HONG KONG People lit candles in the Tamar Park yesterday evening to mourn for the victims killed in the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris.
CHINA The death toll from a landslide that buried homes in eastern China has risen to 25 people with 12 others still missing, a local government said yesterday. A torrent of mud and rocks unleashed by heavy rains buried nearly 30 homes in a village in Zhejiang province on Friday night. The Lishui city government, which administers Lidong village, where the landslide happened, said that 25 bodies had been found as well as one survivor, who was in stable condition.
TAIWAN Tsai Ing-wen, chair of Taiwan’s opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), on Monday announced her running mate for the 2016 leader’s election would be Chen Chien-jen, an epidemiologist. Chen, born in 1951, had served as the head of Taiwan’s health and science authorities and as vice president of “Academia Sinica”, a major academic institution. The Taiwan election is scheduled for Jan. 16. This will be the second time Tsai has run for the post.
PHILIPPINES Thorny American ties with China and the Paris terrorist attacks are expected to grab attention from trade issues at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit that will be held under extra-heavy security in the Philippine capital this week.
AUSTRALIA The widow of a notorious Australian Islamic State militant pleaded guilty in a Sydney court to supporting her husband’s fighting in Syria. Sydney-born jihadi Mohamed Elomar was killed in an airstrike in the Islamic State movement stronghold of Raqqa in Syria in June. He was 30 years old.
INDONESIA An Indonesian court opens the trials of three Indonesians and five Thais charged with human trafficking connected with slavery in the seafood industry. The suspects were arrested in the remote island village of Benjina in May after the slavery was revealed by The Associated Press in a report two months earlier.
MYANMAR The military-backed party overwhelmingly voted out of office in Myanmar’s general election still has another 2½ months to make laws as the majority — and retains enough potency to complicate matters if it chooses to do so.
INDIA Saeed Jaffrey, an Indian actor acclaimed for his roles in international films including “Gandhi,” ‘’A Passage to India” and “My Beautiful Laundrette,” dies at age 86.
THAILAND An error by race organizers has made Bangkok home to the world’s longest half-marathon. Instead of the typical 21-kilometer run through Thailand’s steamy capital, the Standard Chartered Bangkok Marathon on Sunday accidentally extended its annual half-marathon to nearly 28 kilometers.
USA Five men who have been held for more than 13 years at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been released and sent to the United Arab Emirates, the Pentagon said Sunday. The five Yemeni men were accepted for resettlement in the Persian Gulf nation after U.S. authorities determined they no longer posed a threat, the Defense Department said in a statement. Their release brings the Guantanamo prison population to 107.
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