Simon Denyer

TOKYO — Two Belarusian Olympic officials accused of attempting to force sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya to return home early from the Tokyo Games have been stripped of their accreditation and will be leaving Japan, organizers said on Friday. The…

MOSCOW — Belarusian Olympic runner Krystsina Tsimanouskaya arrived Wednesday in Poland to seek asylum after refusing to return to her homeland amid fears of reprisals from the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko as it wages sweeping crackdowns…

TOKYO — North Korea appears to be taking steps toward a new test of a powerful submarine-launched missile, U.S. weapons experts said, as it steadily dials up the pressure on President-elect Joe Biden. Last week, a beaming Kim Jong Un presided over…

MOSCOW — As the Opening Ceremony at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea was starting, an unusually high number of empty seats remained. Many who planned to attend in PyeongChang were unable to print their tickets. A malware infection had caused…

YOKOHAMA, Japan — Crew members aboard the virus-hit Diamond Princess cruise ship say they are terrified of catching the deadly coronavirus yet aren't being afforded the same protections as the passengers they serve. Ten shipboard workers have been…

It’s not clear how the United States could make a credible promise to guarantee the security of Kim Jong Un’s regime. SEOUL — North Korea will give up its nuclear weapons, but only if it receives serious security guarantees, Russian President…

TOKYO — Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un may finally be ready to meet for the first time, as Russia seeks to extend its influence and North Korea tries to hedge its bets after the failed summit with President Trump. The potential of closer ties between…

Tens of thousands of foreign women are flocking to China for marriage, pushed by poverty at home and sucked in by China’s shortage of women. Chinese men surf websites that offer foreign brides, and may wind up paying upwards of $8,000 for marriage…

BEIJING — China kicked off trials for a group of lawyers and human rights activists Tuesday, accusing them of being part of a broad Western campaign to overthrow the one-party state by fomenting a “color revolution.” Accusations of foreign-backed…

BEHIND THE FIREWALL: How China tamed the Internet | This is part of a series examining the impact of China’s Great Firewall, a mechanism of Internet censorship and surveillance that affects nearly 700 million users. BEIJING — First there was the…

TANMEN, China — In the disputed waters of the South China Sea, fishermen are the wild card. China is using its vast fishing fleet as the advance guard to press its expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea, experts say. That is not only…

CHINA’S BACK YARD | This is part of an occasional series examining China’s efforts to win friends and clients in Asia and to assert a more dominant role across the continent. Slowly but surely, a four-lane highway is beginning to take shape on the…

New images taken just this week show China building what look like military bases on reclaimed land in the South China Sea, a development likely to add to concerns in the United States and among its Asian neighbors. China said on Tuesday that land…

BEIJING — News that China is building a second aircraft carrier was leaked by an overenthusiastic local government, but reports were subsequently deleted from Web sites and social media here, a development that will do little to calm nerves in…

BEIJING – He presides over a one-party state that jails more journalists than any other on the planet, silences its critics ruthlessly and censors the Internet extensively. But China’s President Xi Jinping is not only wildly popular in his own…

BEIJING — Chinese leaders unnerved by protests elsewhere this year have been steadily tightening controls over civic organizations on the mainland suspected of carrying out the work of foreign powers. The campaign aims to insulate China from…

In Mariupol on Wednesday, small battles played out over the city council building and one police station. While the skirmishes appeared to allow Ukrainian forces to assert their control of the main port in the eastern Donetsk region, they weren't big…

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping talked grandly of a new phase of cooperation that beckoned between their two nations when they met on the sidelines of an Asian security summit in Shanghai on Tuesday. The two…

DONETSK, Ukraine — Residents of two regions of eastern Ukraine turned out in significant numbers Sunday to vote in support of self-rule in a referendum that threatens to deepen divisions in a country already heading perilously toward civil war. The…

DONETSK, Ukraine — Rebels in eastern Ukraine are seeking to harness anger at the government with a hastily organized and vaguely worded referendum Sunday that they hope will legitimize their uprising, even if it falls short of giving them a legal…