Dec 29 2023

Six In The Morning Friday 29 December 2023

At least 28 killed as ‘biggest Russian air attack’ hits Ukraine

UK to send 200 new air-defence missiles to Ukraine

The UK will provide about 200 air-defence missiles to Ukraine to help in its defence from Russian drone and missile attacks.

The missiles, which were made in Britain, are designed to be launched from aircraft including Typhoon and F-35 fighter jets, the defence ministry says.

They re-supply the UK-developed air defence systems that were given to Ukraine a year ago.

“Today’s air defence package sends an undeniable message, in the face of Russian barbarity that the UK remains absolutely committed to supporting Ukraine,” says Defence Secretary Grant Shapps.

Britain has so far committed £4.6bn ($5.8bn) to the Ukrainian war effort.

Summary

  1. At least 28 people have been killed and dozens wounded in a wave of Russian strikes across Ukraine, officials say
  2. Ukraine’s military says Russia launched a “massive” attack with 158 drones and missiles – the air force says it has “never seen so many locations targeted simultaneously”
  3. Russia “used nearly every type of weapon in its arsenal”, with homes and a maternity hospital hit, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says
  4. Cities across Ukraine were attacked, including the capital Kyiv, Lviv in the west, Odesa and Zaporizhzhia in the south, and Dnipro and Kharkiv in the east
  5. Earlier this week, Ukraine struck a Russian warship in the occupied Crimean port of Feodosia

Academic paper based on Uyghur genetic data retracted over ethical concerns

Exclusive: Study published in 2019 used blood and saliva samples from 203 Uyghur and Kazakh people living in Xinjiang capital

Concerns have been raised that academic publishers may not be doing enough to vet the ethical standards of research they publish, after a paper based on genetic data from China’s Uyghur population was retracted and questions were raised about several others including one that is currently published by Oxford University Press.

In June, Elsevier, a Dutch academic publisher, retracted an article entitled “Analysis of Uyghur and Kazakh populations using the Precision ID Ancestry Panel” that had been published in 2019.

The study by Chinese and Danish researchers used blood and saliva samples from 203 Uyghur and Kazakh people living in Ürümqi, the capital of Xinjiang, to evaluate the use of genetic sequencing technology developed by Thermo Fisher Scientific, a US biotech company, on the two minority ethnic groups. Outlining the need for the research, the authors suggested that better DNA sequencing could help the police identify suspects in cases. “A clear knowledge of the genetic variation is important for understanding the origin and demographic history of the ethnicity of the populations in Xinjiang … [which] may offer an investigative lead for the police.”

Mexico, US agree to cooperate on border amid migrant surge

Washington closed a number of border crossings after authorities registered a record number of irregular arrivals. Mexico’s president says the two countries have now agreed to keep crossings open.

Mexico and the United States have agreed to strengthen efforts to regulate migration, officials said on Thursday.

The two countries’ governments issued a joint statement after Mexican President Andres Lopez Obrador, received top US officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Security of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.

Blinken’s visit came as the Republican Party, which holds a majority of seats in the lower house of Congress, demanded US President Joe Biden crack down on irregular migrants in return for approval for a Ukraine aid package.

War of narratives: Syrian imagery falsely illustrates Gaza

 A video of bloodied Syrian school children shrieking after an explosion was misrepresented online as an atrocity in Gaza, throwing a spotlight on a disinformation trend researchers say dehumanises victims of both wars.

A flood of real images from Israel and Gaza has been revealing the horrors of the conflict that broke out on October 7 when Hamas militants launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel, but they can vie for attention with misappropriated scenes from Syria’s civil war.

AFP fact-checkers have debunked many social media posts mislabelling videos and photos from Syria, some dating as far back as 2013, in a war of distorted narratives playing out in tandem with the actual fighting between Israel and Hamas militants.

A teacher’s footage of the terrified schoolchildren, like other clips misrepresented online, was meant to catalogue Syria’s long-running civil war under President Bashar al-Assad which erupted in 2011.

Lacking space in Tokyo, Japanese real estate giants turn to India

Japanese real estate companies are expanding their investments in India and could drastically change skylines there.

Sumitomo Realty and Development Co. will open a number of skyscrapers in the 2030s in Mumbai at a total cost of about 500 billion yen ($3.54 billion).

With little room for development in central Tokyo, the company plans to make India, with its continuing economic growth, a new base for operations.

In October, Sumitomo Realty and Development acquired an 80,000-square-meter plot of land in the Worli district of central Mumbai, equivalent to 1.7 Tokyo Domes, for about 80 billion yen.

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

December 29, 2023 at 16:35 JST

Death of ‘Parasite’ star puts spotlight on pressures facing South Korean celebrities

Analysis by Tara Subramaniam and Yoonjung Seo, CNN
 6 minute read
Updated 2:29 AM EST, Fri December 29, 2023

Actor Lee Sun-kyun’s sudden death this week is the latest in a string of shock celebrity losses in South Korea, a country with one of the world’s highest suicide rates and where public figures are often expected to be paragons.

Lee, who received acclaim for his role as Park Dong-ik, the father of the wealthy Park family in the Academy Award-winning “Parasite,” was found dead in his car on Wednesday morning in what police said was a suspected suicide. His funeral was expected to be held later on Friday.

At the time of his death the 48-year-old father of two was being investigated by police over allegations of illegal drug use and had recently been through multiple rounds of lengthy questioning.

Dec 29 2023

Late Night Music:VoB Voice of Baceprot Psychosocial Ubud Writers & Readers Festival 2017

Dec 28 2023

Six In The Morning Thursday 28 December 2023

IDF official admits ‘extensive collateral damage’ in Gaza camp strike

What do we know about the Maghazi strike?

David Gritten

BBC News

According to the UN Human Rights Office, the Israeli Air Force reportedly carried out more than 50 strikes across central Gaza on Sunday and Monday, including on Maghazi refugee camp.

Two strikes hit seven residential buildings in Maghazi, killing an estimated 86 Palestinians and injuring many more, the UN statement said. An unknown number of people were also believed to be trapped under the rubble.

Another UN organisation said the affected houses belonged to the Qandil, Abu Ahed, Abu Hamida, Abu Rahma, Si-Salem and al-Nawasra families.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) also said a hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah had admitted 209 injured and 131 dead following bombings on Sunday night in Maghazi and the nearby Bureij refugee camp.

Three defence industry leaders removed from China advisory body

Departures are part of purge of figures linked to military, thought to be related to a procurement investigation

Three senior aerospace and defence business leaders have been removed from a top political advisory body to the Chinese Communist party (CCP), in the latest purge of figures linked to China’s military.

State media reported that the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) had revoked the seats of Liu Shiqian, the chair of the weapons manufacturer China North Industries Group; Wu Yansheng, the chair of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation; and Wang Changqing, a deputy manager of the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (Casic).

The CPPCC is a government advisory body that consists of CCP delegates and representatives from industry groups.

 

India: Pegasus spyware used to target jorunalists — reports

Amnesty International has found evidence of journalists in India being targeted with Pegasus spyware. The discovery comes amid what the rights group claims is a “targeted crackdown on freedom of expression.”

High-profile journalists in India have been targeted with the invasive spyware Pegasus, according to a report published by Amnesty International on Thursday.

The civil rights watchdog carried out forensic investigations on the iPhones belonging to Siddharth Varadarajan, the founding editor of The Wire, and Anand Mangnale, the South Asia editor of The Organized Crime and Corruption Report Project (OCCRP).

“Our latest findings show that increasingly, journalists in India face the threat of unlawful surveillance simply for doing their jobs, alongside other tools of repression including imprisonment under draconian laws, smear campaigns, harassment, and intimidation,” Donncha O Cearbhaill, the head of Amnesty’s Security Lab, said.

Women’s rights and women wronged in 2023

The year saw progress on women’s rights in some countries, such as Spain’s introduction of menstrual leave, France’s bid to enshrine abortion rights in the constitution and the arrival of the #MeToo movement in Taiwan. But there were also setbacks in 2023, from Taliban edicts tightening restrictions on Afghan women to what the UN called a “global epidemic of femicide”.

 

The year 2022 was marked by major convulsions in women’s rights across the world, from the US Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade to the “Woman, life, freedom” chants in Iran, which were followed by a massive government crackdown.

This year saw more gradual developments, from the continuing assaults on and pushback against diminishing abortion rights in the US to the steady disappearance of women from public life in Afghanistan.

FRANCE 24 looks back at some of the major developments in 2023 that left their mark on women’s rights across the world.

Japanese government overrides Okinawa objection to Henoko work

The central government on Thursday gave the green light for a modified landfill plan that will see a key U.S. military base moved within Okinawa Prefecture, taking the unprecedented step of overriding the local government’s objection to the plan.


The Defense Ministry will commence work to reinforce soft ground at the relocation site for U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma as early as Jan. 12, a government source said.

 

The approval is “a milestone” for the total transfer of the Futenma air base as early as possible, Defense Minister Minoru Kihara told reporters.

Leader of Sudan’s RSF visits Ethiopia in rare foreign trip as war rages

The trip by the paramilitary group’s leader comes a week after his forces captured the North African nation’s second largest city.

The leader of Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, has visited neighbouring Ethiopia, where he has had discussions on the end of the war between the RSF and Sudan’s army.

Dagalo, known as “Hemedti”, landed in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, on Thursday in the second stop of his first known public foreign trip since the war erupted on April 15.

The trip comes weeks after RSF fighters captured the country’s second-largest city, Wad Madani, once a hub for hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the eight-month war.

Dec 28 2023

Deep Techno & Progressive House Mix – Stan Kolev

Dec 27 2023

Six In The Morning Wednesday 27 December 2023

 

Israel expanding ground offensive into central Gaza refugee camps

By David Gritten BBC News

Israel is expanding its ground offensive into Palestinian refugee camps in central Gaza, as it warns the war with Hamas will last for months.


The UN has expressed grave concern after Israeli strikes reportedly killed dozens of people in Bureij, Nuseirat and Maghazi camps in recent days.

Heavy fighting is also continuing to the south, in the city of Khan Younis.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian president has described what is happening in Gaza as “beyond a war of annihilation”.

The Hamas-run health ministry has said at least 195 people have been killed across the territory over the past 24 hours.

Illegal mining on rise again in Amazon, says Yanomami leader

Activist Davi Kopenawa says miners are returning after eviction operations were scaled back, and others never left

Thousands of illegal miners are resisting government attempts to evict them from Brazil’s largest Indigenous territory, the renowned activist and shaman Davi Kopenawa has said, nearly a year after operations to displace them began.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made expelling an estimated 20,000 illegal gold and tin ore miners from the Yanomami Indigenous territory one of his top tasks after taking power last January.

Lula visited the region to denounce what he called a premeditated “genocide” committed by the government of his far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, and ordered an offensive to force miners from the Portugal-sized Amazon enclave.

Congo police seek to disperse banned election protest

Riot police have been deployed in Kinshasa as opposition supporters gather to call for a rerun of chaotic elections. Partial results so far show incumbent President Felix Tshisekedi well ahead.

Police in the Democratic Republic of Congo capital of Kinshasa on Wednesday fired tear gas to disperse people protesting at the results of last week’s presidential and legislative elections.

Several challengers to President Felix Tshisekedi have denounced the presidential election as fraudulent.

The vote on December 20 was marked by chaos, with delays to the delivery of election materials, equipment that did not function properly and irregularities in voting lists, along with violence in some locations.

Eiffel Tower shut as workers go on strike

The Eiffel Tower was shut down to visitors Wednesday because of a strike over contract negotiations, the day the Paris monument marks 100 years since the death of its creator, Gustave Eiffel.

Tourists can still access the glass-enclosed esplanade beneath the tower, but access to the 300-meter (984-foot) landmark itself is closed until further notice, according to an Eiffel Tower spokesperson.

The strike was declared ahead of contract negotiations with the city of Paris, which owns the 134-year-old monument, the spokesperson said. Union representatives did not immediately respond for comment, and it was unclear how long the strike would last.

One of the world’s most-visited sites, the Eiffel Tower is typically open 365 days a year — though it sees occasional strikes — and is expected to play a central role in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Japan lifts operational ban on world’s biggest nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture

By Yuka Obayashi

Japan’s nuclear power regulator on Wednesday lifted an operational ban imposed on Tokyo Electric Power Co’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant two years ago, allowing it to work toward gaining local permission to restart.

TEPCO has been eager to bring the world’s largest nuclear power plant back online to slash operating costs, but a resumption still needs consent from the local governments of Niigata Prefecture, Kashiwazaki city and Kariwa village, where it is located.

When that might happen is unknown.

China warns ‘military fans’ they could face prison for posting photos online

By Brad Lendon and Wayne Chang, CNN

In the age of open-source intelligence, one main way for Western experts to keep tabs on China’s military is by analyzing photos of new People’s Liberation Army equipment posted online by amateur enthusiasts.

Posting photos of military ships or aircraft captured from outside PLA installations or from commercial flights near sensitive areas has become a common sight in recent years as China rapidly modernized its forces. And “military fans” have spread the word to the larger population on social media sites like Weibo, with hundreds of millions of active users.

But not anymore.

Dec 26 2023

Six In The Morning Tuesday 26 December 2023

 

Ukraine’s allies fall short of Russia’s on arms help, raising 2024 risks

Europe is supplying Ukraine only a fraction of the shells it needs, while North Korea has stepped up for Russia. That, say analysts, raises challenges for Kyiv next year.

By John Psaropoulos
Published On 26 Dec 2023

In March of this year, Ukraine asked its European allies for a quarter of a million shells a month. Its full battle plan, then-Defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov said, required at least 350,000. Ukraine was then rationing itself to just 110,000 a month and needed Europe to help make up the difference.

The European Union pledged a million shells within a year – a third of what Ukraine had requested. By the end of November, it had delivered 300,000 from the stockpiles of European armies. It has four months to make up the difference, but further deliveries have to come from new production, said Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief.

Ohio grand jury to decide whether to charge woman who miscarried for ‘abuse of a corpse’

Brittany Watts’s water broke prematurely and she miscarried at home; when she went to the hospital a nurse called the police

A grand jury is set to decide whether an Ohio woman who miscarried a nonviable fetus should face criminal consequences.

Brittany Watts, who was reportedly turned into the police after her September miscarriage, has been charged with the fifth-degree felony of “abuse of a corpse” in Trumbull county, Ohio. Her case has been held up as evidence of how easily pregnant people can find themselves in law enforcement’s crosshairs – especially since the overturning of Roe v Wade and amid tightening abortion restrictions in the US.

Brazil militia leader ‘Zinho’ surrenders to police

The state of Rio de Janeiro’s “public enemy Number 1” has turned himself in after years on the run. Luis Antonio da Silva Braga is believed to be the leader of Rio’s largest criminal militia.

One of Brazil’s top criminal leaders has surrendered after negotiations with local authorities, according to the country’s federal police.

Luis Antonio da Silva Braga, better known as “Zinho,” had been on the run since 2018 and is the subject of at least a dozen outstanding warrants, according to a police statement issued late Sunday.

‘Public enemy Number 1’

“Zinho” had been designated the state of Rio de Janeiro’s “public enemy Number 1.” He is now in custody awaiting trial, according to a police statement.

“After the formalities due to his arrest, the inmate was taken for medical forensics and then sent to the state’s prison system, where he will remain available for our courts,” the statement read.

DR Congo’s government bans protests against election ‘irregularities’

Democratic Republic of Congo’s government on Tuesday banned an opposition protest planned for Wednesday over last week’s chaotic national election as early results showed President Felix Tshisekedi in the lead.

Five opposition presidential candidates called the joint demonstration in the capital Kinshasa over alleged election irregularities.

But on Tuesday the government banned the event, saying it did not have a legal basis and aimed at undermining the electoral process while the CENI election commission was still compiling results.

“No government in the world can accept this, so we will not let it happen,” Vice Prime Minister Peter Kazadi told a press conference.

Daihatsu shuts plants over scandal; host towns at a loss

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

December 26, 2023 at 15:20 JST

Embattled Daihatsu Motor Co. halted domestic vehicle assembly plants after admitting decades of fraudulent certification tests, alarming the municipalities, suppliers and workers that rely on the automaker as a lifeline.

Vehicle production stopped at Daihatsu plants in Ryuo, Shiga Prefecture, and Oyamazaki, Kyoto Prefecture, and a subsidiary plant in Nakatsu, Oita Prefecture, on Dec. 25.

The company’s vehicle assembly operations came to a screeching halt when its plant in Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture, suspended production on Dec. 26.

Chinese chess: Xiangqi champion suspended for bad behaviour

By Nadia Ragozhina BBC News

The winner of a Xiangqi, or Chinese chess, tournament has been stripped of his title after allegations of inappropriate behaviour.

Yan Chenglong has also been accused of cheating by using a communication device analogous to anal beads.

The 48-year-old has been stripped of his title and banned from playing for a year.

However, the Chinese Xiangqi Association (CXA) says it’s impossible to prove accusations of cheating.

Xiangqi has been hugely popular across Asia for hundreds of years.

According to the CXA, Mr Yan started drinking with friends in his hotel room shortly after winning the title of “Xiangqi King” at a national tournament held on the Chinese island of Hainan last week.

Dec 26 2023

Deep Techno & Progressive House Mix – December 2019 (#HumanMusic)

Dec 25 2023

Six In The Morning Monday 25 December 2023

Israel-Gaza war: Netanyahu vows to intensify campaign

By Raffi Berg BBC News

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will intensify its fight against Hamas in the coming days.

He told members of his party that he had visited Gaza on Monday morning and that Israel’s military campaign there was “not close to being over”.

His comments come days after the US secretary of state said Israel should lower the intensity of its strikes.

The war began on 7 October after Hamas led a deadly attack on communities inside Israel.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said on Monday that some 20,674 Palestinians had been killed in Israeli bombardments since then. It says most of the fatalities have been women and children.

Alexei Navalny discovered in remote Arctic penal colony

Jailed Russian opposition leader ‘doing well’, according to aides, nearly three weeks after going missing

The jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been located in a remote prison colony above the Arctic Circle after going missing for nearly three weeks, his aides have said.

Navalny was tracked down to the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp in the Yamal-Nenets region, about 1,200 miles north-east of Moscow, his spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said on Monday. “We have found Alexei Navalny,” she wrote on Twitter/X.

Germany: Drunken ‘Santa’ crashes into house delivering gifts

Police in Thuringia reported a man dressed as Santa who was “absolutely incapable of driving” crashing his car into a house facade and another vehicle overnight. He was trying to deliver gifts — and still plans to.

A man in eastern Germany dressed up as Santa Claus had his driver’s license confiscated overnight after crashing into the facade of a house while trying to deliver gifts around the town of Mühlhausen.

The sloshed Santa was on a central street in the town of around 36,000 people, not far from the town’s church, when he lost control of his vehicle and hit the front of a house and a parked car, police from the larger nearby town of Nordhausen said in a press release.

“The house facade was seriously damaged, however, the Christmas gifts belonging to ‘Santa Claus’ were undamaged,” police wrote, only ever referring to the suspect as the St. Nicholas-inspired bringer of presents in quotation marks.

Indian passenger plane held in France over human trafficking concerns takes off

A plane with close to 300 Indian passengers detained near Paris over suspicions of human trafficking took off Monday for Mumbai after being cleared for departure by French police, an AFP reporter said.

The Airbus A340 carrying 303 Indians had been bound for Nicaragua when it was detained last Thursday at Vatry airport, east of Paris, where it had stopped for refuelling.

It had arrived from Dubai and there was an anonymous tip-off that it was carrying potential victims of human trafficking.

Of the original 303 people on the passenger list, 276 were on the plane that took off just before 3:00 pm (1400 GMT).

Among the passengers staying behind were two people questioned by French police over suspected people trafficking, but a judicial source said they had now been released after establishing that the 303 passengers had boarded the plane of their own free will.

Christmas in China brings glittering decor and foreign influence concerns

 

Giant Christmas trees adorned with lights, tinsel and gift boxes greet shoppers at glittering malls in big Chinese cities like Shanghai and Chongqing, but in many parts of China, extending season’s greetings is out of the question.

In southwest Yunnan province, a property management company issued a notice to shopping mall tenants urging them not to sell Christmas cards and presents and to even refrain from hanging decorations, saying foreign traditions should not be “blindly” followed, and one should be confident in one’s own culture.

Schools in some cities from Dongguan in the south to Harbin in the northeast similarly called on students and parents not to follow foreign traditions and culture without thinking.

 

Iceland’s ‘bike whisperer’: the vigilante who finds stolen bicycles – and helps thieves change

Bjartmar Leósson says at first he was motivated by his anger at Reykjavík’s bike thieves. Now he empathises with them

I

t all started in 2019, when Bjartmar Leósson started to see a rise in bike theft in Reykjavík. Rather than accepting that once a bicycle was stolen it had disappeared forever, the bus driver and self-confessed “bike nerd” decided to start tracking them down and returning them to their rightful owners.

Four years and, he estimates, hundreds of salvaged bikes later, the 44-year-old has developed a reputation in the Icelandic capital among cyclists and potential bike thieves. Known as the Reykjavík “bike whisperer”, people across his home city turn to him for help to find their missing bicycles, tools and even cars. Often, he says, bike thieves hand over bikes without being asked and some former bike thieves have started to help him.

Dec 25 2023

Late Night Music:Emerson, Lake & Palmer ~ Lucky Man

Dec 24 2023

Six In The Morning Sunday 24 December 2023

Israel-Gaza war: Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel paying ‘heavy price’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the Gaza war has come at a “very heavy price” for his side.
The military says 14 more soldiers have been killed in the Palestinian territory since Friday, bringing the total of the ground assault to 153.

Saturday was one of its deadliest days – but Mr Netanyahu said his forces had “no choice” but to keep fighting

Meanwhile, the health ministry in Gaza – run by Hamas – says another 166 people were killed in the last day.
More than 20,000 people have been killed – mostly women and children, and 54,000 injured in Gaza since 7 October, the ministry says.

Polish farmers end blockade of Ukraine border crossing

Ukraine says movement of lorries restored after suspension of protest, but truckers’ blockades of three other crossings continue

Polish farmers have ended their blockade of one of the border crossings between Ukraine and Poland and the movement of lorries has been fully restored, the Ukrainian border service has said.

“Truck traffic has been restored: Polish farmers have ended the blockade in front of the Medyka-Shehyni crossing,” the service said on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday.

The service quoted the Polish border guard as saying that the protest action in front of the crossing ended at 9.30am Kyiv time (0730 GMT) on Sunday.

“Registration and crossing of trucks entering Ukraine is carried out as usual,” it added.

Iran’s navy receives ‘smart’ long-range missiles

The new weapons have a range of up to 1,000 kilometers (621 miles), according to Tehran. Iran backs Islamist militants in the Middle East, raising fears that the Israel-Hamas war could spread to the rest of the region.

Sophisticated domestically-made cruise missiles have been delivered to Iran‘s navy, state media reported Sunday.

The arrival comes amid growing regional tension between Tehran and Iran-backed militant groups on one side, and Israel and its Western allies over the Israel-Hamas conflict.

What do we know about the new missiles?

State media said the Talaeiyeh cruise missile has a range of over 1,000 kilometers (621 miles).

Local media cited the head of Iran’s navy Admiral Shahran Irani as saying the weapon is “a smart missile that can change targets mid-mission.”

Espionage from the East“Russia Is a Storm, China Is Climate Change”

Spying from China continues to grow in both volume and sophistication. The cyber-snoops from the People’s Republic have moved beyond companies and are now seeking to exert influence on politics in Germany – all while keeping a close eye on dissidents and minorities.

By Maik Baumgärtner, Cornelius Dieckmann, Georg Fahrion, Christoph Giesen, Roman Höfner, Roman Lehberger, Ann-Katrin Müller, Marcel Rosenbach, Fidelius Schmid und Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt

Where should we start? Perhaps with the two pandas Meng Meng and Jiao Qing. They couldn’t be any cuter! Chinese President Xi Jinping presented them to the Berlin Zoo six years ago, with Xi telling then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the bears were “ambassadors” of the good relations between their two countries. Merkel beamed. “Extremely likable diplomats,” she said of the pair of pandas.

Or perhaps we should go back a bit farther? To 2014? Xi was again in Germany, this time at the port in Duisburg with then-Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel. The two of them were eagerly awaiting the arrival of a freight train from Chongqing, which would be reaching the end of the 10,300 kilometer long “New Silk Road” in Duisburg.

Japan to spend ¥164.7 bil on 2025 Osaka expo amid public skepticism

The Japanese government is estimated to spend a higher-than-expected 164.7 billion yen on the 2025 World Exposition in Osaka, amid public concern about inflated costs for the global event.

In addition to the total, which includes spending on bidding activities, the central government, local authorities and the private sector are projected to pour some 9.7 trillion yen into the development of infrastructure for the event.

With costs becoming larger than initially estimated, the government will set up a panel including third-party experts to examine whether continuing to inject massive amounts of taxpayer money into the project is appropriate.

‘They can kill us’: Fear and Sikh resilience in Canada city amid India spat

Six months after Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s assassination, his community members face threats but say they’re not defeated.

By Amy Fallon
Published On 24 Dec 2023

On a Saturday afternoon in a Sikh temple in Surrey, Canada, boys and men with determined faces wield swords and sticks at each other in an ancient martial art called gatka.

“We are a rebellious community,” Gurkeerat Singh, a farmer, electrician, photographer and spokesperson for the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara Temple, tells me. Surrey is about a 45-minute train ride outside of Vancouver. The city of half a million people is home to the second-largest Sikh population in the country.

Today, as the first snow of the season melts in puddles outside the building, there’s a small but encouraging crowd watching the gatka tournament inside. “From a young age, we teach our children to be armed and learn how to defend themselves,” says Gurkeerat.

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