Indonesia is planning to move its capital from Jakarta to Nusantara – a new city it’s building – by 2024. Indonesia is not the only country to be enticed by the idea of a “fresh start” city, but these cities are rarely the panaceas or utopias their creators envisioned.
Far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon is trying to upend French politics to become prime minister. But his gambit may just hand the presidency to the far-right.
Japan is in a population crisis. But its pride and prejudice are preventing it from embracing the obvious solution.
The global shipping industry is constantly balancing on the edge of a ravine. It’s time we paid attention.
I both love and hate sharks. Love them because they are a symbol of the ocean, the power and ferocity that lurks beneath the surface; and hate them because they remind me that the ocean, this thing that I love, will never be truly safe for me.
Antarctica has been kept peaceful for 60 years by international treaties, but Chinese ambitions on the frozen continent threaten to shatter this fragile peace.
For decades, X-Men comics have been read and written as coded queer narratives. Since the franchise’s soft reboot in 2019, this narrative has taken a fascinating and disturbing turn.
Navy SEALs are often romanticized as American heroes. In reality, though, they are unaccountable, barbaric, and often homicidal.
The world is hugely dependent on Taiwan’s foundries for semiconductors, which makes the question of who controls them – and how they use this power – of paramount importance.
Ghosts and ghouls lurk in the popular Taiwanese videogame, Detention, but it’s the dictatorship, and the ordinary humans who aid and abet it, that really chill the blood.
In India, people fear black magic curses from their enemies…and their “friends.”
Metamorphosizing from a fearsome monster to a bogeyman to a cute cartoon character to a conservation mascot, the Australian bunyip is a metaphor for our changing relationship with nature.
When an ordinary man criticizes a famous rapper’s latest album, the rapper sics his fans on him. Things escalate from there.
The most prestigious intellectual awards in America are now ridiculously fixated on race. We should be worried.
Many fat activists have gone beyond body acceptance and are actively discouraging obese people against losing weight, with no regard for the science or their health.
As the US withdraws from the region, China may come to be seen as the chief foreign interloper.
Today, Westerners admire violent heroism more than ever, so long as it’s in the distant past or in movies. Is the great heroism of the West now gone to dust and song?
Even Modi’s most affluent and committed followers are feeling the pain from the second wave – and are blaming him for it.
As Canberra stands up to Beijing, it will have to contend with many Australians who have profited from keeping China happy.
Artificial intelligence presents an existential threat to humanity. As with other existential threats, like global warming and weapons of mass destruction, we need a treaty to manage its risks, and soon.
South Korea’s efforts to appease Kim Jong-un make it complicit in his crimes.
Earlier this year, Malaysia had a responsible government and responsible citizens, at least as far as COVID was concerned. Now, it has neither.
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, Japan’s last great printmaker, captured the spirit of an age of carnage.
Tales grow in the telling, they say, and so they do, and yours most of all, a tale that has grown to become legend.
Thousands of people collect hyperrealistic vinyl babies – but how do they sleep at night?
The likely result of packing the court is a spiral into legal anarchy.
If the Democrats cynically try to delay the confirmation process, it may cost them the election.
Will China be able to sustain its spectacular economic growth with an increasingly autocratic regime? If so, it may mark the end of the liberal order, and the rise of authoritarian capitalism.
Persecuted by Muslims for centuries and squeezed by the forces of assimilation and modernity, the Kalasha are on the verge of extinction.
As more employees work from home, employers turn to invasive tech to monitor them.
The COVID-19 crisis drives home the need to rethink our tepid response to climate change.
To check China’s abuses, other countries will have to draw a line in the sand – and punish Beijing if it crosses it.
An Islamic missionary movement is spreading COVID-19 across Pakistan, and the authorities are afraid to stop it.
She was going to bring it in and get us all sick, and a quarantine with secret hook-ups is not a quarantine at all.
Japan’s lassitude in the face of COVID-19 stems from its national character.
Malaysia’s political mastermind seems to have lost control of everything.
Islamists and neo-Nazis are fighting each other, but their shared goal is to destroy the liberal order.
Democracy has been backstabbed and lies in intensive care, but who did it?
The recent arrest of civil rights activist Manzoor Pashteen is a blow to democracy in Pakistan.
The Corrupted Blood incident of 2005 offers disturbing insights into how the coronavirus crisis might unfold.
Musharraf’s death sentence sets up a confrontation between Pakistan’s judiciary and its powerful military.
Overwork and idiosyncrasies at Japanese companies are killing employees (sometimes literally).
Pakistan’s sit-in culture enables a zealous minority to topple elected governments.
If both sides try to defend the indefensible, the city will burn.
Lurking beneath the idyllic vision of Canada are rates of hate crime and violent crime comparable to those in the US.
How dark internet urban legends take on a life of their own.
Death and maiming are predetermined when confronted with the vengeful spirit of Kuchisake-onna, or the Slit-Mouthed Woman, a yokai, a monstrous creature of Japanese folklore.
Could a darker realm of demons and spirits actually exist alongside our own? Quantum physics may hold the answer.
The original stimulus of the protests – the extradition bill – has long been withdrawn and forgotten; the tribal cycle of violence has generated its own self-sustaining momentum.
The Baroness of Carini was murdered on a cold winter’s night in 1563. Her legend, like the bloody imprint of her hand, has been haunting Sicily for centuries.
A Chinese-American in Paris realizes her ancestral beliefs have followed her there.
An extremist cleric’s death marks a transition to even more brutal terrorism.
Companies are using our data to manipulate us. Most people don’t care.
Anti-vax hoaxes have incendiary results in Pakistan.
Algorithms now rule much of our lives. How much faith should we have in them?
We’re ready for the increased speed and functionality from 5G. How about the increased radiation?
Pakistan’s news industry is dying – and government accountability along with it.
