Asia

Nepal’s silent epidemic

The devastating human and financial toll of surging non-communicable diseases Writing for Nepal’s leading digital news portal, Online Khabar, Pushparaj Chaulagain warns us of an epidemic: the sharp rise in non-communicable...

Tehran: The price of now; spiraling infration and currency collapse

In Iran, we have a common joke: "I fell and felt something break. Thank God it was my leg and not my phone!" Yes, it's irrational. Your body should be...

Karachi: Surveillance, panic and chaos: the price the people pay for safer streets

Rapper Kashan Ali calls himself a ‘middle-class lover boy’. His Instagram reels score thousands of views, featuring music on broken hearts, unrequited love, cricket, and most recently, e-challans. Over a...

Kyoto: Zen and the art of being a tour guide

“Is there a good place to scatter my mother’s ashes?” This question came from a traveller visiting from the UK. He had a pensive gaze. His mother, he said, had...

Gaza: How genocide has transformed the daily lexicon

*This article was written in December 2025 under the prevailing conditions at that time. Genocide changed Gaza’s shape. But it also twisted time itself by the neck, rewired daily routines,...

Bangalore: The many tongues heard at midnight in the backseat of a cab

By night, Bangalore’s first-world dreams flicker out, and in their place rises the familiar roar of the third world – endless construction, half-finished roads, dust in the headlights, a city...

When hate reaches the school gates

Guro Middle School is on the frontline of a war on immigrants waged by Korea's far-right...

Digitising Urdu’s cascading calligraphy

An interview with Abeera Kamran and Zeerak Ahmed, by Sophia Smith Galer...

The gardens of Babur: Kabul’s lament

From winter in Afghanistan, Abdul Bacet’s photo essay reflects on the history of the Gardens of Babur in Kabul....

A Shaman’s survival in modern China

In a China racing toward the future one reluctant young shaman fights to honour the ancient spirits that refuse to let him go Ah Lei seems to be used to...