Economy | ANALYSIS
Households to take hit from tax hike
by Tomoko Otake
The consumption tax increase will hit every household in Japan hard, with many people’s financial future hanging on whether their wages rise enough to offset the hike's impact.
Crime Aug 20, 2013
Off-mark toilet users face $16 fine
People with a poor aim are to be fined if they miss their mark when using public toilets in a Chinese city, officials said — provoking online derision over how the rule will be enforced. The penalty will apply to those who urinate outside ...
Asia Pacific Jul 27, 2013
Jilted mistresses emerge as China's new whistle-blowers on corruption
by Jia Lynn Yang
As President Xi Jinping pledges to clean up government corruption in China, an unlikely group of self-styled whistle-blowers has emerged: jilted mistresses. The latest is 26-year-old Ji Yingnan, who says she discovered at the end of last year that her fiance, a powerful Communist ...
Crime Jul 15, 2013
Mom of China sex slave wins prison redress
A Chinese court awarded damages to the mother of a rape victim after she was sent to a labor camp for demanding her daughter’s attackers be punished, a spokesman said Monday. Tang Hui, who became a figurehead for critics of the “re-education through labor” ...
Asia Pacific | Focus Jun 5, 2013
China constitution debate hits nerve with ruling party
After a country’s new leader proclaims the overriding authority of the constitution — a document that guarantees freedom of speech and press — it’s worth noting afterward when the same government heavily censors all discussion about that constitution. That’s what’s happening in an ongoing ...
Politics & Diplomacy Feb 26, 2013
For China's Catholics, new pope is a cause for hope
by William Wan
Of the long list of problems the next pope will inherit once the white smoke rises in Rome, few on the diplomatic front can rival the bitter, intractable relationship between the Vatican and the Chinese government. The two powers have long battled for control ...