5 things you might not know about Buddhism

There are around 488 million Buddhists in the world - or about 7 per cent of the global population - making it the fourth largest religion in the world, according to the Pew Research Center (2012). Buddhism began in Asia, and the vast majority of all Buddhists (nearly 99 per cent) still live in the Asia Pacific region. Only two other regions – North America (3.9 million) and Europe (1.3 million) – have more than 1 million Buddhists.

Yahoo

Pakistan privacy activists slam alleged Internet hacking by British intelligence as unethical

Pakistani rights campaigners have urged Islamabad to take action to protect the privacy of its citizens after leaked top-secret documents appeared to show British intelligence had gained access to almost all the country’s Internet users.

Law firm in Dallas Buyers Club action accused of bullying tactics

Lawyers representing film studio had used threats of criminal proceedings to advance civil claims, says NGO

Dutchman Dino Petrus Johannes van Deijzen jailed three weeks for attacking cabby

Another white trash giving the same lame excuse that he acted out of character for the assault.

Housing glut to worsen before tapering from 2017: UOB report

Singapore’s housing glut will worsen in the near future as more public and private units come on stream and only start to ease from 2017, with the government potentially reviewing property cooling measures, a report by UOB Global Economics and Markets Research said.

Meili Snow Mountain

Meili Snow Mountain (梅里雪山) on Yunnan's border with Tibet has many names, and depending on who is viewing its awe-inspiring grandeur, represents many different things. Soaring to heights of over six kilometers above sea level, the massif is as mysterious as it is immense.

GoKunming

The women seeking rich older men to pay their university fees

"It's been euphemistically referred to as "mutually beneficial, transactional dating" but is the growing world of "sugar daddy" relationships just a sanitised term for sex work?

BBC

Asian Migrants Say Australia Paid Smugglers to Turn Back

Australia is committing bribery.

Almost 200 academics sign petition urging Abe to apologise for Japan’s wartime past

Japanese academics have urged Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to renew apologies for the country’s imperialist past and offer to compensate victims of its wartime brothel system, in the latest intervention from educationalists.

When Americans Ruled Beijing

The Americans, like all other allied nations, were also heavily engaged in looting and pillaging. A U.S. diplomat, Herbert G. Squiers, filled several railroad cars with loot. Assaults on civilians were also not uncommon.  For example, Stephen Dwyer, a U.S. Marine, forced his way into a Chinese home wielding a bludgeon to “brutally assault and strike a Chinese child of tender years… driving it from its home and thereby hastening its death.” He then went on to rape the two women living in the house.

The Diplomat

Japan emperor's WWII 'remorse' a prod to Abe

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Qigong gaining popularity as a healing tool in the West

Qigong is a thousand-year-old discipline that integrates physical postures, breathing techniques and focused intention to heal the body and mind. Some of its therapeutic benefits, scientifically proven in China, are now being studied and promoted in the West.

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Asia wants positive US-China ties: Singapore's PM Lee

Every country in Asia hopes that the relationship between the United States and China will be positive, and no one wants to have to pick sides between the two giants, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Friday.

Heirs of the ‘Secret War’ in Laos

It marks the treachery of the United States government, which went into an unknown country, waged years of war, and then dropped everything in a moment’s notice.

Today, most Americans know nothing about the Secret War. A classified operation, C.I.A. officials easily terminated the effort when everything went awry. It was a disposable war, intended to look like it never happened.

Japanese academics urge 'comfort women' reckoning

Japanese academics have called on the conservative government to face up to its responsibility over "comfort women", echoing an open letter from leading foreign scholars urging an honest accounting for wartime wrongdoing.

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4 Reasons Why China Is No Threat to South China Sea Commerce

US diplomacy is not served by exaggerating or inventing military threats, such as threats to commercial shipping.

The Diplomat

NSA planned hack of Google app store to plant spyware on phones

The US National Security Agency (NSA) developed plans to hack into data links to app stores operated by Google and Samsung to plant spyware on smartphones, a media report said Thursday.

Abe’s Japan Cannot Apologize for the Pacific War

Yasukuni Shrine will continue to compromise any apology that Japan’s leaders can offer.

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Strangled by Ivy

The first part of my advice squarely parallels what William Deresiewicz, former professor at Yale University, mainly wants to convey in his book released last year, Excellent Sheep. In it, he argues Ivy-League students lack imagination, avoid risk, and are more likely to conform. Those who get into Harvard are indeed excellent and driven, but the system also makes them "anxious, timid, and lost, with little intellectual curiosity and a stunted sense of purpose." The madness of credentialism as well as lust for prestige and success drive students to head "meekly in the same direction, great at what they're doing but with no idea why they're doing it."

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Abe’s refusal to offer apology diminishes Japan

China and South Korea’s ire over Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s speech to the US Congress is to be expected, given that he chose to gloss over Japan’s war of aggression in East Asia during World War II.