Asia Pacific | FOCUS Sep 17, 2020

'Hero' nurses struggle to leave Philippines amid pandemic

With infections surging in the Philippines, the government in April banned health care workers from leaving the country.

Asia Pacific Apr 1, 2020

In scrappy Cambodian casino town, Chinese plan future beyond coronavirus

When casino owner Kang Qiang looks out the window of his 20th floor office in this city on the remote Cambodian coast, he sees construction cranes sitting idle. The Chinese-funded gambling enclave of Sihanoukville has suffered a double blow. Travel restrictions imposed in recent weeks ...

Asia Pacific / Crime & Legal Aug 13, 2018

Arrested and killed: Inside the Bangladesh prime minister's war on drugs

Bangladesh police arrested Riazul Islam as he was walking home from his in-laws' house. At 3:15 a.m., he was shot dead in a sandy field beside a set of railroad tracks north of Dhaka. Police say he was killed in a gunfight with other drug ...

Asia Pacific / Crime & Legal Jun 29, 2017

Bad medicine: Philippine police use hospitals to hide drug war killings

The residents of Old Balara hid in their homes when gunfire erupted in their Manila district last September. They didn't see the police operation that killed seven drug suspects that night. But they witnessed the gory aftermath and it haunts them still. That night, Herlina Alim ...

Asia Pacific / Crime & Legal | FOCUS Apr 19, 2017

Senior Philippine police officials detail paid killings and staged crime scenes in Duterte's drug war

The Philippine police have received cash payments for executing drug suspects, planted evidence at crime scenes and carried out most of the killings they blame on vigilantes, said two senior officers who are critical of President Rodrigo Duterte's "war on drugs." In the most detailed ...

Asia Pacific Feb 26, 2017

Out of the shadows: Manila's meth dealers back on the streets as cops pull back

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs had until three weeks ago driven the trade in crystal methamphetamine underground, according to residents and drug users in some of the slum areas of the nation's capital city. As thousands of users and dealers were shot dead ...

Asia Pacific Nov 30, 2015

On China's fringes, cyberspies raise their game

Almost a year after students ended pro-democracy street protests in Hong Kong, they face an online battle against what Western security experts say are China-sponsored hackers using techniques rarely seen elsewhere. Hackers have expanded their attacks to parking malware on popular file-sharing services including Dropbox ...

Business Jul 26, 2015

How Sony sanitized films to please China's censors

In a 2013 script for the movie "Pixels," intergalactic aliens blast a hole in one of China's national treasures — the Great Wall. That scene is gone from the final version of the sci-fi comedy, starring Adam Sandler and released by Sony Pictures Entertainment last ...

Asia Pacific / Politics Jul 17, 2015

Disillusioned Hong Kong youths eye separatism

On a recent Sunday night in the working-class Hong Kong district of Mong Kok, a group of radical young activists swore through loudspeakers and gestured rudely as they denounced mainland Chinese as "prostitutes" and "barbarians." The youngsters are members of a new front that is ...

World Dec 11, 2014

'We'll be back,' Hong Kong protesters chant as main camp site dismantled

Hong Kong police arrested prodemocracy activists and cleared most of the main protest site on Thursday, marking an end to more than two months of street demonstrations in the Chinese-controlled city, but many chanted: "We will be back." Most the activists chose to leave the ...