Tokyo's Harajuku district is where to find Japan's fashion-forward youth. Every weekend, sidewalks disappear under a frenzy of shoppers looking for new trends. The latest: fast-fashion retailing. During the Golden Week holiday in early May, typically a shopping extravaganza, Los Angeles – based chain Forever 21 debuted its flagship store in Japan. Harajuku girls lined up on five floors full of clothes, shoes and accessories in enough of a dizzying array to make any young woman swoon. It wasn't ...

In this groundbreaking 2008 book Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, Danish brand consultant Martin Lindstrom showed how neurology, as much as economics, drives consumer behavior. One of TIME's 100 Most Influential People in the World, Lindstrom talks to TIME's Sean Gregory, during a business trip in Thailand, about what's buzzing around our brains in this recession. There have been some signs, though fleeting, of a possible economic rebound. What's the consumer thinking right nowWhat ...

The economic downturn has claimed another prestigious event on the European Tour with this year's British Masters dropped from the schedule. The event had been planned for September 17-20 at The Belfry, but joins the English Open in coming off the "Race to Dubai" - the new name for the European Tour. Sponsorship from Quinn Insurance came to an end after three years and tournament organizers ISM have been unable to find a replacement. ISM chief Andrew Chandler told ...

Thai authorities investigating the recent deaths of two female tourists suspect that the women may have died from food poisoning, police sources told CNN Monday. Jill St. Onge, a 27-year-old artist from Seattle, Washington, and Julie Michelle Bergheim, a 22-year-old Norwegian woman, died at the same resort on Thailand's Phi Phi Island just over a week ago. The results of the autopsies have not been released by police, who are citing privacy issues. St. Onge's fiance, Ryan Kells, accompanied her ...

What started as a romantic Southeast Asia vacation for a Seattle couple ended with Ryan Kells preparing Friday to return from Bangkok carrying the ashes of his fianceé to give to her family in California. "It's such a shock," Robert St. Onge told CNN about the death of his sister, Jill, who had been traveling with the man she planned to marry. "There was no way to hear last words or even see her because she has already been cremated." ...

On a typical weekend afternoon, Beijing's Silk Street Market buzzes with the sound of tens of thousands of tourists haggling over antiques, jewelry and knock-off Gucci handbags. Rickshaw drivers normally scoop up these marketgoers, pedal them to their hotels and return with pockets full of foreign currency — a lucrative cycle drivers can repeat dozens of times a day. In recent months, though, the Silk Street Market's once reliable bustle has thinned dramatically. "I haven't seen a single tour bus ...

Thailand's prime minister told CNN Friday he will not lift a state of emergency until he is convinced anti-government protests that flared into deadly clashes this week would not return to the capital. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who imposed the state of emergency on Bangkok and nearby areas last weekend, made his comment shortly after a key political ally was shot in the head. Sondhi Limthongkul, a political leader who helped topple former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra -- who supports ...

Thailand's government said Wednesday it has revoked the passport of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who it accuses of helping stoke anti-government hostility that flared into deadly street protests this week. The state-run Thai News Agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Tharit Charungwat saying Thaksin's passport was annulled from April 12, when his supporters stormed a venue forcing the cancellation of a major Asian summit. Thaksin has lived abroad after being deposed in 2006. In October last year he was sentenced ...

Police in Turkey's capital detained the operator of an opposition television station, who is also the rector of a university, the official Anatolian news agency reported Monday. This weekend's protests, which included forcing the postponement of a summit of Asian leaders in the southern coastal city of Pattaya and demonstrations on the streets of Bangkok, were orchestrated by red-shirted supporters of the controversial and corruption-tainted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin -- a multibillionaire media tycoon elected in 2001 on ...

The declaration of a state of emergency in Thailand following violent clashes between anti-government and security forces marks the latest escalation in a long-running political crisis which has plunged the southeast Asian country into frequent bouts of disorder and instability. This weekend's protests, which included forcing the postponement of a summit of Asian leaders in the southern coastal city of Pattaya and demonstrations on the streets of Bangkok, were orchestrated by red-shirted supporters of the controversial and corruption-tainted former prime ...