Asia

Brutal Rape In India Triggers Widespread Public Anger

11:40am December 26, 2012

An update on last weekend's rape of a student in New Delhi, an incident which provoked widespread outrage, and calls for a crackdown on sexual violence in India. Weekend Edition Saturday host Scott Simon talks with NPR's Julie McCarthy in India.

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Japan's economy has been struggling for two decades and faces some of the same problems the U.S. has. Here, a man in Tokyo passes an electronic board displaying falling global markets.

World News

Japan's Economic Woes Offer Lessons To U.S.

9:21pm December 21, 2012

by Frank Langfitt

Japan's economy was a world beater in the 1980s. But the country has now gone through two tough decades and there's no end in sight. What lessons might it hold for the U.S. as it confronts the "fiscal cliff"?

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Dr. Aun Pyae Phyo examines a baby at the Whampa malaria clinic on the Thailand-Myanmar border.

A View From The Ground: Thailand Confronts Drug-Resistant Malaria

3:16pm December 20, 2012

Global deaths from malaria have dropped sharply in the past decade, thanks in part to powerful drugs called artemisinins. But on the border between Thailand and Myanmar, doctors are starting to see cracks in artemisinin's armor. The medicine is working more slowly, and sometimes not at all.

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Indian women and children in New Delhi stage a protest Tuesday to condemn the gang rape of a 23-year-old student on a city bus.

World News

Rape Case In India Provokes Widespread Outrage

3:16pm December 20, 2012

by Julie McCarthy

Rape is a problem throughout India, and a particularly brutal attack on a Delhi bus has sparked street protests and condemnation by members of Parliament. The victim, a 23-year-old woman, is battling for her life.

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A New Generation Takes Power In Northeast Asia

2:22pm December 20, 2012

Within the past year, North Korea, China, Japan and South Korea have all elected new leadership. The shifting powers in Northeast Asia have major implications for a region the includes three of the world's major economies.

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World News

South Korea's New Leader Promises Moderate Path

11:37am December 20, 2012

by Anthony Kuhn

South Korea will have its first female president, following Wednesday's close presidential election. Park Geun-hye says she will be open to better relations with North Korea, but she leads a conservative party known for its hardline with Pyongyang.

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Gunmen In Pakistan Target Polio Vaccinators

5:44am December 20, 2012

by Dina Temple-Raston

Gunmen staged new attacks Wednesday on health workers carrying out a nationwide polio vaccination program. On Tuesday, six workers were killed as they went house to house.

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South Korean presidential candidate Park Geun-hye, who appears slightly favored in Wednesday's election, is the daughter of a military dictator who ran the country for nearly two decades. She would be South Korea's first female president.

World News

Daughter Of A Dictator Favored In S. Korean Election

6:07am December 18, 2012

by Anthony Kuhn

Park Geun-hye's father was a military dictator who ran the country for nearly two decades. She has apologized for her father's suppression of democracy and appears to be slightly favored in Wednesday's presidential vote.

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World News

Japanese Voters Return Conservatives To Power

3:49pm December 17, 2012

by Frank Langfitt

The Liberal Democratic Party won resoundingly Sunday in parliamentary elections that both Washington and Beijing were watching carefully. The conservative LDP's hawkish leader, Shinzo Abe, will become Japan's prime minister for the second time and has pledged to take a harder line on China.

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Supporters hold up posters of Japan's former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at a rally in Osaka on Thursday. Considered a nationalist hawk, Abe is expected to become prime minister for a second time after parliamentary elections Sunday.

World News

Nationalist Rhetoric High As Japanese Head To Polls

10:27am December 17, 2012

by Frank Langfitt

Sunday's parliamentary election is taking place against a backdrop of increasing nationalist feeling in Japan. Right-wing sentiment has been growing in the face of an ongoing conflict with China over a group of disputed islands and continued economic and political instability inside Japan.

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