Actress Oh In-Hae and director Ahn Sang-Su arrives for the opening ceremony of the 16th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) during the press conference at the Busan Cinema Center on October 6, 2011 in Busan, South Korea. The biggest film festival in Asia showcases 307 films from 70 countries and runs from October 6-14. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

Vivid Sydney is a unique annual event of light, music and ideas, featuring an outdoor 'gallery' of extraordinary lighting sculptures, a cutting-edge contemporary music program, some of the world's most important creative industry forums and, of course, the spectacular illumination of the Sydney Opera House sails. It positions Sydney as the creative hub of Australia and the Asia-Pacific region, and delivers both innovative live entertainment and creative inspiration on a grand scale.

Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south, and Thailand to the west. Its population was estimated to be around 6.5 million in 2012. A third (33%) of the country's population lives below the international poverty line which means living on less than U.S. $1.25 per day.

The Kingdom of Pagan (also commonly known as the Pagan Dynasty and the Pagan Empire) was the first kingdom to unify the regions that would later constitute modern-day Burma (Myanmar). Pagan's 250-year rule over the Irrawaddy valley and its periphery laid the foundation for the ascent of Burmese language and culture, the spread of Burman ethnicity in Upper Burma, and the growth of Theravada Buddhism in Burma and in mainland Southeast Asia.

These poignant portraits look to shine awareness on the plight of some of the world’s most endangered ecosystems and species of wildlife. The images combine animals, art and celebrity, with Asia's top models posing with the likes of rhinos, giraffes, leopards and marine life. Here: Mikki Yao with an Asian Elephant. (Photo by Sean Lee-Davies/Caters News)

Yak near Yamdrok lake, Tibet. It is a long-haired bovinae found throughout the Himalayan region of south Central Asia, the Tibetan Plateau and as far north as Mongolia and Russia. The Tibetan economy is dominated by subsistence agriculture. Due to limited arable land, the primary occupation of the Tibetan Plateau is raising livestock, such as sheep, cattle, goats, camels, yaks, dzo, and horses. The Tibetan yak is an integral part of Tibetan life. (Photo by Dennis Jarvis)

An Airbus A380 aircraft prepares to land at Mumbai airport in this May 8, 2007 file photo. Sentiment at some of Asia's biggest firms deteriorated again in the fourth quarter, falling to a four-year low under the weight of concerns about slowing growth in China, the region's biggest economy, a Thomson Reuters/INSEAD survey showed. (Photo by Arko Datta/Reuters)

Indian authorities hold a tiger skin as they set fire to a stockpile of illegal wildlife parts at the Delhi Zoo in New Delhi, India, Sunday, November 2, 2014. A stockpile of tiger skins, elephant tusks, rhino horns and other illegal animal parts were burned Sunday in an effort to discourage wildlife smuggling in South Asia. (Photo by Tsering Topgyal/AP Photo)