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SEEN from the state’s point of view, multiple citizenship is at best untidy and at worst a menace. Officials would prefer you to be born, live, work, pay taxes, draw benefits and die in the same place, travel on one passport only, and bequeath only one nationality to your offspring. In wartime the state has a unique call on your loyalty—and perhaps your life. Cit..

The Fukushima black box A dangerous lack of urgency in drawing lessons from Japan’s nuclear disaster Jan 7th 2012 | from the print edition THERE is a breathtaking serenity to the valley that winds from the town of Namie, on the coast of Fukushima prefecture, into the hills above. A narrow road runs by a river that passes through steep ravines, studded with maples. ..

Religious freedom Christians and lions The world’s most widely followed faith is gathering persecutors. Even non-Christians should worry about that Dec 31st 2011 | from the print edition CHRISTIANITY is growing almost as fast as humanity itself, but its 2.2 billion adherents cannot count on safety in numbers. That is partly because the locus of the world’s larges..

Kim Jong Il Kim Jong Il, dictator of North Korea, died on December 17th, aged 69 or 70 Dec 31st 2011 | from the print edition IT WAS all bogus, he said once. The gaggle of pretty young women jumping up and down at a state reception, screaming out praises of Kim Jong Il, didn’t really mean it. It was a lie, too, he said, to show North Korean children on television w..

SEOUL — A popular online critic of President Lee Myung-bak who rose to national fame with a podcast lampooning the South Korean leader was thrown into prison Monday after he was convicted of spreading false rumors connecting Mr. Lee to allegations of stock fraud. The Web celebrity, Chung Bong-ju, 51, was one of the four co-hosts of “Naneun Ggomsuda,” or “I Am..

North Korea's succession Goodbye, hello Dec 20th 2011, 22:00 by H.T., K.N.C., D.T. | TOKYO and SEOUL IT IS hard to overestimate how much is at stake for the world after the sudden death of Kim Jong Il, the North Korean despot, on December 17th. Officially, at least, it has thrust into the inexperienced hands of his pudgy young son, Kim Jong Un, control of a nuclear-a..

North Korea Dear Leader, departed Dec 20th 2011, 0:20 by D.T. and G.E. | SEOUL and BEIJING THE tyrant has perished, leaving a failing, nuclear-armed nation in the uncertain young hands of his “Great Successor”. His father, since 1994 the "Dear Leader" of one of the world’s most secretive and repressive states (iconic, to the right in the photo above), died on a..

THE conviction of Jacques Chirac has stunned even the political opponents of the former president of France. This morning a Paris court found Mr Chirac guilty of the misuse of public funds during his time as mayor of Paris in the 1990s, and handed him a two-year suspended prison sentence. He is the first former president under the Fifth Republic to have been tried, l..

Politicians and books Well-read or red-faced? Dec 6th 2011, 10:41 by T.W. | MEXICO CITY CAN you name three books that have left a mark on your life? It’s the sort of soft question you might ask an interviewee to put them at ease, before you get on to the difficult stuff. But for one unfortunate politician in Mexico, it proved a killer. Enrique Peña Nieto, the lea..

South Korean mega-churches For God and country An influential pastor comes under scrutiny for his business dealings Oct 15th 2011 | SEOUL | from the print edition KOREA has long been a hotbed of religiosity. Before a certain Kim Il Sung began having other ideas, Pyongyang (now the capital of North Korea) used to be known as “The Jerusalem of the East”. And in tod..