East Asia

A judge for 25 years, he is the first top leader from mainland China and not from local business families. As the only candidate, he was chosen yesterday with 394 votes out of 398 by the local election committee. Beijing has long urged Macau to develop sectors other than gambling, a challenge that Hou Fai will have to face.

The incredulous tears of the ‘hibakusha’ in a country that has struggled to recognise their suffering and equal dignity. The movement's role in the campaign to ban atomic weapons. PM Ishiba speaks of ‘extremely saignificant’ recognition, but continues to cite nuclear deterrence as a ‘pragmatic response’.

Fr Alberto Berra, a PIME missionary in the city of the first atomic bomb in 1945, speaks about the decision to award the prize to the association that gives voice to the victims who still bear the signs of the explosion from almost eighty years ago. “They feel they have received a mission: to be a voice for the world” because, as Pope Francis said in Hiroshima in 2019, “it is not only the use of atomic weapons that is immoral, but also their possession.”

The Sixth Tone website reports that low-cost weddings are becoming increasingly fashionable given the prohibitive costs of traditional ceremonies. It is also a way for zoomers to set themselves apart from practices and traditions they no longer feel as their own.

Chosen by the Swedish Academy for her ability to deal with "historical traumas” and “the fragility of human life", the 53-year-old author is the first Korean to win the prestigious award. Alongside "The Vegetarian", her most famous novel, she has also confronted the country’s wounds, like the massacre carried out in 1980 by the military in Gwangju, her birthplace.

Just as the row over tariffs with the US and the EU intensifies, China is preparing to lift the last retaliatory measure still in place against Australia, Australian Prime Minister Albanese announced. In two years in office, the Australian leader has mended ties, keeping trade with China distinct from geopolitical issues.

The archbishop of Tokyo and president of Caritas Internationalis, chosen by Pope Francis as one of the new cardinals, invites us to look at the mission of the Church as an exchange of gifts. Today, “many countries in Asia and Africa give missionaries to the world.” Together with the archbishop of Belgrade, the archbishop of Tokyo will be the first Verbite cardinal since Card Thomas Tien, the archbishop of Beijing who was the very first Verbite appointed cardinal by Pius XII in 1946.

Fighters of the Belucistan Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the attack in which three people died, two of whom were Chinese citizens. Yesterday, the government also banned a Pashtun organisation, an ethnic group, like the Beluchis, marginalised and abused by the army because of its proximity to the Taliban. There are growing protests from those calling for the release of former premier Imran Khan.

The bishop emeritus of Hong Kong participates as papal legate in the Fifth National Eucharistic Congress, which has as its theme of “Fraternity heals everything”.

Those who left office cited personal reasons as the cause of their departure or Hong Kong’s changed situation after Beijing imposed its security law. Hong Kong’s Deputy Secretary for Justice, Horace Cheung Kwok-kwan, blames the resignations on “inappropriate pressure” from the West.

For the first time in Japan, a local government issued an ordinance against harassment of workers. The action was prompted by cases of suicide and mental illness among victims of this kind of abuse.

With space exploration needing more coordination among multiple partners, imposing one's own time in outer space is the goal of both Washington and Beijing. For the White House, the Artemis Accords are “the basis of US leadership in space." The Asian superpower aims to establish time zones and lunar Internet by 2028.