INDIA
China frontier ‘fragile’
The situation on the border with China in the western Himalayan region of Ladakh is fragile and dangerous, with military forces deployed very close to each other in some parts, Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said yesterday. At least 24 soldiers were killed when the two countries border forces clashed in the region in the middle of 2020, but the situation has been calmed through rounds of diplomatic and military talks. Violence erupted in the eastern sector of the undemarcated border between the two nations in December last year, but did not result in any deaths. “The situation to my mind still remains very fragile, because there are places where our deployments are very close up and in military assessment therefore quite dangerous,” Jaishankar said.
UNITED STATES
Trump gifts scrutinized
The administration of former president Donald Trump has failed to report more than 100 gifts from foreign nations worth more than US$250,000, and federal officials have been unable to find a life-size painting of Trump given by the president of El Salvador and golf clubs from the prime minister of Japan, a House of Representatives report showed on Friday. Among the unreported items are 16 gifts from Saudi Arabia worth more than US$45,000 in all, including a dagger valued at up to US$24,000, the report said. Gifts above several hundred dollars that foreign officials give to the president, vice president and their families are required under the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act to be reported to the Department of State.
UNITED STATES
Hit-and-run prompts charges
A woman accused of fleeing to Thailand after killing a Michigan State University student in a hit-and-run has been returned to Michigan and is being held on US$1 million bail, authorities said on Friday. Investigators accuse Tubtim “Sue” Howson of striking 22-year-old Benjamin Kable as he was walking on a road before dawn on Jan 1. Howson, 57, left Michigan for Bangkok on Jan. 3. Authorities in Thailand took her into custody. She was returned to the US last month and held in San Francisco. The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on Friday that Howson was on Wednesday returned to Michigan, where she was arraigned on a charge of failing to stop at the scene of an accident.
FRANCE
No-confidence motions filed
President Emmanuel Macron’s government on Friday faced no-confidence motions in parliament and intensified protests after imposing a contentious pension reform without a vote in the lower house. The situation presents Macron, who has only made occasional public comments on the matter, with one of his biggest challenges less than one year into his second and final term. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne on Thursday invoked article 49.3 of the constitution to impose the pension overhaul by decree, sparking angry demonstrations nationwide that raged unabated on Friday. Opposition lawmakers filed no-confidence motions, hoping to repeal the deeply unpopular law, which is to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. “The vote on this motion will allow us to get out on top of a deep political crisis,” opposition lawmaker Bertrand Pancher said.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
‘PLAINLY ERRONEOUS’: The justice department appealed a Trump-appointed judge’s blocking of the release of a report into election interference by the incoming president US Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal cases against US president-elect Donald Trump on charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and mishandling of classified documents, has resigned after submitting his investigative report on Trump, an expected move that came amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public in the days ahead. The US Department of Justice disclosed Smith’s departure in a footnote of a court filing on Saturday, saying he had resigned one day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Trump is inaugurated, follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal prosecutions
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