Christchurch shootings: New Zealand falls silent for mosque victims
New Zealand has broadcast the Islamic call to prayer and observed a two-minute silence in ceremonies to mark a week since the Christchurch attacks.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern joined thousands of mourners near the Al-Noor mosque, one of two places of worship targeted in last Friday's shootings.
Imam Gamal Fouda, who led the prayers, said: "We are broken-hearted, but we are not broken."
Fifty people were killed and dozens more wounded in the attacks.
Australian Brenton Tarrant, a self-proclaimed white supremacist, has been charged with one murder and is expected to face further charges.
Indonesian airline Garuda cancels order for 49 Boeing 737 Max 8 jets
Company blames loss of passenger trust after Ethiopia Airlines and Lion Air disasters involving the aircraft
Indonesia’s national carrier Garuda has cancelled a multibillion-dollar order for 49 Boeing 737 Max 8 jets after two fatal crashes involving the plane, the company said, blaming passengers’ loss of trust in the aircraft.
In what is thought to be the first formal cancellation for the model, Garuda spokesman Ikhsan Rosan said: “We have sent a letter to Boeing requesting that the order be cancelled.
“The reason is that Garuda passengers in Indonesia have lost trust and no longer have the confidence” in the plane, he said, adding that the airline was awaiting a response from Boeing.
Ardern’s response to Christchurch has put other leaders to shame – but not for its compassion alone
She fought from the start like a real politician, scorning the killer, attacking racism and slapping back at Erdogan’s revolting election propaganda
Cometh the hour, cometh the woman. Jacinda Ardern won her spurs last week with her response to the Christchurch atrocity. But the world’s praise for her eloquence and compassion missed the point.
Ardern was different. She fought from the start like a real politician, scorning the killer, attacking racism and slapping back at Turkish president Erdogan’s revolting election propaganda – which used the murderer’s own video – then hitting out at US president Trump. And insisting that New Zealand’s gun laws would change forever.
That was the measure of her. Humanity came armed with political leadership. And what a sorry lot Ardern showed our own hapless “leaders” to be.
'Made by war criminals': plan for Japanese labels in S. Korea
South Korea's foreign minister has intervened over a provincial proposal to apply stickers to some Japanese-made items in schools as "made by a Japanese firm responsible for war crimes".
South Korea and Japan are both democracies and US allies faced with an increasingly assertive China and the long-running threat of nuclear-armed North Korea.
But their own ties have remained icy for years due to bitter disputes over history and territory stemming from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean peninsula, with forced labour and wartime sexual slavery key examples.
Young women trafficked to China to be brides and held until they give birth, report says
Updated 0548 GMT (1348 HKT) March 22, 2019
Seng Moon was an impoverished refugee in an internal displaced person (IDP) camp in northeastern Myanmar when her sister-in-law convinced her to cross the border into China to find a job.
She passed out on the car journey after being given a travel sickness pill. When Seng Moon awoke her hands were tied behind her back. Her sister-in-law was gone and she was alone with a Chinese family.
After several months, Seng Moon's sister-in-law returned and told her she was to be married to a Chinese man.
'Suffocating smell of death' as SDF attacks last ISIL pocket
Amid fierce fighting, ISIL fighters remain squeezed in a few hundred metres in besieged Baghouz village, SDF says.
by Anchal Vohra
Asmar al-Bahr says he saw scores of bodies strewn across ISIL's last encampment in the eastern Syrian village of Baghouz and stockpiles of weapons.
However, it was the "suffocating smell of death" that he worries he may never forget.
Bahr is a photographer with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the US-backed group fighting ISIL in Baghouz. He says he went to the village on Tuesday, hours after fierce fighting the night before.
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