Hong Kong is holding its first legislative council election since China introduced sweeping changes that have altered the city's political landscape.The government says the revamped electoral system will ensure only "patriots" will be allowed to stand for election and eventually hold positions of political power.However, critics say it has weakened the city's democratic voice, eradicating whatever opposition is left.How Is Hong Kong Run?Hong Kong used to be under British c

Two dangerous flashpoints, in Europe and Asia, could bring the United States (US), Russia, and China into open conflict. The crises over Ukraine and Taiwan can be resolved, but all parties must respect the others’ legitimate security interests. Acknowledging those interests objectively will provide the basis for a lasting de-escalation of tensions. Consider Ukraine.

Amid growing concerns about climate change and social unrest, institutional investors are increasingly applying environmental, social, and governance criteria in their portfolio decisions.

Three decades after a landmark agreement ended years of bloody violence in Cambodia, its strongman ruler has crushed all opposition and is eyeing dynastic succession, shattering hopes for a democratic future.The Paris Peace Agreements, signed on 23 October, 1991, brought an end to nearly two decades of savage slaughter that began with the Khmer Rouge's ascent to power in 1975.The genocidal regime wiped out up to two million Cambodians through murder, starvation and overwork, before a Vie

Taiwan will not bow to pressure by Beijing and will defend its democratic way of life, President Tsai Ing-wen said Sunday, following a spike in incursions by Chinese warplanes into its air defence zone.Self-governed Taiwan's 23 million people live under the constant threat of invasion by authoritarian China, which views the island as its territory and has vowed to one day seize it, by force if necessary."The more we achieve, the greater the pressure we face from China," Tsai sa

Bad news travels. Good news doesn’t. When Afghanistan’s government collapsed recently, the whole world watched. But when Indonesia, the most populous Muslim-majority country, produces the world’s most effective democratically elected leader today – President Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi – almost no one outside the archipelago knows the story. That story is all the more remarkable because Jokowi has succeeded in one of the world’s most difficult countries to govern.

At the end of June, when Malaysians were grappling with a drastically worsening pandemic, pictures of black flags, and people waving them from their cars or their homes, appeared on social media.Hashtag #Lawan, which means “fight” in the Malay language, the flags became a rallying cry against the government’s failures in handling the coronavirus.

The Tokyo Olympic Games are over, and the Japanese people and government have heaved a sigh of relief that the spectacle passed without a major COVID-19 outbreak in the athletes’ village or other disasters. In India, the celebrations of the country’s first gold medal in the men’s javelin throw – and its best-ever medal performance at a single Olympics – have not yet subsided.

Thousands of police were deployed in Hong Kong on Friday and the organiser of the territory’s now-banned annual vigil of China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown arrested, as the authorities tried to prevent people from gathering for any kind of remembrance of the events of 1989.Hong Kong usually holds a mass vigil to remember those killed when soldiers stormed the square, which was packed with protesters calling for democracy, but police have banned the events for the past two years blaming the co

Myanmar's junta chief has said deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi is in good health and will appear in court within days during the general's first television interview since the coup.Min Aung Hlaing, who toppled Suu Kyi in a 1 February putsch, gave a two-hour interview to Hong Kong's Phoenix Television on Thursday, with the full programme yet to air."Aung San Suu Kyi is in good health.