CHINA
One million take civil exam
More than 1 million people took the national civil service exam over the weekend, officials said, but faced huge odds against clinching one of the few government jobs available. A total of 1.12 million took the National Public Servant Exam, according to figures from the State Administration of Civil Service figures. However, only 19,000 positions were available, the Global Times said, meaning that fewer than 1 in 50 candidates will be successful. The most competitive role was with the National Ethnic Affairs Commission, where 14,384 candidates were vying for just two jobs, it added. The civil service exam is a legacy of the ancient imperial examination system known as the keju, introduced in the 7th century AD and often regarded as a key meritocratic element of the system. Government jobs are especially appealing because they are seen as stable employment and bring with them a range of benefits. Exams can be taken at different levels of government, but the annual National Public Servant Exam offers the best jobs with the state.
CHINA
Sailors missing, one dead
Authorities say 25 sailors are missing and another is dead after two cargo ships sank off the east coast in separate incidents. The Shandong Maritime Safety Administration says a ship with 14 crew members that was registered in the eastern port city of Tianjin sank early yesterday because of large waves and stormy conditions. It had set sail from Zhejiang Province and sank en route to Liaoning Province. On Sunday evening, a ship registered in Zhejiang Province carrying 12 crew members suffered engine failure on the stormy seas and sank off the coast of Shandong. Administration press officer Ma Weishan said yesterday that the body of one crew member of the incident on Sunday had been found.
HONG KONG
Wu’er Kaixi deported
The second-most wanted student leader from the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests was deported from the territory yesterday after trying to surrender to Chinese authorities. Wu’er Kaixi tried to turn himself to authorities as his flight from Taiwan to Thailand transited through the territory yesterday. He was accompanied by Hong Kong pro-democracy legislator Albert Ho (何俊仁). It is Wu’er’s latest attempt to surrender. He said in a blog post he wants to go back to China to see his ailing parents. In 2009, he was denied entry to Macau. Last year he tried to turn himself into the Chinese embassy in Washington. In 2010 he was arrested when he tried to enter the Chinese embassy in Tokyo.
PAKISTAN
Drone protests interrupted
Police have intervened to prevent activists who were protesting US drone strikes from halting NATO troop supply trucks traveling to and from Afghanistan. Police officer Behram Khan yesterday said the police would permit peaceful protests on the roadside, but that the activists would not be allowed to stop trucks as they did the day before. Khan is the local police chief in an area where members of Tehreek-e-Insaf, a party led by cricket star Imran Khan, were stopping trucks and roughing up drivers on Sunday on the outskirts of Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The party said it will halt NATO supply trucks until drone strikes end. Police were present at the scene on Sunday, but did not stop the protesters, some of whom were carrying wooden batons.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
‘DISCRIMINATION’: The US Office of Personnel Management ordered that public DEI-focused Web pages be taken down, while training and contracts were canceled US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and called to restore “merit-based” hiring. The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by former US president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It is using one of the
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
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