South Korea: post-Covid weddings lead to a slight increase in births

Today's news: Zelensky in Washington on Friday for the (revised) agreement on rare earths; Israelis take to the streets for the Bibas' funeral, the family criticises Netanyahu's political exploitation of their tragedy; At least 18 people have died after a bus's brakes failed in Thailand; In the Philippines, voting will also take place in 42 shopping centres in May.

SOUTH KOREA

The number of births in South Korea in 2024 has increased again for the first time in nine years, thanks to the rise in marriages after the pandemic. The final figures released by Statistics Korea show 238,300 children born, an increase of 3.6% compared to the all-time low of 230,000 in 2023. The fertility rate - i.e. the average number of children per woman - has risen to 0.75, which is still among the lowest in the world. Very evident in these data is the impact of the resumption of marriages after the Covid-19 pandemic: last year 222,422 couples got married in South Korea, an increase of 14.9% compared to the previous year.

UKRAINE-UNITED STATES

Donald Trump has said he expects Volodymyr Zelensky to sign the agreement with the United States on the exploitation of Ukraine's rare earths at a meeting with him in Washington as early as Friday 28 February, after a senior Ukrainian official said an agreement had been reached. A revised version of the document would have eliminated the United States' request to obtain 500 billion dollars of potential revenue from access to Ukrainian natural resources, but the text would not include solid security guarantees for war-torn Ukraine.

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

Today thousands of people in the streets of Israel are accompanying the funeral procession of Shiri, Kfir and Ariel Bibas, the mother and her two children killed in Gaza, whose bodies were returned last week. The family has organised a funeral without the presence of politicians. And yesterday they strongly criticised Netanyahu for repeatedly revealing details of the tragedy their relatives experienced against their will. ‘From the window, today I see a destroyed nation,’ wrote Ofri Bibas, the aunt of the children, on social media. ‘We will not rise again or rehabilitate ourselves until the last of the hostages has returned home.’

THAILAND

At least 18 people have died and 23 have been injured in eastern Thailand after the brakes of a tourist bus failed and the vehicle overturned into a ditch. There were 49 people on board, all Thai, including the driver. The accident occurred on a downhill road in the province of Prachinburi, 155 km east of the capital Bangkok.

PHILIPPINES

42 shopping centres belonging to eight chains across the country will be transformed into polling stations on 12 May during the national and local elections in the Philippines. The Electoral Commission had already trialled voting in 14 shopping centres during the 2023 barangay (the smallest administrative units) elections. The number of locations will be tripled in 2025 with the aim of setting up more and more polling stations outside of school classrooms.

CHINA

Decades after they disappeared from the skies, China is betting on a return of airships, this time with zero emissions. Last week, the country's first fully electric airship completed its maiden flight in Jingmen, Hubei province. The initiative is part of a wider plan for the expansion of low-altitude aviation, a growing sector centred on tourism, logistics and ecological transport below 1,000 metres.

AZERBAIJAN-PAKISTAN

The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, visited Baku and met the President Ilham Aliev with whom he signed 5 important agreements between the oil companies of the two countries, and an agreement for twinning between the Azerbaijani city of Nakhičevan and the Pakistani city of Lahore in Punjab for cultural, tourist, educational and economic projects.

• Asia
• Today