100 days of solitude: Hunger, strife and despair in Parachinar
Sporadic violence stemming from Kurram's complex issues has brought life for its 800,000 people to a standstill.
WORTH A READ
Manila airport ranked the world’s worst. Can privatisation deliver a makeover?
Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) has long been notorious for its lengthy waiting times, power failures and even bedbug-infested rattan chairs.
Degrees of danger: Beating the heat in Southeast Asia
Heat in Southeast Asia is unlike anywhere else. Not only are people chronically exposed to the heat in the tropics, but the region’s high humidity also worsens the discomfort.
Shamans and presidents: A history of strange intermixing in South Korean politics
Though allegations tying Noh Sang-won, former chief of the Defence Intelligence Command, to shamanism may seem unusual, in South Korea, politics and shamanism have frequently…
Parking wealth under the Dubai sun
The city's booming real estate has also been used by Bangladeshis as an offshore haven to park wealth for a big reason – cash payments are widely accepted even by top property…
Democracy ends where leadership begins
Dynastic politics, personality cults plague Bangladesh's political parties.
Geoeconomics: The new geopolitics in Nepal
As Nepal struggles to balance the competing interests of India, China, and the US, the geopolitical rivalries offer economic growth and cooperation opportunities, and experts call…
Hearts online, hurt offline: The dark side of Nepali teenagers’ virtual relationships
One in four young people in Nepal experience online intimate partner violence, a recent research shows.
What Pakistan’s founding father thought of civil liberties and the right to a fair trial
But if the founder remains confined to portraits and postage stamps, it’s come with a cost: our now perma-crisis is the logical outcome of shirking his ideas for years. It’s…
‘We still carry the tsunami with us’: Aceh thrives 20 years after disaster, but scars remain
On Dec 26, 2004, giant ocean waves devastated the Indonesian province of Aceh, killing more than 160,000 people. The Straits Times revisits the disaster zone 20 years on to see…