TAIWAN: Ang Lee wins Oscar for best director

Taipei, Feb. 25 (CNA) Taiwanese director Ang Lee on Sunday (L.A. time) won the 2013 Academy Award for best director,

HONG KONG: Soaring Above the City on Foot

"Cities Without Ground," a quirky guide to Hong Kong by a trio of architects, offers a roadmap on the best way to explore the vibrant Asian hub—on foot, and high above the concrete streets.

KOREAN PENINSULA: First Female South Korean President Faces North Korea Crisis

(SEOUL, South Korea) — Park Geun-hye became South Korea’s first female president Monday, returning to the presidential mansion where she grew up with her dictator father. Park’s last stint in the Blue House was bookended by tragedy: At 22, she cut short her studies in Paris to return to Seoul and act as President Park Chung-hee’s first lady after an assassin targeting her father instead killed her mother; she left five years later after her father was shot and killed by his spy chief during a drinking party. As president, Park will face stark divisions both in South Korean society and with rival North Korea, which detonated an underground nuclear device about two weeks ago. South Koreans worry about a growing gap between rich and poor, and there’s pressure for her to live up to her campaign suggestion that she can return the country to the strong economic growth her strong-man father oversaw. North Korea’s atomic test will also present a challenge to her vow to soften Seoul’s current hard-line approach to its northern rival.

Pyongyang, Washington, Beijing and Tokyo are all watching to see if Park pursues an ambitious engagement policy meant to ease five years of animosity on the divided peninsula or if she sticks with the tough stance of her fellow conservative predecessor, Lee Myung-bak. Park’s decision is important because it will likely set the tone of the larger diplomatic approach that Washington and others take in stalled efforts to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions. Park technically took over as the clock struck midnight. Her swearing-in ceremony later Monday was to be attended by tens of thousands, including dignitaries such as U.S. National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso. South Korean superstar PSY, who rose to surprising global fame last year with his song “Gangnam Style,” was set to perform. Park’s first weeks in office will be complicated by North Korea’s warning of unspecified “second and third measures of greater intensity,” a

CHINA: Xi gets off to good start in first 100 days but drastic reforms are unlikely

China's new leader Xi Jinping has certainly lit up enough "fires" to generate exciting chatter at home and abroad about himself, his new administration and the future direction of the mainland economy since he officially took over the reins of the Communist Party on November 15.

TIBETAN Man Burns Himself, Protesting CHINA’s Policy in Tibet

Reports just coming out of Tibet say a Tibetan man sets himself on fire  at about 8 PM local time February 24, 2013 in Haidong  Prefecture in Qinghai Province, Tibet.

Phakmo  Thondup, who is about 20-year-old, protesting China’s repressive policy in Tibet, set himself ablaze in Ja Khung Monastery in Hainan  Prefecture in Qinghai Province.

Reports say the monks of the Ja Khung Monastery took him right away to a local hospital and is being treated for burns.  There is ...

BRUNEI police probe death of woman found in concrete

Brunei police are probing the death of a Malaysian woman found encased in a block of cement in her friend’s garden, in the latest violent death to shock the sultanate.

CHINA Lantern Festival in Pictures

Lantern Festival marks end of Chinese New Year