Laurie Burkitt (’08) took these photographs reporting her multimedia thesis project in the Philippines.

Pakistan’s two main opposition parties were the big winners in Monday’s parliamentary elections, and they plan to use their gains to form a coalition government that could threaten President Pervez Musharraf’s weakening grip on power. The Pakistani People’s Party (PPP) of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif have, together, won more than half the seats so far counted, easily defeating the Musharraf-aligned PML-Q party. If the PPP and PML-N win two-thirds of parliamentary seats, they will be in a position to impeach Musharraf, who on Tuesday said he would accept the results of the landmark poll. Aryn Baker (’01) reports for TIME.

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The first word Aitzaz Ahsan learned was a catchphrase of political protest. He was an infant in 1946, when his mother was among a group of political activists imprisoned for opposing a British-appointed administrator in what was then colonial India. In defiance of their jailers, the prisoners kept up their call-and-response sloganeering. Somebody would shout out, “Khizr wazirat” (”Minister Khizr’s rule”). The rest would respond, “Tordo!” (”Break it!”). Soon little Ahsan was joining in with the chorus. Long after the independence of Pakistan and India in 1947, Ahsan’s quavering “Tordo!” echoed through the family home, a parlor trick guaranteed to amuse the guests. Aryn Baker (’01) reports for TIME.

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On chemical industry road in east Beijing, you can find saunas, outlet malls, hardware stores, karaoke parlors, tire-repair shops, horse-drawn carts piled high with persimmons and a hot-pot restaurant that specializes in dog meat. Austin Ramzy (’03) writes for TIME.

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On August 18 at 8:30, after having waited in line for half an hour, Wang Yu, an employee of a communications equipment manufacturing firm in Shenzhen’s Nanshan Disctrict, was still unable to fill up his gas tank.

Guangzhou and Shenzhen have been faced with a lack of refined oil for quite some time now. Although some experts refuse to describe the situation as an “oil shortage”, consumers are constantly confronted with the question of whether or not they will be able to fuel up their cars.

According to the China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec), the oil shortage was caused by the typhoon Matsa, which swept across eastern China in the beginning of August. Many ports suspended shipments, leaving southern regions that rely heavily on oil supplied from the North, such as Guangdong, , seriously oil-thirsty. Yichao Wang (VS ‘06) writes in Beijing’s Caijing Magazine.

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The definition of “politics” in dictionaries lacks one more description. That description fits both ancient and modern times. It applies in both the East and the West. And it is blind to creed and color. It is the art of assassination.

From American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and former US President John F Kennedy in the 1960s to former premier Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan last December, assassination fits squarely into that definition of politics.

Burmese politics is no exception. Its latest victim is Mahn Sha, a Karen rebel leader.

On Valentine’s Day, two cold-blooded gunmen walked into Mahn Sha’s house in Mae Sot, near Thailand’s border with Burma, and shot him in the heart after greeting him in Karen. “Ha ler gay (good evening),” they said. Then they drove away. Kyaw Zwa Moe (VS ‘06), comments in the Thailand-based English language news magazine The Irrawaddy.

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Days after a Hong Kong reporter was released from a Chinese jail, another Chinese journalist has been freed. Yu Huafeng, an editor at the Southern Metropolis Daily, was released Friday after serving four years of a 12-year sentence for embezzlement. That conviction was seen by many as punishment for groundbreaking reporting his paper did on the SARS outbreak and on the beating death of a young man named Sun Zhigang while in police custody in Guangzhou. Yu’s release came three days after the freeing of Ching Cheong, a Hong Kong reporter for the Singapore-based Straits Times who had served two years on a spying conviction. Another Chinese journalist, Fuzhou Daily editor Li Changqing, was released earlier this month. Li had been imprisoned for spreading false terrorist information in connection with an article that appeared on an overseas Chinese website. Austin Ramzy (’03) blogs for TIME’s The China Blog.

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The face Macau shows to the world today may be its 29 sparkling casinos, but one of the last links with the city’s gambling past can still be found two miles away from the main strip, in a plastic reproduction of Rome’s Coliseum that stands out amid the dowdy surroundings of its working-class neighborhood. Inside, six sinewy greyhounds stand shivering on an oval race track, waiting for a mud-stained mechanical rabbit to give them something to chase. Even on this Saturday night, most of the red plastic seats at the Yat Yuen Canidrome remain empty. “Before, when I came here, there were so many people you had to stand up to see anything,” says Mr. Wong, a Macanese regular at the track who wouldn’t give his full name. “There are definitely a lot less people now.” Ling Woo Liu (’06) reports as a Hong Kong-based correspondent for TIME.

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Coal, whose price surge has already outrun those of crude oil and natural gas, is generating an even louder buzz as a rash of bad weather has reduced its production globally. Citigroup earlier this week raised its forecast for thermal coal, saying it now expects prices for the benchmark product to double this year as blizzards in China, power outages in South Africa, and floods in Queensland cut into global output. Meanwhile, demand for coal keeps rising as the world’s electricity use expands. Moming Zhou (’07) reports for Dow Jones’ MarketWatch.

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Emma Brown (’09) took these photographs while reporting in Orissa and Rajasthan, India in December.