CHINA
Pakistan upgrade pledged
Beijing is willing to work with Islamabad to build an upgraded version of an economic corridor linking the two countries, President Xi Jinping (習近平) told visiting Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday. Sharif pledged to ensure the safety of Chinese workers in Pakistan, according to a report on by state broadcaster China Central Television. Sharif offered his government’s condolences for the deaths in March of five Chinese engineers in a suicide bombing in Pakistan, the report said. The economic corridor includes building and improving roads and rail systems to link the western Xinjiang region to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port on the Arabian sea. Earlier in the day, Xi met with Brazilian Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, who expressed hope that many Chinese companies would participate in a Brazilian government infrastructure program that includes railways, energy, port and airport projects.
VIETNAM
Island building picks up
Hanoi has been increasing its dredging and landfill work in the South China Sea, creating almost as much new land as in the previous two years combined, setting the stage for a record year of island-building, US researchers said on Friday. Since November last year, when the Washington-based think tank issued its last report, Vietnam has created 280 hectares of land, compared with 163.5 hectares in the first 11 months of last year and 140 hectares in 2022, the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative said in a report.
DR CONGO
Coup suspects face death
Three US suspects in what the Congolese army called an attempted coup in Kinshasa last month committed acts “punishable by death,” a court heard on Friday as their trial opened. Marcel Malanga and Taylor Christian Thomson, both 21, and 36-year-old Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun are among 50 defendants in the case and were the first to stand before the judge to hear the charges against them. “These acts are punishable by death,” the presiding judge of the Kinshasa-Gombe military court, Freddy Ehume, told the three in Kinshasa. Western diplomats, journalists and lawyers were present for the trial, which is set to resume on Friday.
UNITED KINGDOM
Cameron talks to hoaxer
Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs David Cameron exchanged messages and held a video call with someone purporting to be former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, but the interactions were later determined to be a hoax, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said on Friday. “Whilst the video call clearly appeared to be with Mr Poroshenko, following the conversation the Foreign Secretary became suspicious,” the foreign office said in a statement. “The department has now investigated and confirmed that it was not genuine and that the messages and video call were a hoax.” The statement gave no details of what was discussed during the exchanges, other than to say that the caller asked Cameron for others’ contact details. “Whilst regretting his mistake, the Foreign Secretary thinks it important to call out this behavior and increase efforts to counter the use of misinformation,” the foreign office said. It did not say who it believed was responsible for the hoax.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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