24/04/2025

THURSDAY | APR 24, 2025

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Pilgrims gather as three day lying in state begins

Chinese astronaut to lead novice crew to space station JIUQUAN: China announced yesterday that a veteran astronaut would this week lead two crew members on their first flight to the country’s Tiangong space station. The Shenzhou-20 mission is scheduled to blast off at 5:17pm (0917 GMT) today from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China, announced China Manned Space Agency deputy director Lin Xiqiang at a news conference. At the helm will be Chen Dong, a 46-year-old former fighter pilot and experienced space explorer, who in 2022 became the first Chinese astronaut to stay in orbit for more than 200 days. Joining Chen will be Chen Zhongrui, a former air force pilot in his early forties, and Wang Jie, a 35-year-old former space technology engineer. The crew currently aboard the Tiangong space station is scheduled to return to Earth on April 29 after completing handover procedures with the incoming astronauts, said Lin. China’s space programme, the third to put humans in orbit, has also landed robotic rovers on Mars and the Moon. The Tiangong space station, crewed by teams of three astronauts that are exchanged every six months, is the crown jewel of the country’s space programme. China has ramped up plans to achieve its “space dream” under President Xi Jinping. Beijing said it aims to send a crewed mission to the Moon by 2030, where it intends to construct a base on the lunar surface. – AFP MOSCOW: A wildfire in New Jersey has swept across 1,280ha, forcing thousands of residents in Ocean County to leave their homes, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service said, as reported by Sputnik/RIA Novosti. The fire, which started on Tuesday in the Greenwood Forest Wildlife Management Area, was burning in Ocean and Lacey townships and was only 5% contained, the New Jersey fire service said in its latest update on X. The blaze threatened an estimated 1,300 structures and mandatory evacuations were in effect for 3,000 residents. The cause of the wildfire is under investigation. – Bernama-Sputnik/RIA Novosti 7 KILLED, 12 INJURED IN TURKIYE ROAD CRASH ANKARA: Seven people were killed and 12 others injured on Tuesday in a minibus-truck collision in east Turkiye’s Van province, said Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya. The crash occurred at 4:30pm (1330 GMT) on the highway linking Van and Turkiye’s eastern Hakkari province, Yerlikaya said on his social media account. The minibus collided with the box truck coming from the opposite direction, near the Guzeldere tunnel on the Van-Hakkari highway, reported Xinhua, quoting an Anadolu Agency report. All injured passengers were transferred to nearby hospitals and four are in critical condition, said the report, citing local officials. Emergency teams, including police, medical personnel and firefighters, were dispatched to the scene. Traffic collisions claimed 2,713 lives across Turkiye last year, according to the General Directorate of Security. The highest number of crashes occurred in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, with Istanbul alone recording 97,354 incidents. – Bernama-Xinhua 3,000 EVACUATED OVER NEW JERSEY WILDFIRE

BR I E F S

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis’s casket was transferred to St Peter’s Basilica yesterday for three days of lying in state, with scores of Catholics and well-wishers expected to pay their respects to the beloved spiritual leader before he is laid to rest. The body of the Argentine pope, who died on Monday aged 88 after a stroke, will remain there until his funeral on Saturday in the Baroque plaza in front of the basilica. Francis died in the Casa Santa Marta, where he lived during his 12-year papacy, and his body was moved to its chapel on Monday. Yesterday, it was taken to the ornate St Peter’s at 9am (0700 GMT) in a procession accompanied by a liturgy, psalms and prayers. His wood casket entered through the central door of the basilica and was placed before the Altar of the Confession. The public is allowed in from 11am until midnight. Thursday hours are from 7am to midnight while Friday hours are from 7am to 7pm. The funeral is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, as well as world leaders such as US President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Britain’s Prince William. After the funeral, the casket will be transported to Francis’s favourite church, Rome’s papal basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, where his casket will be interred in the ground and marked by a simple inscription: Franciscus. He will be the first pope in more than 100 years to be laid to rest outside the Vatican. o Public allowed to view remains from 11am to midnight at basilica until funeral on Saturday

The funeral is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, as well as world leaders such as US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. – REUTERSPIC

letters from the Holy See, instructing them to return to Rome to select a new pope. Only those under the age of 80 are eligible to vote for a pope in the conclave. The election should begin no less than 15 days and no more than 20 after the death of the pope. About 60 cardinals of all ages in Rome met on Tuesday to choose the funeral date in a “general congregation”. A second meeting was scheduled yesterday, led by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who is charged with running the day-to-day operations of the Holy See before a successor is chosen. Francis’s death came less than a month after he was discharged from the hospital, where he spent five weeks battling pneumonia in both lungs. – AFP

Italy is preparing for a major security operation for the funeral, with the weekend already due to be busy because of the public holiday on Friday. Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said authorities are expecting between 150 and 170 foreign delegations, and tens of thousands of people. Italy has declared five days of national mourning, which is longer than the three days observed for Polish pope John Paul II in 2005 but less than the week declared for Francis by his native country Argentina. After the funeral, all eyes will turn to the process to choose Francis’s successor as leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics. Cardinals around the world have been sent

Trump: I am entitled to deport migrants without trial WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he was “entitled” to deport migrants without a trial, following an order by the US Supreme Court over the weekend temporarily blocking the deportation of dozens of Venezuelans, German Press Agency (dpa) reported. government “not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court”, following an urgent application by the American Civil Liberties Union that argued that the individuals had not been afforded due process. murderers, drug dealers, really bad people, the mentally ill, the mentally insane,“ he said in response to a reporter’s question following the swearing-in ceremony for new US Securities and Exchange Commission chair Paul Atkins at the Oval Office.

“We are getting them out and a judge cannot say ‘no, you have to have a trial’. The trial is going to take two years. We are going to have a very dangerous country if we are not allowed to do what we are entitled to do.“ Last month, US authorities deported more than 200 Venezuelans and dozens of Salvadorans to a notorious high-security prison in El Salvador. – Bernama-dpa

On Tuesday, Trump said he was hoping to“get cooperation from the courts” to deport the “thousands of people that are ready to go out“, claiming that “you cannot have a trial for all of these people.” He repeated baseless claims that countries, including Venezuela, are “emptying their prisons into the United States”. “We are getting some very bad people, killers,

The US government accuses the Venezuelans in question of being members of the Tren de Aragua criminal organisation and was due to deport them using the Alien Enemies Act 1798, which is a controversial and rarely used law that allows the president to deport foreigners during war or an invasion. The Supreme Court on Saturday directed the

Record voter turnout in Canada advance polls TRENTON: Elections Canada reported on Tuesday that a record 7.3 million voters cast ballots in the four-day advance polls during the Easter weekend, Anadolu Ajansi reported. economy were the main talking points in the 37-day election campaign.

campaign trail. While polls showed Poilievre and his party have been far ahead for months, the political landscape changed after the deeply unpopular former prime minister Justin Trudeau announced in January that he would resign. In a remarkable turnaround, the latest polls released on Tuesday showed that Carney and the Liberals at 42.6% were six points ahead of the Conservatives at 37.1% while the NDP was lagging behind at 10.4%. – Bernama-Anadolu

The campaign centred around which party, between the governing Liberals, the main opposition Progressive Conservatives or the New Democratic Party (NDP), could best deal with the mercurial Trump. Voting day is on April 28 and, with less than a week to go, the governing Liberals under Mark Carney, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh are hard on the

“This is a 25% increase from the 5.8 million electors who voted in advance in the 2021 general election,” Elections Canada posted. While the report did not speculate on the cause of the increase in voter turnout, US President Donald Trump’s goal of annexing Canada and tariffs that could cripple the