In the early 2000s, the phrase "lost decade" began to be applied to Japan's economic performance during the 1990s. The lost decade started with the popping of one of the greatest stock-market bubbles in history. Japan's Nikkei 225 Index hit an all-time high of 38,916 in December 1989, and then began a sickening 80% crash to a low of 7,831 in April 2003.

A fire that engulfed a footwear factory in Valenzuela City, in the northern Philippines, has killed 72 people, authorities said Thursday.

In the Northwest Pacific, Tropical Storm Dolphin is gathering strength in the waters to the east of the U.S. Mariana Islands, and is a threat to bring typhoon conditions to those islands--including Guam--on Thursday

What needs to happen now is the immediate and regionally coordinated rescue of the boat loads of people in desperate conditions.

U.S. Internet giant Google Inc. opened its Seoul Campus in South Korea on Friday, its first Asian campus for nurturing local startups.

William Dalrymple reviews the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibitions “Buddhism Along the Silk Road, 5th–8th Century” and “Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia, Fifth to Eighth Century.”

It was a scene that could have been ripped from the script of an action movie

After the military victory, Vietnam’s socialist model began to collapse. Cut off by US-led trade embargos and denied reconstruction aid, it plunged into poverty. Now its economy is booming – but so is inequality and corruption

Rock climber, writer, blogger and world traveller shares his Asia travels in a color-drenched, vibrant photologue (one of many). He spent the whole year in Southeast Asia and Nepal in 7 countries: Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar , Laos, Vietnam , Singapore, and Nepal. Photo featured here is from his collection: Southeast Asian temple, Shwedagon Pagoda in Myanmar.

The Birth of a Tragedy. An excerpt from the upcoming graphic novel by Séra. [PDF]

Inside Toyota Motor Corp.'s oldest plant, there's a corner where humans have taken over from robots in thwacking glowing lumps of metal into crankshafts...

A veteran guide focuses on pre-climb training and the Tibetan side of the mountain.

China released fresh batch of statistics this week that suggest the battle against drugs in the world's most populous country has escalated into a full-fledged war. According to Chinese officials, since last October more than 600,000 drug users in the country were "punished," another 133,000 were arrested for drug-related crimes, and 43.3 tons of illicit narcotics were seized, a 45 percent increase from the year before.

Megumi Igarashi, aka Rokudenashiko, who made kayak modelled on her genitalia, argues in court that her artwork is not obscene

To start a series of special reports from Mount Everest, BBC News spoke to three people about their first time reaching the world's highest point.

A South Korean activist said on Wednesday he had launched thousands of copies of the Hollywood film The Interview into North Korea by balloon, ignoring dire threats of reprisals from Pyongyang. North Korea has labelled the Seth Rogen comedy about a fictional CIA plot to assassinate its leader, Kim Jong-un, a “wanton act of terror”. North Korean defector-turned-activist Lee Min-bok said he had carried out four cross-border balloon launches since January...

California is suffering from "second-hand smog" drifting in from Asia and other places, researchers said on Tuesday, even as the state's prolonged drought has made air quality worse. About 10 percent of ozone pollution, the main ingredient in smog, in the state's San Joaquin Valley farm region comes from other countries, mostly in Asia, said Ian Faloona, an atmospheric scientist with the University of California, Davis.

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China's anti-corruption crackdown has reached the highest levels of government with the investigation of Ma Jian, a former vice minister of state security, who was found to have six mistresses, two sons out of wedlock, and six villas in Beijing. The New York Times reported Ma was being investigated on suspicion of corruption. The state probe began in January, when Ma was connected to a corruption probe involving a technology conglomerate, according to the BBC.

"It was a muggy day, the sort where you feel your t-shirt sticking to you before you even realize it. We hired some local guides, who then hired some even more local guides to help show the way to the spire we wanted to ascend. Boy was it grueling! Jagged rocks, thorny bushes, all-fours most of the way. Sometimes the only thing to hold onto was a thorn bush or a glassy-evil-jaded rock. At the top, I looked down to see all kinds of grisly lacerations... but gathered my wits to get this photo!"