Category: Asia-Pacific

Japan's king of satellite TV smut brings news read by presenters in bikinis to mobile phones… There's an old saying: You can take the man out of sleaze but you can't take the sleaze out of the man. Or something like that… As the founder of pioneering satellite raunch network Paradise TV seven years ago, […]

Japan's king of satellite TV smut now brings news clips read by anchors in bikinis to mobile phones… There's an old saying: You can take the man out of sleaze but you can't take the sleaze out of the man. Or something like that… As the founder of pioneering satellite raunch network Paradise TV seven years ago, […]

The arrival of Las Vegas gambling in squeaky-clean Singapore is causing consternation among its conservative citizens… Nice and quiet is exactly how Singaporean Emmanuel Robin Tan likes his city. So the 28-year old has not got a good word to say about the coming construction of Singapore's first casino in downtown Marina Bay.  "It will […]

The US embassy warns American citizens to stay away from certain parts of the capital Seoul as a homegrown campaign urges foreigners to leave… Demonstrations against foreigners are planned and an online petition to keep foreigners out of the Republic of Korea has already received thousands of signatures. Many foreigners are worried, some have already […]

The earthquake and waves that have claimed up to 77,000 people in Asia have left survivors with a near-impossible job in southern Thailand… As we turned into Patong Hospital’s car park we found ourselves stuck behind four trucks laden with empty coffins – about 40 per truck. Some were little more than grey crates, others […]

A reporter journeys to the cradle of Chinese civilisation – the hometown of the celebrated thinker, philosopher and educator, Confucius – to sample how his legacy lives on. Like many Chinese cities, in Qufu the sky is blackened with the stain of pollution. World-weary ponies haul gaudy carriages, vying for road space with squadrons of […]

Nations hit hardest by ‘bird flu’ have pledged to develop vaccines to prevent a human-to-human epidemic, but as one reporter discovers, combating the virus is an uphill task. When chickens from a farm in the Thai district of Nong Bua suddenly began dying back in November 2003, farmers were told that it was chicken cholera. […]

A hospice in Thailand offers morbid sightseers access to its Aids patients – dead and alive – for a fee… You’d expect to find the dead bodies at the back of the hospital, not in the reception. With some enthusiasm, my guide for the morning pointed out the mummified corpses of a few recent outpatients. […]