“Hunting is good. It’s good for the body,” says Baiyaertu, 83, his hazel eyes twinkling as he smokes a cigarette from a long plastic holder. “After you come back with something, you feel really happy.” A member of the Oroqen, an ethnic group from China’s northeast, he first pursued game in the wilderness as a child with his parents. It has been decades since he last hunted, but his memories are strong. Austin Ramzy (’03) writes for TIME.

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Photo by Michael Mooney via Flickr.

There’s no shortage of crises facing Pakistan’s new leaders as their parliament convenes its first regular session on Thursday: an economic downturn, a crippling shortage of electricity, skyrocketing inflation — the price of bread has nearly doubled — and a rampant crime surge. Clashes between pro-government lawyers and supporters of President Pervez Musharraf in Karachi Wednesday left seven people dead. And moves to reinstate the independent judiciary sacked by Musharraf last November could bring new turmoil — Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry could push for Musharraf’s ouster on the grounds that his reelection was unconstitutional. And if he overturns the blanket amnesty granted to politicians charged with corruption, at least one key leader of the new ruling coalition, Benazir Bhutto’s widower Asif Ali Zardari, could face renewed investigation. Aryn Baker (’01) reports for TIME.

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Lisa Pickoff-White (’09) and Rhyen Coombs (’09) covered the Olympic torch rally and protests in San Francisco with a video for the San Francisco Bay Guardian.
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It’s the night before the highly anticipated Olympic torch relay in San Francisco, and I am watching a training session for protesters led by Students for a Free Tibet, the group who scaled the Golden Gate Bridge to unfurl two banners the day before. A stream of young Tibetans files into the back of a Berkeley church until the room is filled. Lhadon Tethong, the executive director of the organization, arrives with a caravan of weary protesters who had attended a candlelight vigil in San Francisco. Alison Satake (’09) and Charlotte Buchen (’07) write and produce two video dispatches for PBS FRONTLINE/World on the Beijing Olympic torch relay in San Francisco and the new Tibetan youth movement.

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The Olympics torch had to take a detour and cut short its originally planned journey under a veil of secrecy as a large crowd of protesters waited along its waterfront route and passions ran high with Tibetan supporters and local Chinese groups coming face-to-face and shouting at each other at many places in Golden Gate City. Umesh Raghuvanshi (VS ‘08) writes from San Francisco for the Hindustan Times.

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For the generals who rule Burma, it is a step closer to the coveted goal of permanent military control of the country’s politics. For its detractors, it is a potential lightning rod for decades of pent-up discontent. But for most, it is still a mystery, as they wonder if this is really a distant light at the end of the tunnel or the headlights of an impending disaster.

As analysts and activists debate how to respond to the regime’s draft constitution, others ask if it will cement the generals’ hold on power or trigger a popular uprising. Kyaw Zwa Moe (VS ‘06), comments in the Thailand-based English language news magazine The Irrawaddy.

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On a hazy afternoon in the city of Urumqi, northwest China, Song Yujiang steps into the cramped outdoor equipment shop he runs on South Youhao Road, and gently wrests control of the store’s computer from his two-year-old son. He clicks through a folder of photos from his trips leading moneyed weekend warriors into western China’s rugged mountains, and stops at a photo of several hikers standing on a field of grey mountain shale, dwarfed by dozens of eerily beautiful towers of white ice.

China’s far northwest occupies a precarious position on the map of potential climate catastrophe. Josh Chin (’07) and Zachary Slobig (’07) report for China Dialogue from Xinjiang, where water security is a key question for residents.

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As NATO’s member nations convene in Bucharest, Romania, to discuss the state of the alliance, Afghanistan will be at the top of the agenda. General Dan McNeil, commander of the alliance’s 43,250 soldiers in Afghanistan, has lobbied for another troop surge to help battle the rising insurgency in the country’s south. But lower-level commanders on the ground have something else to add to that wish list. Says one: “Frankly, defeating the Taliban is the least of our worries. They are not going to beat us. What is killing this country is corruption and drugs. That is not for NATO but for the Afghan government to deal with.” Some 8,000 more troops, which would constitute the two brigades that McNeil wants, may help secure volatile areas and clear the way for development — key steps toward winning the hearts and minds so dear to counter-insurgency strategists. But if Afghans have no faith in their government to provide equal justice and uniform law, NATO’s efforts will be of little worth. Aryn Baker (’01) reports for TIME.

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Scene one is Beijing, just after China’s annual Spring Festival in February. The China Investment Corp. (CIC) has just moved its offices from the city’s west side financial district to the stylish Baoli Building on the near east side. But what hasn’t changed is that, as before, officials from the world’s top fund management companies, investment banks and private equity firms are pouring into CIC’s offices every day. This is a must-see stop for foreign financiers visiting China. Visiting Scholars Li Qing and Ling Huawei report in China’s Caijing magazine.

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This year, five senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime are awaiting trial on charges of crimes against humanity. The trials of the former Khmer Rouge leaders has sparked renewed interest in one of the darkest chapters of Cambodia’s history. Backpack journalists Anna Sussman (’05) and Jonathan Jones (’05) report from Cambodia for Current TV on what ordinary Cambodians think about the trials and the Khmer Rouge era.