Asia

Why did North Korea fire a missile over Japan?

5 October 2022 1:09 am

It was a new dawn, a new day, and a new North Korean missile test. The land of the morning…

Isis is wreaking havoc in Afghanistan

4 October 2022 12:10 am

The bomb tore through an examination hall in Kabul on Friday, where students – mostly minority Hazara, mostly young women…

The anger behind Shinzo Abe's state funeral

26 September 2022 11:34 pm

Tokyo While not quite on the scale of Her Majesty’s service, Tuesday’s state funeral of Japan’s longest serving PM Shinzo…

Japan's cult of safetyism

29 August 2022 8:19 pm

The Japanese government has launched an initiative to encourage young people to drink more alcohol. Yes, really. The national tax…

Pakistan is on the brink

26 August 2022 3:30 pm

On Tuesday I speculated that Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan, now the opposition leader, was so popular that he…

Will the bad luck of the Philippines ever turn?

7 May 2022 9:00 am

The Philippines is the odd man out in Asia, a predominantly Catholic country colonised first by Spain, then the United…

Turkmenistan may emerge as a global powerbroker

17 March 2022 10:25 pm

While the world is watching Ukraine, there is another former Soviet republic that has quietly undergone regime change. Turkmenistan’s 65-year-old…

What's happening in Kazakhstan?

6 January 2022 9:30 pm

Since the start of the new year, riots have spread throughout Kazakhstan. In the former capital of Almaty, the airport has…

Sea change: China has its sights on the Bay of Bengal

8 August 2020 9:00 am

China has its sights on the Bay of Bengal

Taiwan's balancing act is becoming ever more precarious

22 May 2020 10:44 pm

After a landslide victory in January’s election, Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen was re-inaugurated on Wednesday at a scaled-down ceremony in…

Uzbekistan: where east meets west and past meets present

14 December 2019 9:00 am

You realise what a rarity western tourists are when the locals ask to take selfies with you. I was standing…

Lee Bul’s ‘Monster: Pink’ (foreground) and ‘Crashing’ (background)

If you like monstrosities, head to the Hayward Gallery

21 July 2018 9:00 am

One area of life in which globalism certainly rules is that of contemporary art. Installation, performance, the doctrine of Marcel…

David Attenborough used to steal the animals he found in the jungle and take them home

21 May 2016 9:00 am

Let me start this week with an admittedly hard quiz question: in 1954, how did the sudden illness of Jack…

Hirohito, MacArthur and other villains

4 July 2015 9:00 am

The history of ‘great events’, Voltaire wrote, is ‘hardly more than the history of crimes’. Physically, the war in Asia…

Don't call him an oligarch - meeting Dmitry Firtash

19 April 2014 9:00 am

A rare interview with billionaire Ukrainian power broker Dmitry Firtash

Britain has many major problems - racism isn't one of them

15 February 2014 9:00 am

Britain has less prejudice than the countries where I’ve lived before – and more people taking offence

There's a global morality gap — and it's getting wider

26 October 2013 9:00 am

The world can now be divided between post- and pre-enlightened countries