Alibaba is rapidly expanding its business beyond its home base in China.
Asia300

Alibaba buys Pakistani online marketplace

Daraz services Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal

10 May 2018
Women in Bangladesh wear T-shirts and caps with messages about safe migration on International Migration Day. (Courtesy of UN Women)
Life

Concerns rise over Bangladeshi female migrant workers

Regulating informal village 'middlemen' could help to end abuses

8 May 2018
Pakistan's government wants to make paying income tax a new test of patriotism. (Getty Images)
Economy

Pakistan promotes tax amnesty as it prepares to borrow abroad

Curbing evasion critical to combating money laundering and boosting revenue collection

7 May 2018
Women in Bangladesh wear T-shirts and caps with messages about safe migration on International Migration Day. (Courtesy of UN Women)
Life

Concerns rise over Bangladeshi female migrant workers

Regulating informal village 'middlemen' could help to end abuses

5 May 2018
Rohingya refugee children playing at the Kutupalong refugee camp near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.
Politics

Bangladesh drugs gangs exploit Rohingya refugees

Prices for meth-based 'Yaba' pills have plunged, fueling greater use

5 May 2018
Young men practice cricket strokes at the Royal College Indoor Nets in Colombo. (Photo by Rajpal Abeynayake)
Tea Leaves

Sri Lanka weighs colonial ballast

Is it better to preserve and build on historical legacy or destroy it?

3 May 2018
With his country's currency having lost nearly 20% of its value against the dollar since 2015, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe visits a Chinese-funded reclamation project in Colombo in  January.
Most read in 2018

Sri Lanka's currency suffers as debt trap deepens

China-financed infrastructure projects put country in vicious cycle

29 April 2018
A worker harvests sugarcane in a field in Thailand.
Politics

Thailand, Brazil, Australia join up to halt sugar exports from India and Pakistan

Export subsidies leading to price pressure will be raised at GSA meeting next month

28 April 2018
Dominant influence of Facebook and other internet platforms make it necessary to treat them like public utilities.
Opinion

Facebook controversy raises wrong questions

Key problem isn't data abuse, but social media's dominance, including in Asia

25 April 2018
A new railway connecting Iran's Astara with Azerbaijan, which opened in late March, is a key link along the International North-South Transport Corridor. (© Nikkei montage)
Asia Insight

India and China jostle for influence in Iran and Central Asia

New Delhi's 7,000km transport corridor cuts across Beijing's Belt and Road

24 April 2018
Temba Tsheri Sherpa, right, was the youngest climber ever to scale Mount Everest and now has his own guiding company. (Courtesy of Temba Tsheri Sherpa)
Life

Nepalese guiding companies eye Everest opportunities

New generation of Sherpas seeks to compete with Western operators

22 April 2018
With a big trade deficit between China and India, New Delhi is uncomfortable about Beijing using Nepal as a corridor to funnel more cheap goods in its direction. (Getty Images)
International relations

New Delhi wary of Beijing's India-Nepal-China corridor plan

India likely to object to China's one-way trans-Himalayan export traffic

20 April 2018
A Sri Lankan army soldier stands guard next to a damaged shop after a clash between two communities in Kandy, Sri Lanka, on March 8.
Opinion

Sri Lanka -- Facebook must meet its own standards

After recent violence, company needs robust controls on hate speech

20 April 2018
Children draw Myanmar flags at a school in a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, southeastern Bangladesh.
Economy

Economies begin to flourish at Rohingya refugee camps

Steady salaries and supplies create 'comfort' that could impede repatriation

15 April 2018
A parent and child gaze at their camp from a nearby hill. At present, about 620,000 people live in the Kutupalong-Balukhali camp in the Cox's Bazar district of Bangladesh.
International relations

In pictures: The plight of Myanmar's Rohingya refugees

A grim life and uncertain future confront 670,000 people stranded in Bangladesh

14 April 2018
A man rides his motor bike in New Delhi. (Photo by Ken Kobayashi)
Companies

Honda eyes top slot in India's two-wheeler market

Local unit chief wants to cement country's position as export hub

14 April 2018
Large numbers of Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority in Myanmar, have fled to Bangladesh amid violence at home.
International relations

UN Security Council to visit Myanmar and Bangladesh

Members hope to see the city to which masses of Rohingya have fled

13 April 2018
A recent ADB report says, "The anxiety over automation is overblown."
Economy

Automation not a threat to Asian workers, says ADB

Chief economist says new trade pacts will offset impact of US-China tariff fight

12 April 2018
Lion Air planes operate at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport outside Jakarta. The airline seeks new routes in South Asia.
Companies

Indonesian carrier Lion Air hunts for South Asian routes

Airline to purchase 50 narrow-body Boeing planes for $6bn

11 April 2018
Can it do your job?
Opinion

Robots threaten Asian jobs

Automation risks hitting the region's low-skill industrial posts

6 April 2018