Bich Ngoc, who earns less than $60 a week, cobbled together four months of savings to buy the latest iPhone so she could impress her colleagues.

For years, wealthy Chinese have been transferring billions overseas to buy pricey real estate, despite their country's currency restrictions. How are they doing it?

Travel back in time from the war cemeteries of Gallipoli to the ancient wonders of Istanbul.

Companies in Japan are among the world's most vulnerable to cyber attacks, and threats against state entities have more than doubled since 2010 to one every 30 seconds.

The pachinko industry in Japan wants casinos, driven by attendance that has sunk more than 60 per cent since the mid-90s and an uncertain legal status.

Buyers from Greater China spent $22 billion on US homes in the past year, up 72 per cent from the same period in 2013.

Boeing predicts demand in Asia will push commercial aircraft sales to $5.2 trillion over the next 20 years.

Travelling from Chau Doc to Ho Chi Minh City, Nick Redmayne encounters an optimistic country.

Japan's cultural barriers may seem immense but Sarah MacDonald finds getting to know the locals in the busy city can be easy.

Graham Reid considers the lifelines of India.

Taiwanese festivals are a dazzling frenzy of colour and noise, finds Justine Tyerman.

In the mid-1990s, Gus, a polar bear in the Central Park Zoo, alarmed visitors by compulsively swimming figure eights in his pool, sometimes for 12 hours a day.

India will offload about a quarter of its rice stockpiles and ease restrictions on selling fruit and veggies as a weak monsoon threatens crop output.

Graham Reid visits a photogenic spot that isn't quite as famous as it looks.

Hayden Donnell discovers the dangers - and exhilaration - of Sapporo Beer Garden.

Countries searching for the missing Malaysian plane have yet to agree on how to share costs, an Australian search leader said.

Two teenage cousins found hanging from a mango tree may in fact have been murdered in an honour killing by members of their own family.

A British woman sailing near Indonesia at the time MH370 vanished says she saw a plane 'burning' and billowing smoke before it crashed.

Vietnam's Phu Quoc is what Phuket was 40 years ago. But it won't last, says Jacqueline Le.

Len Brown is taking his first overseas trip since the furore of his affair, which raised questions about a trip he made to Hong Kong.

Can a Kiwi cyclist out-sprint a hungry brown bear? In Japan Victoria Clark fixates on this point while pedalling through Hokkaido's forests. She need not have worried.

Pam Neville finds an unexpected joie de vivre among Beijing's bustling population.

Roll up! Roll up! For the chance to ride some of the best double-decker trams in Hong Kong, writes Russell Maclennan-Jones.

See Bangkok life from different perspectives, says Megan Singleton.

Kiwis are being urged not to travel to some areas of Thailand and to be extremely careful in others after martial law was declared across the country.

Good intentions are being abused in voluntourism, says Neesha Bremner.

A principal problem for sports extravangas is host nations trying to outdo their predecessors in grandeur, writes Bob Jones.