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KIGALI, Rwanda – Rwandan President Paul Kagame joined Max Verstappen on stage when the Red Bull driver collected the Formula One champion’s trophy for the fourth year in a row at an awards ceremony held in Africa for the first time on Friday. The 27-year-old was handed the trophy by FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem alongside Kagame, who had earlier spoken of Rwanda bidding to host a race, at the gala in Kigali. Verstappen, who is one of only six drivers to have won four or more titles since the championship started in 1950, said he was proud of his season and everyone in the team. Source link

New Delhi – India’s aspiring chess players and their parents woke up Friday with big dreams after 18-year-old hometown hero Gukesh Dommaraju became the youngest world champion. Gukesh stunned China’s Ding Liren on Thursday when he seized upon an unfortunate blunder to win the last game of the World Chess Championship and clinch the title in Singapore. As Ding faltered at the final hurdle of his title defense, an emotional Gukesh surpassed a record held by Russia’s Garry Kasparov, who won the title at age 22. Source link

Merle Brown, a 53-year-old writer from Scotland, buys most of her gifts secondhand. “I love the thrill of finding something unique and special that I can’t get anywhere else,” she says. She looks for vintage glass and kitchenware, Christmas cards and puzzles — all things unavailable in conventional stores. This Christmas, about half of the gifts she’s purchased so far have come from thrift stores run by U.K. charities. The trend is catching on across the globe. Gifting secondhand used to have a bad rap (think last year’s candle or dusty bath set), but it doesn’t carry the taboo it once did. In the U.K., some 84% of people say they plan to buy at least one pre-owned Christmas gift this year, according to research by the resale app Vinted and the market researcher Retail Economics. In the U.S., 3 in 4 people believe secondhand gifting has become more socially acceptable over the past year, according to a survey by the resale app OfferUp. The British Heart Foundation charity — with 680 secondhand shops in the U.K. — says demand has surged. Source link

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi on Saturday showed optimism for cooperating with incoming U.S. President Donald Trump over the issue of North Korea’s abduction of Japanese nationals. In a symposium on the issue held by the Japanese government in Tokyo, Hayashi condemned North Korea, saying, “In essence, it is an infringement of national sovereignty.” Hayashi, who also serves as the minister in charge of the abduction issue, said Japan will “enhance its call for cooperation from the international community, including the United States.” Trump is set to be inaugurated as U.S. president in January. Takuya Yokota, who leads a group of families of abduction victims, expressed concern over Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s proposal to set up liaison offices in Japan and North Korea. It “would help North Korea buy time,” said Yokota, whose older sister, Megumi, was abducted and brought to North Korea in 1977 at the age of 13. “I want (Ishiba) to clearly say that there will be no bright future for both Japan and North Korea unless the abduction issue is resolved,” Yokota added. Sakie Yokota, the mother of Takuya and Megumi, said she wants the government to “realize (the abductees’) early return home.” Earlier on Saturday, Hayashi held a meeting in Tokyo with students from Okayama University who are taking a course on the abduction issue. “The most important thing is to prevent the abduction issue from being forgotten over time,” Hayashi said. Source link

The relocation of some U.S. Marines in Okinawa Prefecture to Guam has started, Japan’s Defense Ministry said Saturday. The transfer, aimed at reducing Okinawa’s burden of hosting U.S. troops and maintaining deterrence in the region at the same time, began about 19 years after an initial agreement was reached in October 2005 at a meeting of the two countries’ foreign and defense ministers. The first group, made up of about 100 logistics members of the Marine Corps’ III Marine Expeditionary Force, will move to the U.S. territory, according to the ministry. Source link

Tokyo police on Saturday distributed flyers asking members of the public for any information on the murder of four members of a family in the capital’s Setagaya Ward in late December 2000, as the case has not been solved 24 years after the tragedy. Around 50 officers, including Hiromichi Suyama, chief of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Seijo police station, where the investigation headquarters for the case has been set up, handed out the flyers to people at Seijogakuen-mae Station, near the home of the victims. Police also set up a mannequin wearing clothes believed to be resembling those the perpetrator may have put on at the time of the crime. Source link

Seoul – Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who became South Korea’s acting president after Saturday’s impeachment of Yoon Suk Yeol, is a career technocrat whose wide-ranging experience and reputation for rationality could serve him well in his latest role. With parliament’s impeachment vote against Yoon passed after his short-lived attempt to impose martial law, Yoon is suspended from exercising presidential powers, and the constitution requires the prime minister to take over in an acting role. In a country sharply divided by partisan rhetoric, Han has been a rare official whose varied career transcended party lines. Source link

Kyiv – Five girls stood still in the freezing December drizzle in Ukraine’s capital as a metronome counted a minute of silence, honoring the victims of Russia’s invasion. They were holding banners urging passersby to stop and pay their respects at 9:00 am — part of an official, but rarely observed, daily ritual in war-torn Ukraine. The crowd pouring out of Kyiv’s central Golden Gate metro station mostly walked on by. Source link

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba used an online meeting of Group of Seven leaders on Saturday to raise alarm over growing military ties between Moscow and Pyongyang, particularly North Korea’s deployment of troops to Russia, warning that the developments have a “direct impact” on security in the Indo-Pacific region. North Korea stunned the world in recent months by sending over 10,000 troops to Russia for its war in Ukraine, marking Pyongyang’s first large-scale military deployment since the Korean War. The move has unnerved Japan, South Korea and the U.S., with officials now pointing to a clear link between the Ukraine conflict and Asia’s increasingly fraught security environment. Source link