A Chinese manufacturing index was higher than economists estimated in July, signaling the world’s second-biggest economy is withstanding higher interest rates and tightened credit. The Purchasing Managers’ Index was at 50.7 for July compared with 50.9 in June, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said in a statement Monday. That was more than every forecast in a Bloomberg News survey...

Although the comics publisher DC Comics is now co-headed by Jim Lee, an Asian-American, for many decades American comics regularly featured racist depictions of Asians as inscrutable masterminds and devious coolies, among other stereotypes. A new exhibition at New York University (NYU), titled “Marvels and Monsters: Unmasking Asian Images in US Comics, 1942-1986,” spotlights the evolution of Ame...

What a nightmare! Whenever you see photographs of Thailand’s White Temple, which lies on the fringes of that tri-nation junction, the Golden Triangle, it looks luminously beautiful like the Taj Mahal. Now, however, the skies above the White Temple or Wat Rong Khun are dowdy and cloudy, and the landmark might better be described as “the grey temple”. Indeed, the washout weather raises the spectr...

LONDON ― It was said of one 19th century British politician that he never missed a chance to let slip an opportunity. Will the euro summit of 2011 be remembered as “the day European leaders faced the crisis down” ― or will it be viewed, in retrospect, as the turning point at which history failed to turn? Up against almost impossible constraints ― the contradictory wishes of 16 euro members, Ger...

PARIS ― It is difficult not to be struck by the contrast between the “Asian”-like energy of Israel’s economy and civil society and the purely defensive nature of its approach to political change, both within and outside the country. A recent law bars Israeli citizens from supporting Western boycotts aimed at reversing the country’s settlement policies and at backing an independent Palestinian sta...