10/08/2025

theSun on Sunday AUG 10, 2025

WORLD 7

Restored bells toll again 80 years after A-bomb

BEIJING: Tech financier Bao Fan has been released by Chinese authorities after vanishing from public view over two years ago while “cooperating” with an investigation, a former colleague said yesterday. Bao was a key player in the emergence of some of China’s biggest tech giants, supervising blockbuster IPOs and the landmark 2015 merger between ride-hailing giant Didi and its top competitor, Kuaidi Dache. He disappeared in February 2023 as authorities launched a crackdown that saw a number of prominent financiers placed under investigation. In February last year his investment bank, China Renaissance, said he had stepped down as head. His former colleague, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he remained in contact with Bao’s investment bank and could confirm he had been released, as first reported on Friday in financial outlet Caixin . Bao was known for his close ties with the country’s top tech bosses, and was seen as a celebrity in venture capital circles. His disappearance – and China Renaissance’s subsequent announcement that he was “cooperating in an investigation being carried out by certain authorities” – sent shockwaves throughout the financial services industry. Chinese authorities never formally announced the scope of the investigation. – AFP Marcos to offer country ‘as it is’ MANILA: President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has expressed intent to promote the Philippines “as it is” when the country assumes the Asean chair next year. He said there was no need to prove the country’s worth to its neighbours, stressing that the focus should be on showing what the nation is capable of. “I want them to see the Philippines as it is. I’m so proud of the Philippines. It doesn’t need ... the expression in English is ‘gilding the lily’. You’re making it even more beautiful, it’s already beautiful,” he said in a podcast. He expressed confidence that Asean states already recognised the “beauty of the Philippines”, particularly the hard work and kindness of its people. Marcos said his administration was strengthening foreign ties. “What I really want to show is the Philippines has now come together. A kind of social pact with each other that we will help one another because we are going in the right direction. And that’s the most important thing.” In his message marking the 58th founding anniversary of Asean, Marcos pledged to build on the bloc’s legacy in addressing evolving priorities and emerging challenges. – Bernama Tech financier freed after probe

Higuchi said it “made her happy” that everyone would remember the city’s victims. “Instead of thinking that these events belong in the past, we must remember that these are real events that took place,” said the 50-year-old. Yesterday, some 300 people attending mass at the Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Nagasaki heard the two bells toll together for the first time since 1945. One of them, 61-year-old Akio Watanabe, said he had been waiting since he was a young man to hear the bells toll together. The restoration is a “symbol of reconciliation”, he said, tears streaming down his face. The imposing red-brick cathedral, with its twin bell towers atop a hill, was rebuilt in 1959 after it was almost destroyed in the monstrous explosion just a few hundred metres away. Only one of its two bells was recovered from the rubble, leaving the northern tower silent. With funds from US churchgoers, a new bell was

Stop armed conflicts immediately: Mayor

NAGASAKI: Twin cathedral bells rang in unison yesterday in Nagasaki for the first time since the atomic bombing of the city 80 years ago, commemorating the moment of horror. At 11.02am on Aug 9, 1945, three days after a nuclear attack on Hiroshima, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. After downpours yesterday, the rain stopped shortly before a moment of silence during a ceremony in which Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki urged the world to “stop armed conflicts immediately”. “Eighty years have passed, and who could have imagined that the world would become like this? “A crisis that could threaten the survival of humanity, such as a nuclear war, is looming over each and every one of us living on this planet.” About 74,000 people were killed in the southwestern port city, on top of the 140,000 killed in Hiroshima.

Days later, on Aug 15, 1945, Japan surrendered, marking the end of World War II. Historians have debated whether the bombings ultimately saved lives by bringing an end to the conflict and averting a ground invasion. But those calculations meant little to survivors, many of whom battled decades of physical and psychological trauma, as well as the stigma that often came with being a hibakusha ( person affected by the atomic bombings ) . Survivor Hiroshi Nishioka, 93, who was just 3km from the spot where the bomb exploded, told ceremony attendees of the horror he witnessed as a young teenager. “Even the lucky ones (who were not severely injured) gradually began to bleed from their gums and lose their hair, and one after another they died,” he said. “Although the war was over, the atomic bomb brought invisible terror.” Nagasaki resident Atsuko

constructed and restored to the tower, and tolled yesterday at the exact time the bomb was dropped 80 years ago. – AFP Nishioka was just 3km from ground zero. – REUTERSPIC

TRADITIONAL RHYTHMS ... Sri Lankan dancers performing in front of the Temple of the Tooth as part of celebrations to Esala Perahera on Friday in the ancient hill capital of Kandy. – AFPPIC mark the Buddhist festival of

Thai soldiers injured by landmine and Cambodia’s Preah Vihear provinces, the Thai army said. The soldiers are being treated at a hospital.

BANGKOK: Three Thai soldiers were injured by a landmine while patrolling the border with Cambodia, the Thai army said in a statement yesterday, days after the two neighbours agreed to a detailed ceasefire following a violent five-day conflict last month. One soldier lost a foot and two others were injured after one of them stepped on a landmine as they patrolled an area between Thailand’s Sisaket

Cambodia agreed on Thursday to allow Asean observers to inspect disputed border areas to ensure hostilities do not resume. Bangkok accused Cambodia of planting landmines on the Thai side of the disputed border that injured soldiers on July 16 and July 23. Phnom Penh denied it had placed any new mines and said the soldiers had veered off agreed routes and triggered old landmines. – Reuters

relations and triggered five days of violent clashes. Both countries were engaged in deadly border clashes from July 24 to 28, in the worst fighting between the two in more than a decade. The exchanges of artillery fire and fighter jet sorties claimed at least 43 lives and left over 300,000 people displaced on both sides. A fragile ceasefire has been holding since Thailand and

Cambodia’s Defence Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The incident is the third time in a few weeks that Thai soldiers have been injured by mines while patrolling along the border. Two previous incidents led to the downgrading of diplomatic