TEHRAN, Iran — A battery of flashbulbs pop to the rhythm of a leggy model sashaying down the makeshift quadrangular catwalk, striking a pose for the audience at every corner. Sporting a billowing, Chinese-inspired gown with matching red slippers, her neck and bare feet are covered in artfully wrapped white gauze. Other models exhibit chunky silver jewelry while all wear a uniform black head covering that obscures the eyes. For the men, blindfolds and chest-hugging shirts complement graceful linen waistcoats, cargo pants and accessories. At the show’s conclusion, the designer is escorted out by the models to a storm of [...]
With the obituaries written the analysis can start. The perfect spy and self-effacing journalist Pham Xuan An stood among the most controversial media figures of the 20th century for his dual roles played out during the tumultuous years of the Vietnam War. An was a highly decorated journalist for some of the most prominent American news magazines. But in secret, he was also a senior officer and espionage agent for the Vietnamese Communists and his undercover work was vital to their war strategy. He died Sept. 20 after a long battle with emphysema in the former Saigon at the age [...]
BANGKOK, Thailand — The curiously named Caravan of the Poor, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s own version of Nazi brownshirts who intimidated anti-government demonstrators on the streets of Bangkok earlier this year, has evaporated in the week following Thailand’s coup. Instead, smiling mothers photograph their plastic gun-toting sons who pester to be lifted onto tanks parked in the capital’s streets. Newly married couples choose a backdrop of the flower-festooned armored vehicles instead of the royal palace or a historic temple to commemorate their special day on film. But the calm and the lack of combatants comes at too high [...]
