All Asia Pacific
China builds ever-higher walls against West and its 'values''Never let textbooks promoting Western values enter into our classes,' says China's education minister. Meanwhile, Chinese officials are immobilizing VPN's that allow ordinary citizens access to an uncensored Internet.
Caught eating giant salamander, Chinese officials face Xi's wrathState media reports some 14 police in southern China, including one director, were suspended after beating up journalists tipped off to the kind of luxury banquet President Xi Jinping is trying to curtail.聽
From Mickey Mouse to mayonnaise, Kim Jong Un opens North a crackIn North Korea, intolerance of high tech goods, consumer culture, and new forms of entertainment is changing for elites and their kids in urban areas. Some 2.4 million citizens now own cell phones.聽
Celebrated Korean gulag defector changes story. Does that change the truth?The head of a UN inquiry today said the presence of prison camps in the North has been well documented, with accounts from numerous escapees and satellite imagery.聽
Will Abe's hostage crisis polarize Japan? PM fights time.Japanese leader will work to stand against terror while doing everything possible to free two citizens. His views are shaped by the 2013 slaying of 10 Japanese working at an Algerian gas plant by an Al Qaeda-linked group.
Cover StoryIn China, a church-state showdown of biblical proportions海角大神ity is booming in China, propelling it toward becoming the world's largest 海角大神 nation. But as religion grows, it spurs a government crackdown.聽- How Tiananmen Square launched one man's spiritual journeyBob Fu, who grew up as 'model' communist in China, became disillusioned with the party and found 海角大神ity. Now he monitors religious persecution in China from abroad.聽
In Beijing, Charlie Hebdo tribute draws journalists 鈥� and copsPlainclothes police gathered at a 'Je suis Charlie' event that the Foreign Correspondents Club of China held Thursday night.聽Official Chinese reactions to the Paris massacre have focused on the terrorist threat, not press freedom.
A newly modest China? Official's reassurances raise eyebrows in US.Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang said in a widely publicized speech that China 'does not have any ideas or capabilities' to challenge the US as the world's leading superpower. But while some say it reflects a new realism, others see reason for skepticism.- US sanctions on North Korea may not touch Kim Jong-un
Japan's Abe to express 'remorse' but not 'retrospection' on World War IIPrime Minister Abe is already parsing the words he will use in August to describe Japan's attitude toward the war, a hot-button issue across Asia. This week he characterized his new position as 'forward-looking.'聽
Taiwan ex-President Chen Shui-bian out of prison. Why?Chen and his "green" Taiwan identity politics has been anathema to mainland China. But after the "blue" pro-China ruling Nationalist party lost big in local elections Nov. 29, they want to appear conciliatory and friendly ahead of next year's presidential vote.聽
As AirAsia debris found, Indonesia learns from Malaysia mistakesPresident Joko Widodo says recovery efforts will focus on passengers and crew as his administration faces its first international crisis. The new Indonesian administration wants to avoid the criticism aimed at Malaysian leader Najib Razak after MH370 disappeared last March.
Are Google and Gmail really the enemy of China?First China targeted Facebook and Twitter 鈥� now it's going after the world's largest e-mail service. The targeting of Gmail is part of a broader ideological struggle to separate the Middle Kingdom from the modes of the West.聽
Digging in: How Aceh's past tsunamis cast light on future seismic threatsA paleo-seismologist sifts sand and coral deposits for clues to tsunami patterns in Aceh, the epicenter of the Dec. 26, 2004 earthquake. Indonesians are marking the 10-year anniversary of the country's deadliest natural disaster.聽
Cover StoryTsunami 10 years after: How Indonesia built backTwo families show how Banda Aceh has defied a disaster, a decade later.聽
Could a tsunami disaster happen again?A comprehensive warning system has been set up to alert coastal countries in the Indian Ocean when earthquakes are judged likely to trigger tsunamis. However, when a real-life test came in 2012, many residents of Banda Aceh in Indonesia didn't go to the evacuation towers.
Taiwan ready to buy US missile frigates amid South China Sea spatsChina issues expected angry statements after Taiwan says it will buy two vessels. But purchase is the first since 2010 and has little effect on the mainland's naval advantage vis-脿-vis the democratic island.聽
China gives the nod for a second giant Beijing airportDetails are sketchy, but the $13 billion Daxing facility will be south of the capital and sport four runways. Local farmers are not happy about the prospect of relocation to make way for the facility, which is being announced just six years after the completion of what was the largest terminal in the world.
China tops the world in jailing journalistsThe Committee to Protect Journalists reports that the number of detainees spiked in 2014, and is the longest it's been since CPJ started tracking numbers in 1990.