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Every weekend, Asia Pacific Daily will provide you with a run-down of the latest hot news.
This week, the following hot news you should know:
Top 1 | Macron visits left-leaning Paris suburb after re-election
Emmanuel Macron beat far-right National Rally candidate Marine Le Pen for the French presidency, France's Constitutional Council confirmed after verification on Wednesday.
Macron won 58.6 percent of the vote in the second-round run-off compared to Marine Le Pen's 41.4 percent.
The new presidential term begins on May 14, according to the Constitutional Council.
Top 2 | Biden to visit South Korea and Japan May 20-24
U.S. President Joe Biden will visit South Korea and Japan from May 20 to 24, the White House announced.
Biden and South Korean President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol will have their first bilateral summit in Seoul on May 21, Yonhap reported.
Kyodo reported Biden will hold a bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on May 23, and the Quad summit will take place on the following day, citing Japan's top government spokesperson Hirokazu Matsuno.
Ahead of Biden's Asia trip, Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi announced he will travel to the U.S. from May 3 to 6 and hold talks with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Top 3 | China, Iran agree to push military ties to higher level
China and Iran agreed on Wednesday to further develop all-round cooperation, including in the military field.
The agreement was reached during a meeting between Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and the visiting Chinese State Councilor and Defense Minister General Wei Fenghe in Tehran.
Raisi said that Iran opposes unilateralism, hegemonism and external interference and firmly supports China in safeguarding its core interests.
He also thanked China for its support and assistance over the years in a difficult period.
Top 4 | Myanmar court sentences Aung San Suu Kyi to 5 years in prison
A Myanmar court on Wednesday sentenced former leader Aung San Suu Kyi to five years in prison after finding her guilty of taking a bribe.
The judge in the capital Naypyitaw handed down the verdict at around 9:30 a.m. The case centered on allegations that Suu Kyi, 76, accepted 11.4 kg of gold and cash payments totaling $600,000 from former Yangon Chief Minister Phyo Min Thein.
The former state counsellor is being prosecuted on multiple charges of corruption and election fraud. She denied all the charges.
Top 5 | Iran says resumption of talks over nuclear deal is on agenda
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Monday that the resumption of talks between the parties involved in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Iranian nuclear issue is on the agenda.
Commenting on the Ukraine crisis, Khatibzadeh said Iran does not recognize "unilateral sanctions" against Russia.
As a country targeted with unilateral sanctions for many years, Iran cannot recognize such similar sanctions and embargoes against other countries, Khatibzadeh said at a weekly press conference.
Top 6 | Macron elected to continue to lead France
France's President Emmanuel Macron beat his far-right rival, Marine Le Pen, in the second-round runoff on Sunday and won another five-year term in office.
Macron won 58.8 percent of the votes compared to 41.2 percent by Le Pen, according to an estimate from the Ipsos polling institute after most polling stations closed at 7 pm local time; those in large cities, such as Paris, closed at 8 pm.
Some 48.7 million French people were registered to vote. Voter abstention stood at 28 percent, up by 2.5 percentage points from 2017.
The 44-year-old Macron has, therefore, become the first president of France to win re-election since Jacques Chirac in 2002.
Top 7 | Kyiv says top U.S. officials to visit, Russia hits Odesa as conflict enters third month
Ukraine on Saturday said two top U.S. officials would visit its capital, while Russia said its forces attacked Odesa to destroy a logistics terminal where foreign weapons were stored, as the conflict entered its third month on Sunday.
Russia launched a "special military operation" to "demilitarize" and "denazify" Ukraine on February 24. Ukraine and its Western allies reject that as a false pretext for an unprovoked land grab. Earlier this week, Moscow said the second phase of the operation had begun, aiming to "completely liberate" the populations of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Russia's forces destroyed a logistics terminal at a military airfield near Ukraine's Odesa, where foreign weapons were stored, said the Russian Defense Ministry on Saturday.
Top 8 | Russia vows to take full control over Donbas, southern Ukraine
A senior Russian military commander said on Friday that Russian forces would fight to take control over all of eastern and southern Ukraine. Kyiv condemned the remarks as a manifestation of Moscow's "imperialism."
Moldova summoned Russia's ambassador over the commander's remarks that "control over the south of Ukraine" could provide access to Moldova's breakaway region of Transnistria.
Russia said earlier this week that its "special military operation" in Ukraine had entered a new phase with its focus shifted to the east.
The Kremlin has claimed the "liberation" of Mariupol, but Ukraine's government, emboldened by an influx of Western weaponry, said its beleaguered forces were still holding out inside sprawling steelworks in the port city.
Top 9 | Shanghai to launch new measures against COVID-19
Shanghai will start a series of measures on Friday to cut off COVID-19 transmission chains as soon as possible, local authorities said.
Tiered community control measures will be carried out to minimize the movement and gathering of people, according to the arrangements announced by the municipal committee of the Communist Party of China and the local government.
Shanghai will also adopt COVID-19 testing and screening policies tailored to different communities.
Top 10 | U.S. child welfare system jabbed for putting Black kids in foster care: report
The United States has a child welfare system that investigates a large number of Black families and removes one out of 10 Black children from their home to be placed in foster care, Time magazine on Wednesday quoted a scholar as saying.
According to the professor in her Time interview, there are longstanding stereotypes in the United States that Black parents don't really love their children, that it's easy to separate the bonds of Black parents and children, that Black children are better off in the care of other caregivers, especially white caregivers.
During the Donald Trump administration, she noted, when family separation at the border was stepped up, there was a huge public outcry with experts pointing out the trauma to children of removing them from their parents. Some of them said this was a form of torture under UN conventions.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
