For years, sprawling Beijing seemed destined to be another Los Angeles, with endless traffic jams and long commutes. But suddenly, Beijing flows. Credit an ambitious subway network that’s finally starting to draw commuters off the street.

Josh Chin (’07) produces this video for the Wall Street Journal.

They waxed nostalgic about secret negotiations in Beijing, a cold war alliance against the former Soviet Union, and the first visit to the United States by Deng Xiaoping, the former Chinese leader.

But in the end, the American and Chinese leaders who gave speech after speech in Beijing on Monday afternoon chose to focus on China’s stunning economic growth and its place in the world today, and how that might be different had relations between Washington and Beijing taken another course 30 years ago.

Edward Wong (’98) writes from Beijing for The New York Times.

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Photo via New York Times

Pakistan is acting decisively against the militants blamed for the Mumbai massacre: Last weekend, it arrested some key leaders of the banned Lashkar e-Toiba (LeT) organization identified by India and by U.S. officials as implicated in the terror attack; on Thursday it followed that up with a crackdown on the Jamaat ud Dawa (JuD), an Islamic charity that has allegedly functioned as a front organization for LeT since it was banned in Pakistan in 2002. Pakistani authorities froze bank accounts, closed a number of offices and detained dozens of members of the JuD. But while the crackdown may demonstrate the government’s firm resolve to tackle jihadist extremism within Pakistan, moving against the JuD is unlikely to significantly alter Pakistan’s militancy problem — and could even exacerbate it by generating sympathy for those against whom the authorities have acted.

Aryn Baker (’01) reports from Islamabad for TIME.

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When applying for his Master’s degree at the University of California (UC) Berkeley this year, Min Zin, a 35-year-old Burmese dissident, encountered a big problem.

He had never finished high school.

Min Zin was kicked out of high school in Burma (now Myanmar) in 1988 for his political involvement against the military junta.

Moch N. Kurniawan (VS ‘09) writes for The Jakarta Post.

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The Afghan warlords largely responsible for assisting the U.S.’s ousting of the Taliban in 2001 are now deeply entrenched in Afghan society. They have positions in government, in the police, in the army and in business. Though they have largely relinquished their tanks and heavy artillery, most have been able to maintain their core militias in the form of private security companies, political parties or loose business networks.

Aryn Baker (’01) reports from Kabul for TIME.

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In China, it’s no longer shocking to see sexy adverts peddling everything from perfume to hamburgers. Popular perception attributes this to the mass-marketing methods adopted during the past 30 years of economic liberalization, but in fact the transformation of the Chinese woman from coy maiden to poster girl has been a far longer process.

Ling Woo Liu (’06) writes from Macau about a museum exhibit featuring Chinese women in advertising, for TIME magazine.

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Piles of red bricks clutter the roadsides. Stacks of concrete drainage pipes fill parking lots, while stores do a brisk trade in paint and window frames. Like countless other places in China, this corner of central Sichuan province is undergoing a building boom. But this is no typical growth story. When I was here six months ago, bodies jutted from the pancaked floors of collapsed buildings and lined rubble-strewn streets. Tens of thousands of homeless crowded into sports stadiums, and millions more slept in tents.

Austin Ramzy (’03) reports for TIME Magazine.

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Photo via AFP/Getty via TIME