Economist
The most neglected threat to public health in China is toxic soil
Tang Donghua, a wiry 47-year-old farmer wearing a Greenpeace T-shirt, smokes a cigarette and gesticulates towards his paddy fields in the hills of southern Hunan province. The leaves of his rice plants poke about a foot above water. Mr Tang says he expects to harvest ...
Poor schools are at the heart of Thailand’s political malaise
Everyone knows that nurturing brainboxes is good for an economy. In Thailand, school reformers have an extra incentive: to narrow differences between rich people in cities and their poorer rural cousins, which have led to a decade of political tension and occasional eruptions of violence. ...
Miles to go
Though foreign investment is soaring and GDP is expected to grow by at least 8% this year and next, both are from a tiny base. Before the army seized power, Myanmar had been one of the world’s leading rice exporters and one of Asia’s wealthiest ...