For the people living along Burma's Payapon river the slow-moving waters have always been a sustainer of life, providing irrigation, fish and clean water; but now the same river is delivering the corpses of hundreds of people killed by Cyclone Nargis.
As the Olympic flame continues its tumultuous journey, the lives of two young Chinese women have taken centre stage in the black and white world of Chinese public opinion, which views one as an angel and the other as a traitor.
British foreign office minister Lord Malloch-Brown believes that it is time to acknowledge that Africa deserves not just a development policy but a foreign policy.
News that Canberra is poised to amend laws that discriminate against same-sex couples was met with widespread celebration this week, but for many elderly gays the welcome announcement comes too late to make much difference.
Once on the fabled Silk Route and now the gateway to central Asian countries with which China has struck gas pipeline deals, Xinjiang has received heavy investment but the region's indigenous Uygurs feel the Chinese are wiping out their culture.
New South Wales Treasurer Michael Costa's bully-boy tactics may have hurt Labor but not the Premier or the state government plan's to sell-off its power industry.
They have a saying in Burma that if the roof is not sound, the whole house is prone to leaks - and the recent cyclone has blown the country's roof right off, causing a catastrophy that could worsen if the ruling junta continues to resist foreign aid.
From women's hospital nurse to wife of an Ethiopian clan leader, devoted aid worker Valerie Browning has published a memoir of her life, which she believes would have been no life at all without risk.
