NEW YORK -- He has one of the toughest jobs in international diplomacy, but Pakistan's foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, remains an ardent advocate for his nation and has not shied away from courting controversy.

In the sphere of optics and public relations, the Islamic republic is not an easy sell. From its checkered human rights record and its support for the Taliban to its long-standing rivalry with India, its politically meddlesome military and its never-ending experiments with extremism, Pakistan's case is difficult

NEW YORK -- Autonomous weapons systems, or "killer robots," have no fear, no anger, and no guilt or hesitation about pulling the trigger. They do as their programming tells them to.

But say a robot is tasked with hunting for Scud missiles from among a "library" of targets, choosing from those it sees. Who, or what, would keep it from attacking a Scud near a school?

How much is the machine allowed to do on its own, and who among its human overlords

Dr. Nancy Snow is Pax Mundi (World Peace) Professor of Public Diplomacy at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies.

I cannot stop thinking about the 1965 song "Stop! In the Name of Love" by The Supremes. "Think it over," goes the pleading refrain as the singer, with a cheating partner, contemplates the end of their relationship.

It is a lot like how the Japanese people may be feeling these days about their government's relationship with the International Olympic Committee. Like a

TOKYO -- A few years after Bom Suk Kim dropped out of Harvard Business School to launch what would eventually become Coupang, South Korea's largest e-commerce company, he was at a crossroads. He already had a fast-growing e-commerce site on his hands, and was considering taking it public.

Kim had big ambitions: to pivot the company to an Amazon-like model, which he could push even further by building an exclusive delivery network. The problem was that Coupang would need lots of

TOKYO -- Japan will relax medical rules to allow more workers in the field to administer coronavirus vaccines as it strives to reach Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's goal of giving 1 million shots a day by mid-June.

The government will expand legal interpretation to authorize paramedics and clinical technologists to give inoculations. This is part of a support program compiled Tuesday to speed up vaccinations, which also includes added payouts to municipalities and medical institutions that administer a certain number of shots.

Currently only doctors, nurses and dentists are allowed

JAKARTA -- Garuda Indonesia will slash its fleet in half in an attempt to cut losses and spiraling debt, Nikkei Asia has learned, as the carrier struggles to stay aloft amid the COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on the global airline industry.

Indonesia's biggest airline said in a filing to the country's stock exchange on Monday that it was offering an early retirement program as part of an effort to "make Garuda Indonesia a healthier and more adaptive company in responding to business performance challenges in a new

William Bratton is author of "China's Rise, Asia's Decline." He was previously head of equity research, Asia-Pacific, at HSBC.

Courted by the U.S., Europe, Japan and even Russia, India's geopolitical importance has been rapidly elevated over recent years.

Whether as a member of the Quad, the emerging Asian bloc, or as a participant in the potential D-10 -- a grouping of the leading democracies -- the country is now viewed by

JAKARTA -- Indonesia Battery Corp. and a consortium led by South Korea's LG Group are set to soon begin building a $1.2 billion electric vehicle battery plant, the Indonesian investment minister says.

The facility will be constructed in the Kota Deltamas industrial area in Bekasi, West Java Province, about a two-hour drive from Jakarta. The site is near where another South Korean company, carmaker Hyundai Motor, is nearing completion of its first manufacturing plant in Indonesia.

Indonesia, the world's largest

JAKARTA -- The Indonesian government is working on a plan to send thousands of Jakarta-based civil servants to work remotely from Bali, in a bid to help the economy of the tourism-reliant island rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Up to 8,000 employees at seven ministries will likely be eligible for the program, which is being overseen by the office of the coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment. They include workers at the energy ministry, the public works ministry and the transportation ministry