INDIA
Singh’s body put to rest
The body of Manmohan Singh, the former prime minister whose death has sparked outpourings of grief at home and accolades from abroad, was cremated yesterday on the banks of the Yamuna River in New Delhi with full state honors. The funeral was conducted in the Sikh tradition as priests chanted hymns, after Singh’s body, draped in the Indian flag, was carried through the capital on a flower-decked carriage pulled by a ceremonial army truck. The flag was removed and the body covered with a saffron cloth before it was placed on the pyre. He died on Thursday aged 92.
UKRAINE
Captured N Koreans die
“Several” wounded North Korean soldiers died after being captured by Ukrainian forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday as he accused Russia of throwing them into battle with “minimal protection.” Ukraine and its western allies said that North Korea has sent thousands of soldiers to support Russia’s army, in what is seen as a major escalation in the nearly three-year war following Moscow’s 2022 invasion. Zelenskiy did not specify how many North Koreans had died after being captured by Ukrainian troops, but earlier said that nearly 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been “killed or wounded” so far after they joined Russia’s forces in combat in its western Kursk border region.
CHINA
Man sentenced for killing 35
A court on Friday sentenced a man to death for killing 35 people last month by driving into a crowd, in an attack that raised national concern about mass killings. Fan Weiqiu (樊維秋), 62, was venting his anger because he was unhappy with his divorce settlement, the court in the southern city of Zhuhai said as it handed down the sentence. The victims were exercising at a sports center. The court statement said Fan’s “criminal motive was extremely despicable, the nature of the crime was extremely vile, the means of crime were particularly cruel and the consequences of the crime were particularly severe, resulting in great social harm.”
UNITED STATES
Homelessness rises
The number of people experiencing homelessness reached a new record this year, with lingering inflation and high housing prices among likely drivers, a government report said on Friday. An estimated 771,480 people were homeless on a single night in January, rising 18 percent from last year, the Department of Housing and Urban Development said in an annual assessment. That translates to about 23 in every 10,000 people in the country, home to the world’s biggest economy. The uptick came as households felt the pressure from housing costs, with the median rent for January being 20 percent higher than in January 2021, the National Low Income Housing Coalition said.
UNITED STATES
Solar probe safe
NASA on Friday said that its Parker Solar Probe was “safe” and operating normally after successfully completing the closest-ever approach to the sun by any human-made object. The spacecraft passed 6.1 million kilometers from the solar surface on Tuesday, flying into the sun’s outer atmosphere. The agency said the operations team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland received the signal from the probe just before midnight on Thursday. Moving at up to 692,000kph, the spacecraft endured temperatures of up to 982°C, NASA’s Web site 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
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
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,
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