Asia
Why did North Korea fire a missile over Japan?
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
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
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
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
On Tuesday I speculated that Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan, now the opposition leader, was so popular that he…
A democracy ruled by dynasts
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
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?
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
Taiwan’s balancing act is becoming ever more precarious
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
You realise what a rarity western tourists are when the locals ask to take selfies with you. I was standing…
If you like monstrosities, head to the Hayward Gallery
One area of life in which globalism certainly rules is that of contemporary art. Installation, performance, the doctrine of Marcel…
Animal attraction
Let me start this week with an admittedly hard quiz question: in 1954, how did the sudden illness of Jack…
The real theatre of war
The history of ‘great events’, Voltaire wrote, is ‘hardly more than the history of crimes’. Physically, the war in Asia…
Can this man save Ukraine?
A rare interview with billionaire Ukrainian power broker Dmitry Firtash
Looking for racism
Britain has less prejudice than the countries where I’ve lived before – and more people taking offence
The morality gap
The world can now be divided between post- and pre-enlightened countries
