Asia Weekly

The broken chain

Given the latest milk scandal, can any food in China be trusted?

How has it come to this?

Complaints about state-owned Sanlu Group's infant formula were first made in December last year, but it wasn't until six months later that Sanlu realized it had a huge contamination problem as infants began turning up at hospitals with kidney stones.

Aso administration stumbles…

New Japanese prime minister Taro Aso received "a blow" to his Liberal Democratic Party leadership just four days after he took over the job, says Linda Sieg for Reuters. The headache came when his transport minister Nariaki Nakayama resigned after a "verbal gaffe" .....

Read Article

The Week to Come

• The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced in the Norwegian capital Oslo on October 10; imprisoned Chinese dissident Hu Jia is tipped as a possible winner

• Taiwan celebrates National Day on October 10; President Ma Ying-jeou will deliver a speech at a rally and will lead the participants in chanting "Long Live the Republic of China" and "Long Live Taiwanese Democracy," according to the presidential office

 • Every year the Mekong River in the Nong Khai region of northern Thailand sees a phenomenon called the Naga Fireballs, when gl

The man Singapore politicians loved to hate

Unrelenting Singaporean opposition politician Joshua B Jeyaretnam died before he had the chance to "fulfill his greatest dream of returning to parliament," writes Meera Vijayan in The Star (Malaysia).

Jet Li: rising philanthropic star

When Jet Li was caught up in the tsunami that wreaked disaster on much of Southeast Asia in 2004, the experience served as "a proverbial wakeup call," he told Wong Kim Hoh in The Straits Times (Singapore)...

Read Article

Upmarket escorts... Photo faker

Upmarket escorts: Business at high-end social escort agencies jumped by a fifth as Formula One fans flocked to Singapore for the city-state's first Grand Prix. It was the best weekend of the year.......

Read Article

Family affair

Family affair - Japanese model Yuri Ebihara insisted the rumours that she is having an affair with basketball player Kei Igarashi aren't true, says Japan Today, and instead she passed the buck to her married sister.

Tibetan tales

Woeser is a Tibetan poet and outspoken critic of the Chinese government who lives in Beijing. But it's her writing that's most important to her. "The first thing is that I am a writer. I write articles and books," she told Clifford Coonan of The Irish Times.

Would you believe it?

Two armed robbers in Malaysia had to leave behind most of their ill-gotten gains because their getaway car was too small, reports The Associated Press. The thieves held up guards in a security van containing $1.3 million at a shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur.......

Read Article