A stupa from the Mahabodhi Temple, with a seated Buddha, in Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India.
David Cumming/IndiaPictures/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
In asking how Buddhism gained such a vast material presence, the course helps students understand how a religion manages to survive over time.
A tourist on National Elephant Day in Thailand.
oneclearvision/Getty Images
Even self-proclaimed ethical tourism programs can widen economic gaps and harm communities they claim to protect. Here are a few steps you can take as an ethical tourist.
Tavarius, Shutterstock
New research shows densely populated countries in Southeast Asia and West Africa could harvest effectively unlimited energy from solar panels floating on calm tropical seas near the equator.
Politics is the Marcos family business.
Ezra Acayan/Getty Images
Bongbong Marcos is the projected winner of the Philippines election. That the son of a brutal dictator has won shows how wedded the country is to dynastic politics – and image manipulation.
Fruit bats are the main animal host of the nipah virus.
BTS-BotrosTravelSolutions / Pixabay
Virologists are beginning to assess which other viruses could have pandemic potential
The food market in Mongla in October 2019: it was shut during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Hanna Ruszczyk
The urban poor in Bangladesh’s small cities already faced food insecurity before COVID-19 – but the lockdown made affording food much harder.
Modi 2.0.
Raminder Pal Singh/EPA
From Kashmir to a controversial citizenship bill and the supression of dissent, the first year of Narendra Modi’s second term has been busy.
A woman is tested in Ha Loi village in Hanoi which was put in 28-day quarantine on April 8 after a resident tested positive for COVID-19.
Luong Thai Linh/EPA
Intensive screening, testing, quarantine and public communication have helped keep numbers of COVID-19 cases in Vietnam very low.
해그린달 haegreendal/YouTube
Can everyday chores be hypnotically soothing? Can routines be mini-occasions? East Asian home vloggers show us that framing and pace are everything and we can find joy in simple domesticity.
Garment workers on their lunch break in Phnom Penh.
Kith Serey/EPA
For the first time, the EU has withdrawn some trade preferences for a developing country on its Everything But Arms tariffs.
Harvest season in the Kashmir valley.
Farooq Khan/EPA
How will future generations of Indians view Kashmir’s contested history?
A separate Naga flag remains a sticking point in the peace talks.
EPA
In India’s far northeast, tensions are beginning to emerge in the 22-year peace process to end India’s longest insurgency.
A special team on board a Dutch mission ship carrying out manoeuvres for capturing pirates at sea.
EPA/Robin Utrecht
With the exception of Somali piracy, counter-measures have failed to stop transnational criminal networks from taking to the seas.
Migrant workers break apart blocks of pressed plastic bottles at a recycling plant in Thailand.
EPA/DIEGO AZUBEL
Since China stopped accepting Australia’s recyclable plastic, the majority of exported plastic waste is now going to developing nations in South East Asia.
Fighter? Taiwan’s first female president, Tsai Ing-wen.
EPA/Ritchie B. Tongo
The measure of women’s political advancement isn’t the number of female leaders, but the changes they make to everyday women’s lives.
Mothers are revered in Southeast Asia. But, when it comes to extremism, might they also be part of the problem?
Olivia Harris/Reuters
Socioeconomic support is essential to help families resist the temptation of extremism.
A rare glimpse of a river dolphin in Cambodia.
Erwan Deverre/Flickr
Dolphin-watching tourism has pros and cons — so what should you think about next time you head out?
EPA/Francis R. Malasig
From stubborn military rule to religious ‘mobocracy’, five young democracies show signs of slipping backwards.
At least 70 people died in a bomb blast in Quetta, Pakistan in August – most of them lawyers.
Shazaib Akber/EPA
A new tool is tracking attacks on people for their religion, politics, caste, ethnicity, gender, class and sexual orientation.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte.
Jorge Silva/Reuters
Why would the Philippine president risk alienating an important and generous ally?