Religious freedom continued to decline in China this year, according to the State Department’s 2012 Religious Freedom Report. The government “respect for religious freedom declined during the year, particularly in Tibetan areas and the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Republic,” said …

Burma’s transition process has been “a top-down affair,” The Economist notes.

“This, more than anything, distinguishes it from other recent upheavals such as the ‘people power’ revolutions of the Arab spring, the fall of communism in Europe and the …

“If Thailand has a half-deified king, Burma has an ‘uncrowned queen’” in Aung San Suu Kyi, says a leading analyst.

“I am irresistibly reminded of the halcyon days after Václav Havel became president of Czechoslovakia in 1990,” writes Timothy Garton …

Afghanistan’s parliament has rejected a law banning violence against women in “a severe blow to progress made in women’s rights in the conservative Muslim country since the Islamist Taliban was toppled over a decade ago,” Reuters reports:

President Hamid …

“Amid an intensifying crackdown on nongovernmental groups that receive foreign funding, Indian activists are accusing the government of stifling their right to dissent in the world’s largest democracy,” The Washington Post’s Rama Lakshmi, reports from New Delhi:

India …

….asks Kerry Brown, executive director of the China Studies Center at the University of Sydney.

China’s Communist authorities recently picked fights with Britain and Norway over values and human rights, namely British Prime Minister David Cameron’s meeting with the Dalai …

Last month’s deadly earthquake in China’s Sichuan Province may have generated political as well as geological seismic shocks that could ultimately present a “fundamental threat” to the ruling Communist party, analysts suggest.

“The rapid grass-roots response to the …

“Pakistan is about to cross an important threshold: this weekend’s elections, if all goes to plan, will mark the country’s first transition between elected governments. But this is not a moment for triumphalism,” writes a prominent analyst.

Opinion surveys …

“Fears over the safety of women voting in next week’s elections in Pakistan are rising after letters have been circulated in regions of the country warning men not to allow their wives, sisters and daughters out to the polling stations,” …

“Imran Khan’s supporters believe the serious injuries he sustained from a fall during a rally on Tuesday night could help his bid to become a major political force, despite the fact he will be hospitalized for the crucial last …