Continue Reading...

“I’m feeling very weak,” he said, stating the obvious.

Rahaman and a hundred others like him — including women and children — are 10 days into what they say is a fast-unto-death, a desperate call for release from a permanent state of limbo for the residents of the India-Bangladesh enclaves.

Officially known as "adverse possessions" — and colloquially known as "chitmahals," or paper palaces — are a collection of Indian and Bangladeshi villages home to 51,000 people, where for generations, citizens have been stuck on the wrong side of the border.

The residents of the 102 enclaves inside Bangladesh are technically citizens of India. Those in the 71 enclaves inside India are technically citizens of Bangladesh. In reality, they are stateless and virtually prisoners in their homes, cut off from public services such as electricity, schools, and hospitals.

Continue Reading...

The jagged pink laceration still aches, the 23-year-old says, a daily reminder of the operation he underwent in the capital Dhaka five months ago, in the hopes of raising some quick cash.

In exchange for 60 percent of his liver, an illegal organ broker had promised him 300,000 taka ($3,960) — a royal sum in Bamongram, his small village of mud-brick homes and verdant rice paddies in Bangladesh's northeast.

But when the broker failed to show up after the 10-hour operation, Hasan found himself stranded in Dhaka with nothing but mounting hospital bills and chronic pains in his chest and abdomen.

"He didn't pay me a single penny," Hasan said.

In Bangladesh, the trade in internal organs is big business. Each year, hundreds put their body parts up for sale in the underground organ bazaar hoping to escape the clutches of poverty, only to be short changed by brokers or burdened with chronic health problems, according to police officials and residents.

Continue Reading...

No wonder Jim O'Neill, who coined the neologism BRIC and is now chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, has been stressing that "the world is no longer dependent on the leadership of the U.S. and Europe." After all, since 2007, China's economy has grown by 45 percent, the American economy by less than 1 percent -- figures startling enough to make anyone take back their predictions. American anxiety and puzzlement reached new heights when the latest International Monetary Fund projections indicated that, at least by certain measurements, the Chinese economy would overtake the U.S. by 2016. (Until recently, Goldman Sachs was pointing towards 2050 for that first-place exchange.)

Continue Reading...

Massive rainfall in Seoul and surrounding areas since Tuesday has killed at least 47 people, and another four were missing. The rain stopped or decreased Thursday, but more was forecast until Friday morning.

At a mountain where a deadly slide hit Wednesday, digging for missing people was halted Thursday until the rain stopped because the Defense Ministry said mines placed there in the 1960s could have shifted. Soldiers with metal detectors were waiting to search for the mines, said Yoon Yong-sam, a spokesman for the air force, which planted the land mines around an air defense base on the mountain.

A defense ministry official said earlier that 10 mines could have been pushed down Wumyeon Mountain. The official declined to be named because of policy. Another ministry official, spokesman Kim Min-seok, played down the immediate risk because a concrete wall on the hillside could be stopping the mines from reaching rescue workers.

Continue Reading...

The meeting was the first between envoys from the two nations since 2008, when international efforts to end Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program collapsed, and the announcement was certain to be welcomed in regional capitals and Washington.

But diplomats also have long experience with seeing the North engage in negotiations and seemingly making concessions before ultimately throwing up roadblocks that prevent real progress.

"We agreed to make efforts to resume the six-party talks soon," said Ri Yong Ho of North Korea as he was thronged by television crews and reporters. "The talks were conducted in a candid and sincere atmosphere."

His South Korean counterpart, Wi Sung-lac, agreed, describing the meeting as "very constructive" and "useful."

He said the two sides would continue to work together to create a conducive atmosphere for disarmament talks.

The two-hour dialogue occurred on the sidelines of Asia's largest security gathering.

Disarmament talks have been stalled since North Korea walked out to protest international criticism of a prohibited long-range rocket launch.

Continue Reading...

Pyeongchang defeated rivals Munich and Annecy, France, in the first round of a secret ballot of the International Olympic Committee.

Needing 48 votes for victory, Pyeongchang received 63 of the 95 votes cast. Munich received 25 and Annecy seven.

The Koreans had lost narrowly in previous bids for the 2010 and 2014 Olympics.

Pyeongchang will be the first city in Asia outside Japan to host the Winter Games. Japan held the games in Sapporo in 1972 and Nagano in 1998.

Korean delegates erupted in cheers in the conference hall after IOC President Jacques Rogge opened a sealed envelope and read the words: "The International Olympic Committee has the honor of announcing that the 23rd Olympic Winter Games in 2018 are awarded to the city of Pyeongchang."

The vote totals weren't immediately released.

A majority was required for victory, meaning Pyeongchang received at least 48 votes among the eligible 95 voters.

It was the first time an Olympic bid race with more than two finalists was decided in the first round since 1995, when Salt Lake City defeated three others to win the 2002 Winter Games.

Continue Reading...

This unsettling experience gave Carney his first inkling of how a human being becomes a thing. When he abandoned academia for investigative journalism (he writes for Wired, Mother Jones and other publications), his South Asian surroundings offered him many examples of the ways human bodies -- in part or in whole -- are transformed into commodities. He calls this the "red market," a term that encompasses the trade (legal and illegal) in human bones, blood, organs, embryos, surrogate pregnancy and living children.

Continue Reading...

Let's start with Hong Kong. Some of us remember the cramped Kai Tak airport, shuttered now for over a decade. We miss its decrepit charm and the roller-coaster ride to the aircraft carrier runway jutting into the harbor. But nostalgia aside, HKG is a huge change for the better.

And I do mean huge. The airport is gleaming, well-organized and bogglingly massive. Depending on how you measure it, this is the largest indoor space in the world. The complex rests on a 1,255-hectare man-made slab near Lantau Island, constructed from scratch all the way to the seabed. The main terminal's half a million square meters of floor space is nine times that of Kai Tak's.

On the other hand, what they've done with all of that space is a little distressing -- if all too typical. As I've noted in the past, it appears the evolution of the international airport will not be complete until the terminal and shopping center become virtually indistinguishable, and Hong Kong is a fine specimen of this unrelenting fusion, packed with restaurants and shops of all kinds.

Continue Reading...

There, tens of thousands of farmers fled their homes this month in a middle-of-the-night panic on rumors that a nearby chemical plant with a bad safety record would explode. The chaos ensued despite appeals from officials that the rumors were unfounded. It left four people dead when a motorized three-wheel vehicle jammed with 20 people veered into a river.

China may have successfully squelched a mysterious call for protests Sunday, but people's trust that the government will look after their interests runs shallow.

"The current regime structure is very fragile. It's not right for revolution at the moment, but that doesn't mean mass political upheaval can't take place in the future," said Minxin Pei, a China politics expert at Claremont McKenna College in California.

In the latest test, China's authoritarian government seems to have dispatched the threat of public protests with great efficiency. In response to an Internet appeal of unknown origin for simultaneous protests in 13 cities Sunday, police detained known activists, disconnected some cell-phone text messaging services and blocked online searches for the phrase "Jasmine Revolution" -- the name of both the protest call and the wave of Middle East democracy protests that started in Tunisia.

Continue Reading...

This week, South Korean activists even hoisted helium balloons into the air and watched them drift into North Korea with a message attached: discard your leaders, just as the Egyptians did.

"The Egyptian people rose up in a revolution to topple a 30-year dictatorship," said one of the leaflets coasting over the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas. "The North Koreans too must revolt against a 60-year-old dictatorship."

The strain of poverty and inefficient government in North Korea, which has been targeted by international sanctions, matches or exceeds that of Arab autocracies currently buffeted by street protests. Its human rights record, along with those of Myanmar and Zimbabwe, is routinely condemned in international forums.

But there are no clear signs that these countries will face the same kind of upheaval sweeping Bahrain, Yemen, Libya and elsewhere.

Continue Reading...

So, today's summary of unrelated-but-scary news from China is:

1. China unveils giant stealth jet, surprises many, scares all
The Defense Department recoiled in surprise when it learned that China had produced a stealth fighter, a milestone it thought would take Chinese engineers another decade to reach. According to a report in today's Wall Street Journal, someone recently leaked some photos and video of the prototype aircraft, and it was no mistake. Defense Secretary Robert Gates visits China this weekend, surely greeted by smug generals. (By the way, the plane looks tame enough on the runway. Here's the original amateur video from YouTube user segregator236.)

Continue Reading...

But take off it did. Nanning is in the middle of a building frenzy that beggars description. New and half-finished apartment buildings rise everywhere -- the horizon is dotted with construction cranes in every direction. Traffic on the streets appears primarily divided between swarms of motorbikes and trucks carrying construction materials to and fro. The urban center of Nanning boasts a population of around 2.5 million, but seems to be preparing for an influx twice that.

Continue Reading...

"Oh, my God! Where's my camera," gasped Lavondee Stallings, a preschool teacher whose husband serves in the military, as Obama entered the banquet room at Ramstein Air Base's Officers Club.

Stallings was one of some 200 people with whom the First Lady spent time during a refueling stopover on the way home from her tour of Asia with President Barack Obama.

"I am missing Sasha and Malia desperately," Obama said of her daughters as she spoke to the group gathered for the donated steak dinner, grilled by volunteers from the California-based Cooks of the Valley.

"But it is a thrill to be here with you guys, because we are so grateful to all of you," she said. "Not just our servicemen and women, but their kids, wives, husbands and parents."

After serving, Obama went through the room doling out hugs, handshakes and warm thanks to troops and their families.

She also chatted with their children, asking how they were doing in school and if they worked hard.

Ten-year-old Malaysia Chevere got a special shout-out when she told the first lady about her grades.

Continue Reading...

My question, in short, is this: If you could do anything, or go anywhere, what would you do?

I'm in this position, but it's not all great. What's that saying? "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

I'm almost 30. I spent much of my 20s in depression, and then I worked my butt off for some time in therapy, and I feel I'm on top of it. I'm not depressed anymore. That's a nice feeling. But because of how much energy and focus that took, I haven't spent my 20s doing much else. No career to speak of, just a list of temp jobs and weird detours that I would stay in long enough to get OK enough at, before leaving.

Last year, I decided to finally go overseas, something I've wanted to do since I was in my early 20s, but which my depression defeated me on every year until my 28th. Not only that, but it seemed that every time I was about to take the leap, a relationship or a financial or family situation would leap up and stop me. But I was determined this time: I was going.

Continue Reading...

For dieters, it’s the ultimate dream: a food that’s nearly calorie-free, filling to eat and ridiculously easy to make. The shirataki noodle, a product that’s recently been gaining notoriety, is being advertised as just that. Made from the plant fiber of the konjac plant (more dramatically known as "devil’s tongue"), an Asian species that looks like a casually misplaced elephant tusk, the thin, nearly transparent noodle’s main ingredients are water and a dietary fiber called glucomannan. The noodles are incredibly low in carbohydrates and calories, and studies have found that glucomannan helps reduce cholesterol and can aid weight loss. They have almost no flavor (but will absorb flavors from sauces or soups), have a texture like firm, springy gelatin, and cook almost instantly.

Where does it come from?

Continue Reading...

Jean-Marie Grether and Nicole A. Mathys have devised a methodology that allows them to track the physical global "center of gravity" of various phenomena, and used it track to carbon dioxide emissions over the last 30 years.

Continue Reading...

Just over a year ago, I broke up with a pretty special girlfriend. We had a great seven months together. But I am a little older than she is, and we were heading in quite different directions. I was thinking about a quieter life. She was applying for overseas aid work.

Then, out of the blue, I was offered a great job back home. So I left. It was terribly hard on both of us. She wanted to come with me. I said no. She posted a heartbreaking picture on her Facebook profile -- an adaptation of a picture she had painted for me the previous Christmas. I wrote and told her it was for the best. She disagreed.

Months went by. She went to Asia on a one-year aid program. Meanwhile, my corporate dream job was slowly turning into a nightmare. I suffered a burnout. As therapy, I did a one-month road trip. It helped me re-evaluate pretty much everything. When I got home, I enrolled in veterinary school. I also bought a plane ticket.

Continue Reading...