A rare spotlight is being cast on Laos as world leaders, including President Obama, prepare to gather in its capital, Vientiane, for meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, and other countries beginning on Tuesday.
Hundreds of representatives of Myanmar's ethnic tribes gathered Wednesday in the country's capital for historic peace talks with the government aimed at ending decades of separatist insurgencies that have claimed thousands of lives.
There was wine in plastic cups and people milling around, but the similarity to any other art gallery opening ended there.
Brazil’s president is facing impeachment. The country’s economy is in sharp decline. Bodies of water that will be used for Olympic competitions are polluted, and global public health officials are trying to tamp down the Zika virus epidemic.
In 2009, when Rio de Janeiro won the right to host the 2016 Olympic Games — beating out Madrid, Tokyo and Chicago — Brazil was flying high. Although it had not escaped the consequences of the 2008 financial crisis, it had suffered less economic damage, and had come back more quickly, than other countries, including the United States. With the economy booming, the federal government felt so flush that its popular president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, had instituted a series of expensive social programs that helped push millions of poor Brazilians toward a better life. The Economist magazine predicted that Brazil would soon be the world’s fifth-largest economy, leapfrogging Britain and France.
（NEW YORK TIMES）A vehicle license plate in Hong Kong sold at auction for 18.1 million Hong Kong dollars on Sunday, or $2.3 million, the highest price ever paid in the city. The plate carries the number 28, which in Cantonese sounds similar to a phrase for “easy money.”
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