Both candidates ran similar campaigns, promising to wage war on crime and protect one of Latin America’s strongest economies. But in the end Peruvians chose an avuncular technocrat known as PPK for their new president rather than take a chance on a candidate with a toxic last name. Pedro Pablo...
India has long been the world’s biggest moviemaker. Its official censors, too, are proving increasingly prolific. The national censor board this week said that a big-budget Bollywood film about a gritty, often-overlooked subject — the drug menace in the northern state of Punjab — painted the state...
Soaring more than 50 stories, the new blue-and-white skyscraper at the top of Future Science Street cuts a Jetsons-like form. Its tower is crowned with a golden planet, and its sleek tiers of stacked oblong shapes call to mind a cartoon spaceport, ready to dock flying saucers. Down the block, two...
When it was first overrun by the rebels in 2013, the eastern Syrian city of Raqqa became the symbol of the revolution against the rule of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Nine months later, it emerged as the de-facto capital of Islamic State, the springboard from which the group would launch its...
When the outsiders first arrived in the eastern Afghan district of Shinwar, they made no effort to hide their allegiances. “We are part of Daesh,” they said, using the Arabic-language acronym by which the Iraq- and Syria-based Islamic State group is known. At first, they tried to reassure residents....
The number of terrorist attacks and fatalities has shown its largest decline in more than a decade, according to the U.S. State Department’s latest report on global terrorism. The report concludes that terrorist attacks declined by 13% and deaths by 14%, following years of striking increases. While...
Joshua Wong, the face of the 2014 pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong, was acquitted Tuesday of two counts of obstructing a police officer during an earlier protest against mainland China’s claim of “complete jurisdiction” over the semiautonomous Chinese territory. While the protest was unrelated...
American films dominated China’s movie screens last week with “X-Men: Apocalypse” topping the field with a $56-million opening weekend. The long-running 20th Century Fox franchise based on the Marvel comics series was far ahead of “Alice Through the Looking Glass,” which earned $22.5 million in...
State and local elections held across Mexico appeared to be turning into a major defeat for the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, according to partial results released Monday. The voting, held Sunday in states that account for slightly more than one-third of Mexico’s population, were viewed...
The last time Zabihullah Tamanna spoke to his friend Sultan Faizy, he told Faizy he was about to head to Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province. The 38-year-old photographer and married father of three would be there on assignment with NPR, along with three other journalists. “Stay safe,” Faizy...
Growing up as an Afghan immigrant in California, there were only a few names that were instantly recognizable in my family. There were the titans of the Cold War-era politics that had managed to turn our country into one of its main events — Gulbuddin Hekmetyar, our prime minister; the U.S. president,...
In the bare dirt courtyard of a low-slung building in a small farming village, a group of girls chase one another in a round of kabaddi, a local schoolyard game a bit like Red Rover. It could be any small village school in a desperately poor rural area of India — except that these girls have barely...
Outside an old farmhouse nestled among green fields, two men lay on a cot. With their feet propped against a teal-painted wall, they stared at a sky speckled with clouds, occasionally pointing upward and aiming a pair of binoculars. The dark figure of a bird would suddenly be visible at a great...
Is what I’m experiencing some real-life version of “Waiting for Godot”? Or perhaps it’s more like “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Five days into an 11-day, highly controlled reporting trip in North Korea with scores of other foreign reporters, I’m starting to contemplate the boundary between...
Fifty years ago on Monday, the Cultural Revolution began in China, kicking off a decade of political upheaval. Chinese society consumed itself in a frenzy of Maoist ideology: Students beat their teachers, children informed on parents. Ragnar Baldursson first came to China as a student in 1975,...
All eyes in the crowd fell on the supreme commander of the Korean People's Army. He emerged from the subway in one of this city's busiest nightlife areas with his trademark black suit and closely cropped hair. He hadn't lost any weight. "That's Kim Jong Un!" somebody shouted. Not quite. The reviled...