ASIA

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Starbucks South Korea will temporarily shut all its stores across the country for half a day next week to allow employees to attend a history lesson following widespread public criticism over a promotional campaign that many people said evoked memories of one of the nation’s darkest historical events.

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A group of aspiring filmmakers gathered in a modest studio in Lingbao, a small city in China’s Henan province, hoping to sharpen their skills and bring their creative visions to life. Their day began at 9am with classes, script writing, filming, and editing before ending with a tough but valuable review session led by filmmaker Nan Xin. After hours of work, students watched as their short films were carefully critiqued, often receiving blunt feedback about weak storytelling, poor dialogue, and lack of depth.

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Thailand’s Princess Bajrakitiyabha has died at the age of 47 after being in a coma for more than three years, the royal household has announced. The princess collapsed in December 2022 while exercising her dogs, an incident doctors attributed to a severe cardiac arrhythmia caused by a mycoplasma heart infection. Her death deprives the Thai royal family of its most accomplished public figure, who was widely expected to play a critical role in the country's uncertain royal succession.

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Japan’s Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi has strongly rejected China’s accusations that Tokyo is embracing a new era of militarism, arguing instead that China’s expanding military capabilities pose a greater concern to regional security.

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The US has added several major firms from China including technology giant Alibaba and electric car maker BYD to a list of companies said to have ties with the Chinese military.

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The former head ​of a Chinese temple famed as the birthplace ‌of kung fu has been sentenced to 24 years in prison and fined 3.5 million yuan ($517,000) for crimes including embezzlement and ​bribery. 

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At least 35 people have been killed and more than 130 injured after a magnitude-7.8 earthquake struck off the southern Philippines on Monday morning, collapsing buildings, triggering landslides and setting off tsunami alerts across several countries in the region.

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China is constructing a sprawling network of launch pads, armored bunkers, and communications nodes near its most sensitive nuclear missile silos in a remote northwestern desert, satellite images reviewed by Reuters show, a development security analysts say signals a major upgrade to Beijing's second-strike capability.