CHINA
Xi backs Fiji PM’s plan
President Xi Jinping (習近平) told visiting Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka he backed his “Ocean of Peace” plan during a meeting in Beijing on Tuesday, state media reported. China also pledged to step up its trade ties with the state, which wants to upgrade its ports and ship building, roads and sewage infrastructure, but can only do so by securing better terms for its agricultural and fisheries exporters owing to deep debts. “China appreciates Prime Minister Rabuka’s vision for an Ocean of Peace and is committed to working with Fiji to contribute to international peace and security,” Xi said, according to a readout released late on Tuesday night. Rabuka is to visit Tonga next week for a meeting of the heads of 18 Pacific island countries and territories, where they are to consider a regional policing proposal backed by Australia. Rabuka has proposed an “Ocean of Peace” foreign policy to Pacific leaders that envisions engagement with all major powers and avoids militarization of the islands region. Beijing also agreed to invest in Fiji’s tourism, agriculture and fisheries industries and support a road upgrade project, the readout said.
SOUTH KOREA
First lady to be cleared
Prosecutors are set to clear the wife of President Yoon Suk-yeol of any criminal charge over her receiving a luxury handbag under questionable circumstances, a report said, winding up a probe into a case that has rocked the country’s politics. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office has concluded there is no direct link between Yoon’s duties and First Lady Kim Keon-hee receiving the bag that was purchased for 3 million won (US$2,242). They found no evidence that favors were offered in return to the individual, a pastor, who gave her the bag, Yonhap News reported, citing sources it did not identify. The probe team is expected to report the results of its investigation to the top prosecutor in the coming days, Yonhap said.
INDONESIA
Crocodile kills woman
A crocodile killed a woman bathing in a river in the country’s east, police and locals said yesterday. Locals later recovered parts of her body from the slaughtered animal. Halima Rahakbauw, 54, was swimming in a river in Wali village on the Maluku islands after spending Tuesday morning looking for clams when the reptile struck. Rahakbauw’s neighbour, Rustam Ilyas, said relatives and friends started a search when she failed to return home. After spotting a sandal and a body part in the river, villagers reported the incident to police who killed the reptile. “The crocodile was quite big, around 4m long,” Ilyas said.
IRAN
Bus overturns, killing 28
At least 28 Pakistani pilgrims traveling to Iraq for a Shiite Muslim ritual were killed as their bus crashed in central Iran, state media reported early yesterday. “A bus carrying 51 Pakistani pilgrims overturned and caught fire in front of Dehshir-Taft checkpoint in the central province of Yazd on Tuesday night... Twenty-eight people have been killed and 23 injured so far with the possibility of the death toll increasing,” state television reported. “Of the 23 injured, six have already been discharged from hospital, while the condition of seven others is critical,” Yazd Province crisis management chief Ali Malek-zadeh said. “The dead consisted of 11 women and 17 men,” he added. The pilgrims were headed through Iran to Iraq to attend the Arbaeen commemoration, one of the biggest events of the Shiite calendar.
‘INTRUSIONS’: The ‘Global Times’ reported that Thitu Island in the Spratlys group is ‘illegally occupied’ by the Philippines, which is expanding military infrastructure on it The Philippines could “stir up trouble” at yet another “Chinese” island in the South China Sea, China’s state-backed Global Times reported late on Thursday, after what it said were Manila’s “provocative intrusions” into waters at two other reefs in the region. The Philippines is expanding military infrastructure on Thitu Island (Jhongye Island, 中業島) in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), which Taiwan also claims, to potentially invite warships and warplanes from countries outside of the region such as the US and Japan, sabotaging peace and stability in the South China Sea, the newspaper reported, citing Chinese experts. Thitu Island is “illegally occupied”
China and Vietnam yesterday inked 14 documents spanning cross-border railways to crocodile exports after Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met with new Vietnamese leader To Lam in Beijing. The Vietnamese president’s visit to Beijing, his first overseas trip since becoming the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam earlier this month, signals a desire between the two communist neighbors to strengthen ties, amid growing trade and investment, despite occasional clashes over boundaries in the South China Sea. “China has always regarded Vietnam as a priority in its neighborhood diplomacy, and supports Vietnam in adhering to the party leadership, taking the socialist
A former Saudi Arabian official alleged in a report that the kingdom’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman forged the signature of his father on the royal decree that launched the kingdom’s years-long, stalemated war against Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Saudi Arabia did not immediately respond to a request for comment over the allegations made without supporting evidence by Saad al-Jabri in an interview published yesterday by the BBC, but the kingdom has described him as “a discredited former government official.” Al-Jabri, a former Saudi Arabian intelligence official who lives in exile in Canada, has been a years-long dispute with the kingdom as
‘SON OF GOD’: Quiboloy was in 2021 indicted by US prosecutors for allegedly having sex with women and underage girls who faced threats of abuse and ‘damnation’ Hundreds of police officers backed by riot squads yesterday raided a vast religious compound in a southern Philippine city in search of a local preacher accused of sexual abuse and human trafficking, police officials said. A supporter of the group, called Kingdom of Jesus Christ, reportedly died due to a heart attack during the massive police raid that started at dawn in the group’s compound in Davao City, livestreamed online by a local TV network owned by the group, police said, adding that the death was not related to the police operations. Officers brought equipment that could detect people behind cement walls,