Asia

Until recently, very few people had ever heard of raspberry ketones, the aromatic compounds that give the berries their distinctive smell. Today, health food stores have trouble keeping the capsules or drops of the stuff on their shelves. Almost overnight, an obscure plant compound became the next big thing in weight loss - and all it took was a few words from Dr. Oz. In a February episode of "The Dr. Oz Show," Mehmet Oz told viewers that raspberry ketones were "the No. 1 miracle in a bottle to burn your fat. " Once Oz calls something a "miracle," it doesn't remain obscure for long.

BEIJING - The sensational Chinese murder investigation in which the wife of an ousted Politburo member stands accused of poisoning a British expatriate may include evidence from blood samples taken from the victim's body before cremation, according to people familiar with the case. Henry C. Lee, a forensic scientist who gained international recognition for his work in the O.J. Simpson murder trial, said that he was asked this year to analyze a blood sample that most probably came from Neil Heywood, the dead Englishman.

Often film sequels are slam dunks at the box office, a seamless continuation from where a previous hit left off. But as the new installment of the 15-year-old franchise "Men in Black" proves, getting to the big screen isn't always a cakewalk. One of the most troubled productions in recent Hollywood memory, Sony Pictures' latest movie in the Will Smith-Tommy Lee Jones sci-fi-comedy franchise encountered multiple script rewrites, a discontented star and a three-month production shutdown as writers and studio executives scrambled to fix a project that nearly fell apart . By the time it was over, the studio had run up a tab of nearly $250 million - making "Men in Black 3" one of the most expensive releases of the summer.

NEW YORK - "A snake swallowing an elephant" is how the Chinese artist Wu Guanzhong described himself. The snake was the Chinese artist in him, and the elephant was Western art. The stylistic fusion that made him one of China'sleading modern artists is on view at the Asia Society Museum here in "Revolutionary Ink: The Paintings of Wu Guanzhong," which also reflects the artist's long life amid the turmoil of China's 20th century. Wu died in 2010 at 90, and these works from his last decades - depicting nature and architecture, some more naturalistic, others mostly abstract - show his easy cohabitation of two cultural hemispheres.

When the White House sent a last-minute invitation for Asif Ali Zardari to attend the two-day NATO summit, they were taking a highly public gamble. Would sharing the spotlight with President Obama and other global leaders induce the Pakistani president to allow vital supplies to reach alliance troops fighting in Afghanistan? But long before the summit ended Monday, the answer was clear: No deal. Zardari's refusal to reopen the supply routes left a diplomatic blot on a summit that NATO sought to cast as the beginning of the end of the conflict in Afghanistan.

Ford Motor Co. will offer about 90,000 U.S. salaried retirees and former employees vested in its pension plan a lump-sum payment to buy them out of monthly benefits. Ford, which also reported lower first-quarter earnings Friday because of losses in Europe and Asia, said the plan was an innovative strategy to reduce its pension obligations. The automaker won't put up any operating cash but rather will make the one-time payments from existing pension plan assets. "We believe this is the first time a program of this type and magnitude has been done in an ongoing pension plan," said Bob Shanks, Ford's chief financial officer.

Deo Man Limbu sat in a veterans hall lined with pictures of old soldiers and reflected on his years of service, his battles and his dreams. The retired major with Britain's legendary Gurkhas faced the Argentines in the 1982 Falklands War, when being a member of one of the world's most feared fighting forces had its advantages. Well before hostilities started, British military planners had encouraged photographs of Gurkhas sharpening their fearsome curved knives — no one seemed to ask why you'd bring a knife to a gunfight — and media stories about their fighting prowess.

The U.S. ambassador to India announced his resignation Thursday, citing a desire to spend more time with his family. Timothy J. Roemer's statement coincided with news that India had excluded two U.S. defense companies from a much-anticipated $11-billion deal for at least 126 fighter aircraft, fueling speculation in defense circles that the two were linked. Others, however, said the former six-term congressman from Indiana, a Democratic party stalwart, may have felt he was being sidelined in India and wanted to raise his profile back in Washington before President Obama's 2012 reelection bid. "I hear he wanted to get back to active politics," said Harinder Sekhon, a senior fellow in the U.S. studies program with New Delhi's Observer Research Foundation, a think tank.

The U.S. military command has quietly shifted and intensified the mission of clandestine special operations forces in Afghanistan, senior officials said, targeting key figures within the Taliban, rather than almost exclusively hunting Al Qaeda leaders. As a result of orders from Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and allied commander in Afghanistan, the special operations teams are focusing more on killing militants, capturing them or, whenever possible, persuading them to turn against the Taliban-led insurgency.

Reporting from Ladrymbai, India The young miners descend on rickety ladders made of branches into the makeshift coal mines dotting the Jaintia Hills in northeast India, scrambling sideways into "rat hole" shafts so small that even kneeling becomes impossible. Lying horizontally, they hack away with picks and their bare hands: Human labor here is far cheaper than machines. Many wear flip-flops and shorts, their faces and lungs blackened by coal. None have helmets. Two hours of grinding work fills a cart half the size of a coffin that they drag back, crouching, to the mouth where a clerk credits their work.

Deo Man Limbu sat in a veterans hall lined with pictures of old soldiers and reflected on his years of service, his battles and his dreams. The retired major with Britain's legendary Gurkhas faced the Argentines in the 1982 Falklands War, when being a member of one of the world's most feared fighting forces had its advantages. Well before hostilities started, British military planners had encouraged photographs of Gurkhas sharpening their fearsome curved knives — no one seemed to ask why you'd bring a knife to a gunfight — and media stories about their fighting prowess.

Dragons, graffiti, cartoon heroes. Gajin Fujita is known for mixing Japanese art with L.A. street and pop culture in paintings fueled by his eclectic imagination and experiences as a Japanese American from Boyle Heights. The Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena is spotlighting a major influence on these East-meets-Eastside creations: Fujita's passion for ukiyo-e , the woodblock prints that flourished in 17th- to 19th-century Japan. "Gajin Fujita: Ukiyo-e in Contemporary Painting," which opened in April, is what curator Bridget Bray calls "a focused solo exhibition of five pieces in which you see parallels to the print tradition such as dynamic compositions, martial figures, attention to surface detail and dramatization of the natural and supernatural worlds.

Ford Motor Co. will offer about 90,000 U.S. salaried retirees and former employees vested in its pension plan a lump-sum payment to buy them out of monthly benefits. Ford, which also reported lower first-quarter earnings Friday because of losses in Europe and Asia, said the plan was an innovative strategy to reduce its pension obligations. The automaker won't put up any operating cash but rather will make the one-time payments from existing pension plan assets. "We believe this is the first time a program of this type and magnitude has been done in an ongoing pension plan," said Bob Shanks, Ford's chief financial officer.

Early this year, the Pentagon's strategic review signaled a shift in priorities for U.S. foreign policy, suggesting that more attention would be paid to the Asia-Pacific region. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke of this as a "pivot" toward Asia, signaling what for many analysts and ordinary Americans has been a long-overdue transition away from Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East in general. But there's a problem with that. The act of pivoting involves turning your back, and the United States should not turn its back on the Middle East.

BEIJING — China's roaring economy cooled the first three months of this year to its slowest pace of growth in three years because of slackening export demand and a weakened property market. The country's gross domestic product expanded 8.1% in the first quarter compared with a year earlier, China's National Bureau of Statistics said Friday. That's down from 8.9% growth in the fourth quarter last year and below many analysts' expectations. The figure could spook investors and prolong fears of a potential hard landing for the world's second-largest economy after years of unsustainably high growth.

Twenty years ago, Asia Transpacific Journeys started a tour to Vietnam , Laos and Cambodia under the unifying theme Passage to Indochina. The trip has become the company's most popular small-group tour. "We pioneered this combination of activities when these countries were just opening their borders," Marilyn Downing Staff, founder and president of Asia Transpacific, says in a statement. The Passage to Indochina trip takes 17 days to explore the region.

Bina Badi tends her garden behind a picket fence. Goats leap. Boys fly kites. Water buffalo laze in the river. Idyllic, except for the used condoms that litter the road and the fact that men have visited her house virtually every day for 28 of her 38 years to enjoy her body, and she sees no escape. South Asia's caste system is infamous. The ancient tradition that once rigidly defined people's occupations continues to shape their social status and sense of self-worth. But few living under its influence are as degraded as the Badis of southwestern Nepal.

My name is Haley. I was adopted in 1995. I now live in America. I enjoy singing and playing the violin and hanging out with my friends. I have a good life, but I would like to find my biological family. Just minutes after Jeannie Butler and her adopted daughter, Haley, tacked a Chinese-language poster with this message to a wall in the Yangtze River village where she had been abandoned, a woman emerged from a restaurant next door and did a double-take. The woman stared hard at Haley, 14, then at the baby photo on the poster.

It has a smoky, bitter taste, a deeply unpleasant odor and bears a close resemblance to black gobs of tar. Pricey tar, mind you: 10 grams (a month's supply) will set you back $80. The substance, called shilajit, is an ancient ayurvedic medicine. On websites, you'll read that it has anti-anxiety, "rejuvenating" and aphrodisiac properties and is a panacea for many ills, from diabetes to bronchitis - and, further, that it was praised by Aristotle, prized by Genghis Khan and was the closely guarded secret weapon of Soviet cosmonauts and Olympic athletes.

Unlike Cannes or Sundance, whose film festivals and their constellation of stars overtake their host cities, nothing overtakes the bristling bustle of Hong Kong, not even the 36th annual Hong Kong International Film Festival, which opens here Wednesday. At the festival headquarters Tuesday in the Hong Kong Cultural Center in Kowloon, film fans grabbed festival programs and queued up for tickets – even as about 500 school kids shuttled into the complex for an orchestral program.