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Covering geo-political news and current affairs across Asia Asia Times is a pan-Asia online news platform covering politics, economics, business and security from an Asian perspective. It is one of the fastest-growing news sites in the world

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Featured Writers

Sanskrita Bharadwaj

Sanskrita is an independent journalist reporting on social justice, human rights, politics, culture, and occasionally on health and environment. She is based in Guwahati, Assam.

David Hutt

a British political journalist, columnist and researcher

Fatima Qureshi

I am a communications generalist and writer based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Turyal Azam Khan

I'm a Pakistani writer, blogger, and journalist based in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. I write on a lot of topics but arts and culture/entertainment is my forte.

Chris Fitzgerald

Elena Owyong

Singapore-based content strategist and copywriter with more than a decade's experience crafting engaging content to help companies achieve their business objectives. Services: content strategy, content creation for annual reports, books, …

Latest Articles

Will new police chief end Philippines war on drugs?

The President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., named Major General Rommel Francisco Marbil as the country’s new police chief last week. Marbil replaces General Benjamin Acorda Jr., who retired at the start of April, only three months after his term had been extended by the president. The appointment has …

By Chris Fitzgerald
11th April 2024 • Asia Times

Modi riding the politics of hate to reelection

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stepped up attacks on minority groups in the lead-up to India’s general election, sparking fears Muslims will be targeted as the two-term leader seeks to divide Indians and stoke tensions for his and his ruling party’s political gain. This coincides with this week’s rollout of …

By Chris Fitzgerald
14th March 2024 • Asia Times

Strongman politics returning to Southeast Asia

History is repeating in Southeast Asia. Filipinos and now Indonesians have elected leaders with links to their countries dark pasts, raising questions about whether strongman politics is back in the region and whether it is here to stay. Its return could risk hard-won progress on democracy and human rights. When …

By Chris Fitzgerald
28th February 2024 • Asia Times

Taliban’s latest attempt to punish women could backfire

The Taliban have brought in the new year by stepping up their campaign against women and girls in Afghanistan. Having already banned women from education and employment, the regime is now targeting women on the streets for their appearance. This is a dangerous new phase in the Taliban’s attempts to …

By Chris Fitzgerald
23rd January 2024 • Asia Times

Human rights at stake in Indonesia’s presidential election

Indonesia, the world’s third-largest democracy, will go to the polls next month. The country’s 200 million voters, and 1.75 million members of the Indonesian diaspora, will vote to elect a new president and vice-president. The stakes are high. President Joko Widodo will leave office with a flawed but positive legacy …

By Chris Fitzgerald
10th January 2024 • Asia Times

Afghan dilemma prolongs suffering

Last week, an international meeting of Special Envoys on Afghanistan, along with United Nations Secretary General António Guterres, met in Doha to discuss the dire situation in Afghanistan. Representatives from 25 countries, including the United States, China, Russia and Pakistan, as well as major European aid donors, attended the two-day …

By Chris Fitzgerald
8th May 2023 • Asia Times

Indonesia’s commitment to human rights in question

Last month, the Indonesian government made a firm commitment to the United Nations to improve the human-rights situation in the country. This comes as the UN Human Rights Council adopted Indonesia’s Fourth Cycle Universal Periodic Review Report at its meeting in Geneva on March 27. As part of the review, …

By Chris Fitzgerald
10th April 2023 • Asia Times

Viewing America’s gun crisis from the shores of Korea

One consequence of living on the other side of the Pacific is that, because of the extreme time difference, news from America hits these shores at odd times of the day (or night). This is especially true with school shootings. I’m usually fast asleep when they go down, which makes …

By Chris Tharp
29th March 2023 • Asia Times

Sri Lanka election delay a bad move

President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s refusal to fund local elections sets a dangerous precedent that puts Sri Lankan democracy at risk. If the government is serious about political reform, voters need to have their voices heard. The National Election Commission informed the Sri Lankan Supreme Court last week that local elections planned …

By Chris Fitzgerald
1st March 2023 • Asia Times

Ressa acquittal signals revived respect for Filipinos’ rights

This week’s acquittal of Maria Ressa is the latest in a string of court decisions suggesting that the Philippine judicial system is starting to back human rights in defiance of the government. This comes at a pivotal time, with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr accused of attacking press freedom and continuing …

By Chris Fitzgerald
21st January 2023 • Asia Times

Death sentence for being an outspoken Afghan woman

The killing of Mursal Nabizada is the latest body blow to women’s rights in Afghanistan. Nabizada, 32, was a member of parliament in the former government and an outspoken critic of the Taliban. Her death is the first documented killing of an MP of the former government since the Taliban’s …

By Chris Fitzgerald
17th January 2023 • Asia Times

Outside world doing too little to rescue Afghans’ human rights

Now well into their second stint in power as the rulers of Afghanistan, the Taliban continue to attack the fundamental human rights of Afghans. Afghanistan’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, has publicly ordered judges to fully enforce Islamic law. This reportedly includes public executions, stonings and the amputation of limbs for …

By Chris Fitzgerald
18th November 2022 • Asia Times

Revisionist Marcos regime a danger to Philippine democracy

The Marcos family is back in power after 36 years. Its return is a dangerous moment for democracy in the Philippines. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr was elected in a landslide victory in May, gathering more than 30.8 million votes and winning almost 60% of the vote. This was the Philippines’ …

By Chris Fitzgerald
18th October 2022 • Asia Times

Taliban statement on women’s rights calls for caution

The Afghan Taliban’s apparent decision to allow women and girls a right to go to school and work is a positive development. But it should be welcomed cautiously by the international community until there is evidence of meaningful change. After all, the Taliban have made such promises before. Taliban officials …

By Chris Fitzgerald
6th September 2022 • Asia Times

Vietnam’s multi-pronged battle against climate change

The outlook for Vietnam’s drive toward climate-change adaptation initiatives are being tested in Hanoi, as the government mulls over plans to rebalance the energy mix between renewables and coal-fired electricity plants. Despite the emerging role of civil society, disagreements on the 10-year Power Development Plan drafts are impeding clean-energy development …

By James Borton
29th August 2022 • Asia Times

One year on, Taliban making no progress

The Taliban have shown that they are both uninterested in and incapable of rebuilding their poverty-stricken country. If Afghanistan is to recover it will be despite the Taliban, not because of them. This comes as Afghanistan witnesses the first anniversary of the Taliban’s rule since the fall of Kabul on …

By Chris Fitzgerald
15th August 2022 • Asia Times

Why climate change spells danger for South Asia

The heatwave effecting the subcontinent has brought climate change to the forefront of the minds of South Asian countries. In a part of the world that is already politically unstable, a changing climate presents an existential threat that the entire region will need to deal with to prevent a humanitarian …

By Chris Fitzgerald
1st June 2022 • Asia Times

Kiwis vent anger at the lottery that locks them out

When Covid-19 swept the globe in the first few months of 2020, much of the world looked to New Zealand as an example of how to handle the crisis. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was already an international darling, and the swift and proactive measures her government put in place early …

By Chris Tharp
10th December 2021 • Asia Times

No consequences for political misdeeds

One of the more fascinating things about Donald Trump’s tenure in the White House is that those four years of outrage, tumult, and perpetual prevarication made us forget just how awful the previous Republican administration had been. While the media was busy amplifying and kvetching over Trump’s non-stop effrontery, the …

By Chris Tharp
1st October 2021 • Asia Times

Cambodia’s Hun Sen plots his long-awaited exit

After 36 years in power, is Hun Sen plotting a safe departure from politics?

By David Hutt
30th September 2021 • Asia Times

Muslim feminists in India, Sri Lanka push for divorce rights

Laws on divorce vary in different countries, intimately bound with women’s rights and access to justice. In many countries where Muslim communities are the minority, there is gaping inequality between men and women in their access to divorce and release from marriage. “These discriminatory divorce laws don’t come from the …

By Fatima Qureshi
13th August 2021 • Asia Times

Envy from Asia: how the Covid tide has turned

What a difference a trip around the sun can make. Just a year ago I sat here on the rocky shores of Korea in a kind of smug expat cocoon, gazing toward the USA and counting my lucky kimchi leaves that I was here instead of there. After all, the …

By Chris Tharp
14th July 2021 • Asia Times

Pakistan’s problematic Twitter trends

Recently, Pakistani Twitter has been riddled with gender slurs in its “trending” section. The abuse was directed toward Prime Minister Imran Khan’s wife, Bushra Bibi, and Maryam Nawaz, vice-president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s daughter. It is no secret that both Imran Khan’s …

By Turyal Azam Khan
14th December 2020 • Asia Times

Query from Korea: Is it safe in US?

When I first moved from the US to Korea, some friends and family asked me if it was “safe there.” I assured them that it was, and despite a few flare-ups between the North and South, this peninsula has proved to be one of the most danger-free places I could …

By Chris Tharp
4th December 2020 • Asia Times

Caste and the cult of masculinity in India

On September 14, a 19-year-old Dalit woman was brutally gang-raped by four men in Hathras village in India’s largest state, Utter Pradesh (UP). She clung to life for two weeks, suffering from multiple gashes on her tongue and fractures all over her body, but finally died in a hospital in …

By Fatima Qureshi
8th October 2020 • Asia Times

Rejection of reason

The 2020 Republican National Convention wrapped up on Thursday, mercifully putting to rest an over-the-top four-day exercise in anxiety amplification. This year’s gathering featured a cavalcade of histrionic speakers spelling out the end days of the USA in apocalyptic tones. Sitting here in my office on the Asian side of …

By Chris Tharp
29th August 2020 • Asia Times

Churails: What Pakistan doesn’t want to talk about

Pakistani television series centered on the premise of two women fighting over a man have not only become popular at home but have gained a large following elsewhere in South Asia and in the Middle East. It would be a disservice to say they are bad. If they were, they …

By Turyal Azam Khan
18th August 2020 • Asia Times

Beijing's iron fist puts an end to HK's autonomy

The past few weeks in Hong Kong have been dreadful, to say the least, especially after the controversial national-security law came into full force on July 1. The once-semi-autonomous territory came to grips with a new wave of arrests under the new law, drafted by the Standing Committee of the …

By Fatima Qureshi
28th July 2020 • Asia Times

Beijing's iron fist puts an end to HK's autonomy

The past few weeks in Hong Kong have been dreadful, to say the least, especially after the controversial national-security law came into full force on July 1. The once-semi-autonomous territory came to grips with a new wave of arrests under the new law, drafted by the Standing Committee of the …

By Fatima Qureshi
28th July 2020 • Asia Times

Trump: Throwing away the dog whistle

When Donald Trump pulled off his great electoral upset in 2016, anyone whose head wasn’t firmly buried in the sand knew that the US was about to enter a period of racial upheaval. After all, he ran on it. From the outset of his campaign he stoked the fire of …

By Chris Tharp
10th July 2020 • Asia Times