the first endowed chair to be established in the school since its recent approval.

The public aspects, trade, culture, science, are all strong and Britain was one of Israel’s main supporters during last month’s Operation Pillar of Defense against Gaza. Last year, Britain changed its universal jurisdiction law, greatly limiting (though not totally ending) the possibility of senior Israeli officials being prosecuted in London.

Abe advocates stronger diplomacy that includes significant revisions in Japan’s security policies. Not only does he want to allow the exercise of collective self-defense by Japan’s Self-Defense Forces (SDF), he wants to rename the SDF the National Defense Force (with the Japanese character for ‘Force’ changed to ‘Military’)

WHEN I presented Sachin Tendulkar with an honorary Member of the Order of Australia earlier this month in Mumbai, I was struck by the way he spoke so eloquently and emotionally about the important engagement he had with Australia when he started his Test career.

On July 7, in the wake of the destruction of the sacred shrines in Timbuktu — a Unesco World Heritage site — the spokesman of Ansar Dine, one of the Islamist groups controlling northern Mali, declared to the press that “there is no world heritage. It does not exist. Infidels must not get involved in our business.”