As traffic whizzed past them, a group of tiny Asian women in long bright skirts and plastic sandals walked single file along the edge of East-West Highway in Riverdale, headed for the Megamart. Deomaya Dharjmer, 49, led the way, cheerfully determined to conquer her alien new world. Barely a year ago, she and her friends were living in bamboo and thatch huts in Nepal, waiting for someone to decid e their fate. For 18 years, they had languished in crowded U.N. camps, where 100,000 mostly Hindu refugees of Nepalese descent had been driven from next-door Bhutan by a Buddhist regime. Read full article > >

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Refugees from Bhutan face strange new world of Maryland suburbs

Shares in Asian makers of computer chips fall after industry leader Intel cuts its revenue forecast due to floods in Thailand.

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Intel forecast hits chipmakers

GUAM — As he hopscotched across the Asian Pacific over the past nine days, President Obama cast himself as a leader determined to protect American interests and spread American values, willing to project power and take political risks for the sake of a better future.  It was a message that returned a degree of lift and optimism — and the notion of American exceptionalism — to the president’s political oratory, elements that have been largely absent in recent months as he has focused on the grinding task of creating jobs and curbing unemployment at home . Read full article > >

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A determined Obama in Asia-Pacific tour

As he begins a nine-day trip to the Asia-Pacific region on Friday, President Obama is aiming to reassure jittery U.S. allies and emerging nations that they have another avenue to prosperity, at a time when an increasingly aggressive China is extending its own sphere of influence. At each stop — a pair of regional summits in Hono­lulu and Bali, Indonesia, sandwiched around a visit to Australia to highlight a military alliance — Obama will send a clear signal that the United States is a “Pacific power,” eager to help build economic success and security in the fast-developing region. Read full article > >

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Obama heads to Asia with sharp focus on China’s growing power

Questions surrounding a death at an American outpost in Afghanistan threaten to harm attitudes toward the military in the Asian-American community.

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After Soldier’s Death, a Chinatown Family Seeks Answers

Maryland’s General Assembly on Thursday approved — and Gov. Martin O’Malley signed into law — a partisan plan designed to pick up another House seat for Democrats by anchoring most of the state’s eight congressional districts in suburban Washington, where minority populations are surging. Most dramatically, the plan stretches a rural Western Maryland district held by the state’s senior Republican lawmaker nearly 200 miles from the border of West Virginia to the Capital Beltway in Montgomery County to pick up African American, Asian, Hispanic and other reliably Democratic voters. Read full article > >

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Political battle over Md. redistricting over, but legal fight concerning minorities ready to take over

BANGKOK — Hoping for a lenient sentence, a shackled U.S. citizen pleaded guilty Monday to charges of defaming Thailand’s royal family, a grave crime in the Southeast Asian kingdom punishable by up to 15 years in jail. Thai-born American Joe Gordon has been detained since late May for translating excerpts of a locally banned biography of King Bhumibol Adulyadej and posting them online. Gordon committed the alleged crimes years ago while living in the U.S. state of Colorado, where he worked as a car salesman. The case has raised concerns about the reach of Thai law and how it is applied to both Thai nationals and foreign visitors. Read full article > >

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American man pleads guilty to charges of insulting monarchy in Thailand

When volunteers open the doors at the Arlington Food Assistance Center these fall mornings, people are always waiting. They are young and older, white, black, Hispanic, Asian and all of the other ethnicities found in the increasingly diverse county. Some have children in tow; others grasp only the handles of their reusable grocery bags. Some have familiar faces, but many waiting quietly in line are new clients, and there are more and more of them. Read full article > >

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Arlington food bank sees record demand

MANILA, Philippines — The second typhoon in a week battered the rain-soaked northern Philippines on Saturday, adding misery to thousands of people, some of whom still perched on rooftops while several other Asian nations also reeled from flooding. Typhoon Nalgae slammed ashore midmorning Saturday south of northeastern Palanan Bay in Isabela province with winds of 100 miles (160 kilometers) per hour and dangerous gusts of 121 mph (195 kph). Read full article > >

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Asia reels under floods as 2nd typhoon this week hits rain-soaked Philippines

A Mall tourist itinerary, circa 2050. Here’s one way it could look: Day One: Zoom to the top of the Washington Monument, stroll over to the Asian American Museum, then swing by the German American Museum. Day Two: Take in the Italian American Museum, then the Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders Museum and finish up with a rousing spin through the Museum of the Irish American People. Read full article > >

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Proposed ‘melting pot’ of American history: One museum over all?

I confess to being a fan of Nihal, a DJ and a radio presenter on BBC Asian Network, where he presents a phone-in show in the afternoon that deals with social and political issues. Sometimes I even speak with him live on air.

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(Muslim) Boy meets (Hindu) Girl and Other Bollywood Fantasies

I confess to being a fan of Nihal, a DJ and a radio presenter on BBC Asian Network, where he presents a phone-in show in the afternoon that deals with social and political issues. Sometimes I even speak with him live on air.

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(Muslim) Boy meets (Hindu) Girl and Other Bollywood Fantasies

BERLIN –World markets plunged Thursday after the Federal Reserve took a dramatic step to help revive the U.S. economy — and in the process sent a message that America’s financial malaise seems unlikely to dissipate any time soon. Key European and Asian indexes were down more than 4 percent. Investors took the Fed’s surprise action to purchase longer-term bonds–an effort to push down long-term interest rates even further–as a sign that it felt the U.S. downturn could last for a long time. That pessimism added to a growing sense that the international economy is approaching a precipice. Read full article > >

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World markets fall sharply after Fed action on bonds

RANGOON, Burma — Burma’s repressive government was allowing access to banned news websites Friday for the first time in years, including several operated by exiled dissidents. The unannounced move is the latest step taken by the Southeast Asian nation’s new leaders to boost hope, however feint, that authoritarian rule here could finally be easing. Read full article > >

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Burma allows access to banned websites, including Voice of America, BBC

Federal officials promised to improve two crucial weapons in the fight to prevent Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes: an electric fish barrier near Chicago and an early-warning system that detects carp DNA in waterways. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released a report Friday by four independent scientists who analyzed the “environmental DNA” process that government and university scientists have used for the past two years to search for the carp on both sides of the barrier. Read full article > >

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Building a better fish trap for invasive Asian carp