Flagship

South Korea president impeached

South Korea’s parliament impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol. Yoon was suspended from office while a court deliberates whether to remove him permanently. A conservative whose brief Dec. 4 declaration of martial law sparked a spiraling political crisis, Yoon has been dogged by scandal throughout his two years in office, including allegations that his wife took illegal gifts. The martial law debacle was driven by his “deep disdain for the political process and a flagrant disregard for core democratic norms,” The Korea Herald noted, but it also reflected deeper institutional problems: South Korea’s polarized political environment has seen lawmakers increasingly resort to legal tactics over bipartisanship.

US in contact with Syria rebel group

The US is in direct contact with the Syrian rebel faction that led the ouster of Bashar al-Assad, officials confirmed. The success of the main rebel group, which the US designates a terror organization, has sparked debate among Western officials over how, or if, to engage as Syria’s political transformation unfolds. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who pushed Washington’s vision for Syria’s political transition on a trip through the region this week, praised “the positive words that we’ve heard… but what really counts is action,” adding the US could consider lifting sanctions enacted against Assad. Washington is not alone in angling to shape post-war Syria: Turkey reopened its Damascus embassy Saturday, while Israeli leaders called for more settlements in the occupied Golan Heights.

Exposing Russia’s secret spy unit

A secretive Russian intelligence agency is behind Moscow’s most intense campaign of repression since the 1950s, The Wall Street Journal reported. The story — the first written by Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich since he was freed after 16 months in a Russian prison — spotlights the Department for Counterintelligence Operations, which led Gershkovich’s arrest. The spy unit has accelerated efforts to arrest other US citizens in Russia, harassed Western diplomats, and is key to President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power, the Journal reported, adding that “Russia’s growing conflict with the West has only intensified Putin’s obsession with spies.” A Russian investigator told Gershkovich he was accused of being a CIA agent purely on the department’s orders. “That’s enough for me,” the investigator said.

Asian markets brace for Trump

Asian markets are bracing for the impacts of US President-elect Donald Trump’s promised economic shakeup. Asia is particularly exposed to Trump’s proposed import duty hikes: Market analysts project the region will experience slower growth from the second half of next year, while many local currencies are expected to weaken against the US dollar. Markets are already pricing in the effects: Last month, foreign investors pulled a net $1.9 billion out of the bond markets of Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, India, and South Korea, Reuters reported. Some analysts remain bullish on India and Indonesia, however, seeing them as the region’s potential winners should China’s economic woes deepen, Bloomberg wrote.

China pushes AI in classrooms

Beijing is pushing to incorporate artificial intelligence into school curriculums for children. A government directive said AI classes should be standard for primary and secondary school students by 2030 to meet the “future demand for innovative talent,” as China doubles down on domestic tech amid a trade war with the US. China first began integrating AI courses into universities in 2018 and in high schools in 2019, yet some experts say the country trails the US in generative AI development. The new initiative may also struggle: Rolling out the classes could cost a few million yuan per school in urban areas, according to a Chinese education commentator, while many rural schools still lack basic infrastructure, including internet access.

Drone mystery reflects a US pastime

Suspected drone sightings over Northeast US states have set off feverish speculation on and offline as to their origins. The sightings, which began in mid-November and have even shut down at least one airport, are under police investigation, although some top US officials believe many of the reported “drones” are actually manned aircraft. A combination of vague official statements, and sightings near sensitive sites, have only fed the theorizing. “It’s a famous and popular pastime of Americans to panic and make political hay out of things they don’t understand,” a security researcher told Wired. Indeed, mass panics over unidentified flying objects in the sky “have been happening since the time of the Ancient Greeks,” another expert told 404 Media.

Tokyo government trials 4-day week

Tokyo’s city government will give staff a four-day week in an effort to boost Japan’s declining birth rate. The country’s population is expected to fall for the 16th year in a row, and municipal authorities hope that a four-on, three-off work schedule could make childcare easier and less expensive and, in turn, the thought of parenting less daunting. Several other Japanese jurisdictions have introduced similar measures, as have South Africa, Brazil, and Germany. A pro-four-day week nonprofit that worked with the Tokyo government told the Financial Times that staff retention and productivity consistently improved, while sick days fell, after its introduction.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai is open to collaborating with the incoming Trump administration to foster an AI “Manhattan Project,” Semafor’s Reed Albergotti scooped. In the interview, Pichai pushed back on the idea that AI development is slowing, or that Google lagged behind on chatbots. “If you’re Pichai, you’re betting on that upward trajectory and you need your company to be at the upper right, relative to competitors,” Albergotti wrote.

Illuminating the human origin story

Every person with European ancestry can trace their origins back to a single period of interbreeding between ancient humans and Neanderthals some 48,000 years ago, new research shows. Prior to this mixing event, members of our species who tried to migrate out of Africa to Europe did not survive, the analysis found, a result that goes against past ideas about how early humans expanded across the world. “Early on we were not [successful], we went extinct multiple times,” an evolutionary biologist told the BBC. The findings fit with other research that suggests Neanderthal DNA likely helped humans fight off certain viruses, including the flu, contributing to our species’ survival.

Debunking ‘blue zone’ longevity theory

The secret behind why people living in certain places seem to live much longer than others may be nothing more than poor record-keeping. Despite being a topic of much fascination among lifestyle enthusiasts, data on so-called “blue zones,” or places with a high density of centenarians, is “junk,” researcher Saul Newman said, with “perfectly consistent, perfectly wrong records” and fraud rife. Japan’s “oldest living person” was discovered to have been dead for decades in 2010, with his family still collecting his pension. Sardinia, Costa Rica, and a Greek island are also supposedly “blue zones,” but 72% of the centenarians were “only alive on pension day,” Newman said.

Pop music dominates at weddings

Fewer brides and grooms are choosing Richard Wagner’s Bridal Chorus, better known as “Here Comes the Bride,” to accompany the walk down the aisle. Most US weddings use modern music for the couple’s entrance theme, The New York Times reported. Wagner’s original marks the marriage of two characters in opera Lohengrin, and was propelled to popularity after one of Queen Victoria’s daughters played it at her nuptials. A wedding musician and music professor told the Times that its popularity started to decline in the 1990s, just as more people were choosing secular or outdoor spaces to get hitched. Spotify data underscored the switch, with more than 26 million wedding-themed playlists created and most of the top recurring songs composed in the last 30 years.

Dec. 16:

• Volkswagen meets with labor representatives for a fifth round of talks over German plant closures and pay.
• Germany’s parliament holds a vote of confidence in the government.
• Christmas celebrations begin in Barcelona with a light show on the façade of the former Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau.

WeChat is the center of the Chinese internet — powering everything from messaging to payments — and the main portal where China’s news outlets and bloggers publish their work.

Too cute to work

Young Chinese employees are turning to Japanese fictional character Hello Kitty to express their frustrations with work culture. A quick spin on social media platforms like Weibo or Xiaohongshu reveals hundreds of AI-generated images of the cartoon cat placed in various chaotic office settings, surrounded by desks on fire, for example, or being berated by a fellow co-worker.

The so-called “Crazy Kitty” memes reflect employees’ increasingly vocal desire for “warmth and empathy” in high-pressure work environments, the ST Business Research blog wrote. Beyond sending a message to employers, the memes also let Chinese youth blow off steam: They’re a “spiritual self-mockery and also [an] emotional ‘reset button,’’’ one disgruntled corporate employee told ST.

Corrupted sentiments

A Taiwanese newspaper unveiled its subscriber-chosen “Word of the Year” (in this case “Character of the Year”) to be “corruption.” The editor-in-chief of United Daily News, which is widely regarded as a voice of the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang Party, said the overwhelmingly popular reader pick was “unexpected…but not unexpected,” given a series of recent bribery allegations involving the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.

Mainland Chinese bloggers seized on the word choice to similarly criticize the DPP, which leans toward Taiwanese independence. “The DPP often raises the banner of ‘anti-corruption’ only to attack political opponents,” Chinese nationalist foreign affairs blog Yǒulǐ’er Yǒumiàn wrote. Taiwanese people “have sharp eyes,” the outlet added, and are fed-up with corruption, particularly given Taipei’s questionable ties to the island’s development sector as housing prices skyrocket.

Fake news, real stans

Veteran Chinese pop star Dao Lang — best known for his early 2000s releases — has re-emerged as the country’s most popular entertainer for middle-aged adults. Social media users are begging for help securing sold-out concert tickets as gifts for their parents, with some reselling at more than ten times the original price.

Dao’s sudden comeback after years out of the spotlight might be the result of increased media illiteracy among older Chinese, according to Phoenix Weekly magazine. The pop veteran has been the subject of a spate of positive, but fake, videos and articles, including an AI-generated video of US singer Taylor Swift covering one of Dao’s songs, and a mocked-up The New York Times’ front page lauding his international success. “The information pollution created by marketing accounts has seriously interfered with [parents’] cognition,” Phoenix Weekly wrote. Still, that doesn’t mean Dao no longer has a massive fan base: “There have always been many people who like Dao Lang, but they are just suddenly being noticed,” the magazine wrote.

Ernest Hemingway’s stolen first novel, a lost Homer epic, and Byron’s burned memoirs are all “on display” in New York. The catch? None of them are real. The Grolier Club’s Imaginary Books: Lost, Unfinished, and Fictive Works Found Only in Other Books, is a whimsical collection of literature that exists only in the imagination, from lost ancient texts to books that are yet to be published. “It takes a certain suspension of disbelief to even consider having an exhibition of the imaginary,” the exhibition’s curator told The Guardian, adding that the collection “can give you a little stand-up hair at the back of your neck. It’s the feeling of ‘oh, how I wish I could open that.’”