Asia Reaches Olympian Heights (Cover Story)
From swimming to shooting, field hockey to fighting, Asia's superstar athletes are defying gravity in Athens

Bouncing Back (Cover Story)
Shedding their fears of failure and shame, Japan's athletes are rediscovering the joy of victory

Turning the World Upside Down (Cover Story)
If you think China's athletes have been brilliant in Athens, wait until Beijing 2008


The Return of Abu Sayyaf
A Philippine group that was once known for brutal kidnapping has graduated to genuine terror

Mindanao's Biggest Boss
Al-Haj Murad Ebrahim of the M.I.L.F.

Turning Up the Heat
A growing U.S. focus on North Korea's human-rights record will complicate the six-nation talks

An Agenda for Pakistan (Viewpoint)
The country needs to move from managing crises to nurturing democracy

King's Gambit
How chess maestro Bobby Fischer turned fugitive and ended up in a Japanese detention cell

The Unlikely Alliance (Essay)
On the centenary of Deng's birth, memories of his bond with a U.S. President


Time Traveler (TIME Global Adviser)
Aloft in the Himalayas

Check In: Andalusian Hideaway (TIME Global Adviser)
Set in the hills above Seville, Trasierra is an all-season retreat with home comforts

Tech Watch (TIME Global Adviser)
The Myth of Megapixels

Your Health: Liposuction's Limits (TIME Global Adviser)
Surgery makes you slimmer, but it may not make you any healthier. Here's why

Amuse-Bouche (TIME Global Adviser)
London's Nyonya is the latest example of fusion Power

Capital Punishment
Maoist rebels blockade Kathmandu in the latest tactic of their long-running insurrection

Muzzling the Rumor Mill
Thai regulators target market analysts, who they blame for the stock market's tumble

Milestones
LIFE Photographer Carl Mydans

Verbatim
Quotes of the week

Letters
In Search of Paradise


Hong Kong's Golden Boy
Before he died, Martin Booth wrote a moving memoir of his colorful childhood in the 1950s British colony