Echo Huang, Tripti Lahiri

When South Korean president Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un planted a pine tree in the Demilitarized Zone between their two countries on Friday (April 27), it was one of many hopeful images of the two nations coming together. The two leaders are at a historic summit marked by the indelible moment this morning when Kim strode across the military demarcation line into the South—the first time a North Korean leader crossed the border.

Tomorrow (April 27), Kim Jong-un will cross the military demarcation line separating his country from South Korea—a first for a North Korean leader—for a historic summit with South Korean president Moon Jae-in. When he makes the crossing, he’ll bring with him his wife Ri Sol-ju, his sister Kim Yo-jong, several high-level North Korean officials, possibly edible symbolic gifts—and a toilet.

On the morning of April 24, 2013, workers in Dhaka, Bangladesh, didn’t want to go back into their factories, housed in an eight-story building. Cracks had started showing a day earlier in the walls of the building, but their bosses insisted they go to work.

Mike Pompeo, head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), made a secret visit to North Korea over Easter weekend and met with its leader Kim Jong-un, the Washington Post has reported, citing two officials.

A month ahead of a general election, Malaysia’s new fake-news law has gone into effect—and journalists and rights groups are worried it’s going to make it very hard to talk about corruption.

Perhaps few people have listened to as many conversations they weren’t actually a part of as Nick Enfield, professor of linguistics at the University of Sydney in Australia, and author of the recently published How We Talk: The Inner Workings of Conversation.

Hong Kong

Well before the end of Chinese president Xi Jinping’s first term, political experts had already begun speculating that he was planning to stay in power for longer than the 10-year limit accepted by previous leaders. This weekend, China gave the strongest credence yet to the prediction.

Curling originated in the 16th century as a game played by burly Scottish men across frozen lakes, and has for long been dominated by powerhouses like Canada and Sweden. These days, Asian women are increasingly likely to medal in the sport, which involves using brooms and frantic sweeping to steer very heavy stones across a sheet of ice.

Being among the relatively few top female politicians in South Asia isn’t easy. One of Sri Lanka’s most prominent female politicians, Rosy Senanayake, at the time a lawmaker in parliament, was once told by the transport minister that he was unable to respond to her question because she was too beautiful.

The Winter Olympics are now officially underway in Pyeongchang, South Korea, after an opening ceremony marked by extreme chilliness—actual and metaphorical.

Norovirus can turn your cruise ship voyage into a nightmare of diarrhea and vomiting. It’s not exactly great for athletes either.

After a New Year’s Day overture by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was met with a warm response from Winter Olympics host South Korea, Pyongyang is now sending nearly two dozen athletes to participate in the games next month. But only two won the right to participate on merit: figure skaters Ryom Tae-ok, 18, and Kim Ju-sik, 25.

North Korea is one of the most ostracized countries in the world. But its relatively “weak” passport, in terms of traveling to other countries, remains far more powerful than many of the ones issued by South Asian countries.

China’s first space lab, which stopped working in 2016, is expected to crash to earth in coming months. But unlike the Tiangong-1, many man-made objects remain in space way beyond their useful life, orbiting our planet endlessly and fueling space scientists’ worst nightmares.

China, the world’s largest carbon emitter, is ushering in stricter environmental rules on several fronts in 2018.

Many a journalist closed out 2017 vowing to be less distracted by Donald Trump’s sometimes rather unpresidential tweeting, and to focus on the “real news.” Unfortunately, the start of 2018 brought this:

Early last January, Jack Ma, the founder of China’s largest e-commerce enterprise, made a beeline to Trump Tower in New York (photo above) to build goodwill with a man whose public remarks overwhelmingly painted China as an untrustworthy stealer of jobs. Two weeks later, Ma’s Ant Financial Services—a firm that is 16 times bigger than PayPal by one measure—announced a deal to acquire Texas-based remitter MoneyGram.

The Indian state of Andhra Pradesh has grand plans for its new capital, Amaravati. They include an enormous amount of land, a master plan shaped by Singapore, and a design ethos that draws on monumental cities from its cultural past, real and imagined.

Late Tuesday and early Wednesday, House and Senate Republicans passed what many are calling the most thorough overhaul of US tax laws in decades—”the biggest in history,” if you’re Donald Trump—one that saw no support from a single Democratic lawmaker in either house.

In recent days, photos of Rodrigo Duterte’s oldest granddaughter, clad in an opulent, sparkling blood-red designer gown, have been making the rounds on social media in the country. The occasion: Isabelle Duterte’s photoshoot for her “debut,” the traditional 18th birthday celebration for girls in the Philippines. The venue for the shoot: the country’s presidential palace.

Every investor knows the mantra: Buy low, sell high. But as bitcoin surges to new milestones—and one particularly bullish trader predicts it could go to $100,000 in the not-too-distant future—fear of missing out is grabbing investors. After all, bitcoin was trading at around $800 this time last year, and now it’s at over 20 times that.

BYD, China’s largest electric car maker, has set up a nearly $1 billion private fund to finance monorail systems in 20 Chinese cities, as it looks to China’s multi-billion dollar public transport market to expand its business.

In 2004, under prime minister John Howard, Australia amended marriage law to define what marriage was, and to very clearly rule out the recognition of certain kinds of unions. The law was changed to include the following text: