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Locals in Catholic-majority East Timor held prayers after the death of Pope Francis on Monday, while others refused to accept the news of the late pontiff’s passing.In capital Dili, Catholic worshippers took a moment to remember the pope, who died aged 88 months after he received a rockstar welcome in the city as part of a marathon four-nation tour.”When I hear and see (the news) on social media, I was… very, very sad because of the loss of a Pope that was known in the world, particularly in East Timor,” said 40-year-old Maria at a Catholic church, declining to give her last name.”He was a simple man, a very humble man, a figure that gets close with the common people. We really miss Pope Francis.”East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta, who hosted Pope Francis, mourned his death but hailed his “very brave” fight for peace and the world’s poorest people.Cardinal Virgilio do Carmo da Silva, the archbishop of Dili, said the Vatican flag would be flown at half mast at his residence, while a mass would be held across the country’s churches in the coming days.The Argentine pontiff visited East Timor — one of the world’s poorest countries — in September on a trip that included Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Singapore in between bouts of ill health.He held a mass on the outskirts of Dili that authorities said attracted almost half of the country’s 1.3 million people.”I am very shocked and sad to hear this news. I enjoyed seeing so many enthusiastic people who wanted to see the Pope,” said student Glenn Bawakana Soares, 22.On that visit the first Latin American pontiff made a pointed call to East Timor’s leaders to do more on all forms of abuse, after several high-profile child abuse scandals involving members of the nation’s clergy.”We are all called to do everything possible to prevent every kind of abuse and guarantee a healthy and peaceful childhood for all young people,” he said in a speech in Dili.- ‘Don’t accept’ -Recent abuse cases in East Timor include Nobel-winning Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, who the Vatican secretly punished over allegations he sexually abused young children for decades.In another case, defrocked American priest Richard Daschbach was found guilty in 2021 of abusing orphaned, disadvantaged girls and sentenced to 12 years in prison.Pope Francis did not mention a specific case or acknowledge any Vatican responsibility. Meanwhile some Timorese were refusing to accept that the energetic reformer had died, especially on Easter Monday.”There are those who believe it and also think this is a lie. They think this is fake news,” student Soares said. “They don’t accept reality.”Others saw his legacy as one paving a path for future pontiffs to speak out for the most underprivileged in society.”A revolutionary pope, he is the hope of marginalised people but his health did not let him live long enough to defend his work,” Ato Lekinawa Costa, chief editor of Timorese news site Neon Metin, told AFP.”The wave of goodbye in his visit last year means forever now, but hopefully next Pope will carry on Pope Francis good work and commitment.”

Asian crime networks running multi-billion-dollar cyber scam centres are expanding their operations across the world as they seek new victims and new ways to launder money, the UN said on Monday.Chinese and Southeast Asian gangs are raking in tens of billions of dollars a year targeting victims through investment, cryptocurrency, romance and other scams — using an army of workers often trafficked and forced to toil in squalid compounds.The activity has largely been focused in Myanmar’s lawless border areas and dubious “special economic zones” set up in Cambodia and Laos.But a new report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) warned the networks are building up operations in South America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and some Pacific islands.”We are seeing a global expansion of East and Southeast Asian organised crime groups,” said Benedikt Hofmann, UNODC Acting Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.”This reflects both a natural expansion as the industry grows and seeks new ways and places to do business, but also a hedging against future risks should disruption continue and intensify in Southeast Asia.”Countries in east and southeast Asia lost an estimated $37 billion to cyber fraud in 2023, the UNODC report said, adding that “much larger estimated losses” were reported around the world.The syndicates have expanded in Africa — notably in Zambia, Angola and Namibia — as well as Pacific islands such as Fiji, Palau, Tonga and Vanuatu.- Laundering through crypto -Besides seeking new bases and new victims, the criminal gangs are broadening their horizons to help launder their illicit income, the report said, pointing to team-ups with “South American drug cartels, the Italian mafia, and Irish mob, among many others”.Illicit cryptocurrency mining — unregulated and anonymous — has become a “powerful tool” for the networks to launder money, the report said.In June 2023 a sophisticated crypto mining operation in a militia-controlled territory in Libya, equipped with high-powered computers and high-voltage cooling units, was raided and 50 Chinese nationals arrested.The global spread of the syndicates’ operations has been driven in part by pressure from authorities in Southeast Asia.A major crackdown on scam centres in Myanmar this year, pushed by Beijing, led to around 7,000 workers from at least two dozen counrties being freed.But the UN report warns that while such efforts disrupt the scam gangs’ immediate activities, they have shown themselves able to adapt and relocate swiftly.”It spreads like a cancer,” UNODC’s Hoffman said.”Authorities treat it in one area, but the roots never disappear, they simply migrate.”Alongside the scam centres, staffed by a workforce estimated by the UN to be in the hundreds of thousands, the industry is further enabled by new technological developments.Operators have developed their own online ecosystems with payment applications, encrypted messaging platforms and cryptocurrencies, to get round mainstream platforms that might be targeted by law enforcement.

Snowfall in Asia’s Hindu Kush-Himalayan mountain range has reached a 23-year low, threatening nearly two billion people dependent on snowmelt for water, scientists warned in a report on Monday.The Hindu Kush-Himalayan range, which stretches from Afghanistan to Myanmar, holds the largest reserves of ice and snow outside the Arctic and Antarctica and is a vital source of fresh water for about two billion people.Researchers found “a significant decline in seasonal snow across the Hindu Kush Himalaya region, with snow persistence (the time snow remains on the ground) 23.6 percent below normal — the lowest in 23 years,” the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) said. “This trend, now in its third consecutive year, threatens water security for nearly two billion people,” it said in its Snow Update Report.The study also warned of “potential lower river flows, increased groundwater reliance, and heightened drought risk”. Sher Muhammad, the lead author of the ICIMOD report, told AFP that “this year the snowfall started late in January and remained low in the winter season on average”.Several countries in the region have already issued drought warnings,  with upcoming harvests and access to water at risk for populations already facing longer, hotter, and more frequent heatwaves.The inter-governmental ICIMOD organisation is made up of member countries Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan.It urged countries that rely on the 12 major river basins in the region to develop “improved water management, stronger drought preparedness, better early warning systems, and greater regional cooperation”.The Mekong and Salween basins — the two longest rivers in Southeast Asia supplying water to China and Myanmar — had lost around half of their snow cover, it noted.Pema Gyamtsho, ICIMOD’s director general, called for changes in policy to address the low snow levels in the long term.”Carbon emissions have already locked in an irreversible course of recurrent snow anomalies in the HKH (Hindu Kush-Himalayas),” Gyamtsho said.Asia is the region most affected by climate-related disasters, according to the UN’s World Meteorological Organization, which reported last month that five of the past six years have seen the most rapid glacier retreat on record.

Sri Lanka’s Catholics marked on Monday the sixth anniversary of the Easter bombings that killed 279 people with a silent march and demands for justice.Several investigations into the April 21, 2019, bombings, which targeted three churches and three hotels, concluded that the attacks were carried out by homegrown jihadists who claimed affiliation with the Islamic State group.However, the island’s Catholic Church has accused successive governments of protecting those behind the attack and several high-level investigations have identified links between military intelligence units and the bombers.The head of the Church in Sri Lanka, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, led the march in the capital Colombo, where he presided over a multi-religious ceremony for the victims, who included 45 foreigners.Hundreds of relatives of the victims marched from St Lucia’s Cathedral to the nearby St Anthony’s Church, where the first suicide attack took place.All radio and television channels across the country muted their broadcasts for two minutes as a mark of respect.Ranjith announced that the Vatican had recognised 167 Catholics killed as “Witnesses of the Faith”, placing them on a path to possible sainthood.”The purpose of this is to propagate and preserve the memory of the witness in perpetuity,” Ranjith said.President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said on the eve of the anniversary there would be a review of the final report of the 2021 presidential commission of inquiry.Dissanayake’s office said the report had been handed to the police for action against those linked to the attacks.Church leaders have alleged that military intelligence officers orchestrated the bombings to bolster the political prospects of retired army officer Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was campaigning on a platform of national security.He won the presidency seven months later.Rajapaksa was forced out of office in July 2022 following months of protests over an unprecedented economic crisis that led to shortages of food, fuel, and medicine.

US Vice President JD Vance began a four-day visit to India on Monday as New Delhi looks to seal an early trade deal and stave off punishing US tariffs.Vance’s visit comes two months after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks with US President Donald Trump at the White House.A red carpet welcome with an honour guard and troupes of folk dancers greeted Vance after he stepped out into the sweltering sunshine of New Delhi, where he is set to meet with Modi.Vance, 40, a devout Catholic convert who arrived in New Delhi a day after meeting Pope Francis in the Vatican, toured a vast Hindu temple with his family on one of his first stops.The US vice president is accompanied by his wife Usha, the daughter of Indian immigrants, and his three children, who visited the Akshardham Temple dressed in traditional flowing Indian attire.Vance’s tour will include a trip on Tuesday to Jaipur in Rajasthan — site of the medieval Amber fort — and to Agra a day after, for a visit to the white marble mausoleum of the Taj Mahal.More important will be the meeting later on Monday between Modi and Vance.They are expected to “review the progress” in relations” and “exchange views on regional and global developments of mutual interest”, according to India’s foreign ministry.India and the United States are negotiating the first tranche of a trade deal, which New Delhi hopes to secure within the 90-day pause on tariffs announced by Trump this month. “We are very positive that the visit will give a further boost to our bilateral ties,” India’s foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters last week.- ‘Special bond’ -Vance’s visit comes during an escalating trade war between the United States and China. India’s neighbour and rival faces US levies of up to 145 percent on many products.Beijing has responded with duties of 125 percent on US goods.India, hit with tariffs of 26 percent before Trump’s pause, has reacted cautiously so far.India’s Department of Commerce said after the tariffs were announced it was “carefully examining the implications”, adding it was “also studying the opportunities that may arise”.Modi, who visited the White House in February, has an acknowledged rapport with Trump, who said he shares a “special bond” with the Indian leader. Trump, speaking while unveiling the tariffs, said Modi was a “great friend” but that he had not been “treating us right”.Modi said during his visit to Washington that the world’s largest and fifth-largest economies would work on a “mutually beneficial trade agreement”.The United States is a crucial market for India’s information technology and services sectors but Washington in turn has made billions of dollars in new military hardware sales to New Delhi in recent years.Trump could visit India later this year for a summit of heads of state from the “Quad” — a four-way grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the United States.

US Vice President JD Vance began a four-day visit to India on Monday as New Delhi looks to seal an early trade deal and stave off punishing US tariffs.Vance’s visit comes two months after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks with US President Donald Trump at the White House.A red carpet welcome with an honour guard and troupes of folk dancers greeted Vance after he stepped out into the sweltering sunshine of New Delhi, where he is set to meet with Modi.Vance’s tour also includes a trip to Agra, home to the Taj Mahal, the white marble mausoleum commissioned by a Mughal emperor.The US vice president is accompanied by his family, including his wife Usha, who is the daughter of Indian immigrants, with New Delhi’s broadcasters dubbing the visit “semi-private”.Modi, 74, and Vance, 40, are expected to “review the progress in bilateral relations” and also “exchange views on regional and global developments of mutual interest”, India’s foreign ministry said last week.India and the United States are negotiating the first tranche of a trade deal, which New Delhi hopes to secure within the 90-day pause on tariffs announced by Trump earlier this month. “We are very positive that the visit will give a further boost to our bilateral ties,” India’s foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters last week.Vance was welcomed at the airport by Ashwini Vaishnaw, a senior member of Modi’s government.- ‘Special bond’ -Vance’s visit comes during an escalating trade war between the United States and China. India’s neighbour and rival faces US levies of up to 145 percent on many products.Beijing has responded with duties of 125 percent on US goods.India has so far reacted cautiously.After the tariffs were announced, India’s Department of Commerce said it was “carefully examining the implications”, adding it was “also studying the opportunities that may arise”.Modi, who visited the White House in February, has an acknowledged rapport with Trump, who said he shares a “special bond” with the Indian leader. Trump, speaking while unveiling the tariffs, said Modi was a “great friend” but that he had not been “treating us right”.During his visit to Washington, Modi said that the world’s largest and fifth-largest economies would work on a “mutually beneficial trade agreement”.While the United States is a crucial market for India’s information technology and services sectors, Washington has made billions of dollars in new military hardware sales to New Delhi in recent years.Trump could visit India later this year for a summit of heads of state from the Quad — a four-way grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the United States.

When the Dalai Lama turns 90 in July, the Buddhist monk, who for many exiled Tibetans personifies dreams of a free homeland, will ask if they want a successor.For the charismatic Nobel Peace Prize-winning leader, his landmark birthday will be a time to encourage people to plan for an eventual future without him and address whether there will be another Dalai Lama.The answer, at least according to his translator of nearly four decades, is clear: yes.”I know for a fact that he has received petitions from across the Tibetan Buddhism communities, including some from inside Tibet,” said Thupten Jinpa, 66, a Buddhist scholar who helped produce the leader’s latest book, “Voice for the Voiceless”.Jinpa believes the post, which he likens to a Buddhist “papal institution” not only for Tibet but also encompassing the Himalayan regions of India, Bhutan and Nepal, as well as Mongolia and some Russian republics, will continue.”My hope is that before his birthday, July 6, he will issue a final statement,” Jinpa said, speaking in India, where the Dalai Lama has been based since fleeing into exile in 1959.”If my guess is right, and he says that the continuity of the institution will remain, that means then there will be a new Dalai Lama.”Many exiled Tibetans fear China will name a successor to bolster control over a land it poured troops into in 1950.- ‘Almost unthinkable’ -The current Dalai Lama was identified in 1936 when, aged two, he passed a test by pointing to objects that had belonged to the post’s previous occupier.He was hailed as the 14th reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, a role that stretches back more than 600 years.”One constant in everybody’s life has been the presence of the Dalai Lama,” said Jinpa, who fled Tibet with his parents as a baby, around the same time the Dalai Lama escaped.If there is to be a 15th, the Dalai Lama has said he will “leave clear written instructions” on what will happen after his death.Jinpa, who trained as a monk before completing his doctorate at the University of Cambridge, said that a foundational principle of Buddhism was the contemplation of impermanence.”Anything that comes into being will come to an end,” he said. “Where there is birth, there will be death.”But he said the Dalai Lama — who has said he wants to live until he is 113 — also wants followers to confront a future, someday, without him.”The idea of a world without him is almost unthinkable,” Jinpa said. “But that will happen, and His Holiness has himself been very explicit in making sure that people are thinking about it.”- ‘Symbol of a nation’ -Jinpa said that plans for the future had long been in progress.The Dalai Lama stepped down as his people’s political head in 2011, passing the baton of secular power to a government chosen democratically by 130,000 Tibetans around the world.”He has already prepared the formal political structure for carrying on the struggles of the Tibetan cause beyond his lifetime,” Jinpa said.”But one of the things that he can’t just transfer to an elected body… is the moral authority, and his status as the symbol of a nation, and a symbol of the aspiration of the Tibetan people,” he added.”This is why the continuity of the Dalai Lama institution becomes important.”China, which says Tibet is an integral part of the country, insists the Dalai Lama “has no right to represent the Tibetan people”.Jinpa said the Dalai Lama is only advocating for greater Tibetan autonomy.”If we were asking for independence, it’s a completely different thing,” he said.- ‘People’s heart’ -The Dalai Lama has already said that if there “is a consensus that the Dalai Lama institution should continue”, then the Office of the Dalai Lama — the Gaden Phodrang Trust in India’s Himalayan hill town of McLeod Ganj — would hold the responsibility for the recognition of the next leader.He has also made it clear that any successor would by necessity be “born in the free world”.In 1995, Beijing selected its own child as the Panchen Lama, another influential Tibetan religious figure, and detained a Dalai Lama-recognised six-year-old, described by rights groups as the world’s youngest political prisoner.”The Chinese will choose another ‘Dalai Lama’, that’s for sure,” Jinpa said. “It will be ridiculous, but they will do it.”But he is confident that Tibetans will not acknowledge whoever Beijing selects.”They can suppress, they can ban, they can force,” said Jinpa, noting that Beijing forbids the Dalai Lama’s photograph in Tibet.”But you can never change people’s heart. What’s in the heart belongs to the individual, and the loyalty will always be to this Dalai Lama, and whoever is going to be chosen through the traditional system.”

Virat Kohli smashed an unbeaten 73 and Rohit Sharma struck form with 76 not out in match-winning knocks for Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Mumbai Indians in an IPL super Sunday.The in-form Kohli hit his fourth half-century of this edition of the popular T20 tournament to anchor Bengaluru’s chase of 158 in a seven-wicket win over Punjab Kings at Mullanpur, near Chandigarh.Another Indian veteran Rohit struck form with his first fifty this season in the second match of the day to lead Mumbai’s nine-wicket hammering of Chennai Super Kings in a battle of heavyweights.Rohit, 37, put on 114 runs with Suryakumar Yadav, who hit 68 off 30 balls, as they steered the five-time champions’ chase of 177, getting there with 26 balls to spare.Rohit, 37, came in as impact substitute in the chase and put on 63 with Ryan Rickleton, who fell for 24 off Ravindra Jadeja, to lay the foundations of Mumbai’s third straight win.”After being here for such a long period of time, it’s easy to start doubting yourself and start doing different things,” Rohit said after being named player of the match.”For me, it was important to do simple things and have a clear mindset. It was important for me to hold my shape and extend my arms, and when the ball was in my area, I had to do what I have been doing.”Rohit struggled for form until this knock with just 82 runs in his previous six innings but found his groove with trademark flicks and pulls.He reached his fifty in 33 balls but Suryakumar was in a hurry and his knock included some audacious shots behind the wicket raised his half-ton in 26 deliveries.Rohit and Suryakumar smashed 11 sixes between them.- Kohli-Padikkal combo -Bowlers set up victory after Jasprit Bumrah’s 2-25 and spinner Mitchell Santner’s 1-14 kept Chennai down to 176-5.Shivam Dube, who made 50, and Jadeja, who hit an unbeaten 53, put on 79 runs for the fourth wicket and 17-year-old Ayush Mhatre smashed 32 off 15 balls after being the youngest player to debut for Chennai.Five-time winners Chennai, led by M.S. Dhoni after regular skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad pulled out injured mid-season, crashed to their sixth defeat in eight matches to stay bottom of the 10-team table.In the first match of the day, Bengaluru were propelled by a 103-run second-wicket stand between Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal, who hit 61, to reach their target with seven balls to spare.Bengaluru avenged their loss to Punjab at home on Friday and the two teams, both seeking their first IPL title, are level on points.”Very important game for us,” said player of the match Kohli. “When you go from eight (points) to 10, it makes a massive difference.”Kohli on his anchor role said: “One partnership is good enough in T20 cricket during run chase. I can accelerate, but I want to understand the strengths of other players.”Holding one end up at the moment, that’s working for us.”The in-form Kohli, 36, struck his fourth half-ton of the season and surpassed Australia’s David Warner for the most 50-plus scores in the popular T20 tournament.Kohli has now made it past the 50-mark 67 times, including eight centuries.Left-handed Padikkal struck his first fifty of the season, after Bengaluru lost opener Phil Salt in the first over to Arshdeep Singh.Padikkal fell to Harpreet Brar, leaving Kohli to play the anchor in a 54-ball knock laced with seven fours and a six.Bengaluru spinners Krunal Pandya and Suyash Sharma took two wickets each to set up victory as they helped restrict Punjab to 157-6.

Virat Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal hit half-centuries to steer Royal Challengers Bengaluru to a seven-wicket win over Punjab Kings in the Indian Premier League on Sunday.Chasing 158 for victory, Bengaluru were propelled by a 103-run second-wicket stand between Kohli, who made an unbeaten 73, and Padikkal to reach their target with seven balls to spare at Mullanpur, near Chandigarh.Bengaluru avenged their loss to Punjab at home on Friday and the two teams, both seeking their first IPL title, are level on points.The in-form Kohli, 36, struck his fourth half-ton of the season and surpassed Australia’s David Warner for the most 50-plus scores in the popular T20 tournament.Kohli has now made it past the 50-mark 67 times, including eight centuries.Left-handed Padikkal made 61 off 35 balls, his first fifty of the season, after Bengaluru lost opener Phil Salt in the first over to Arshdeep Singh.Padikkal fell to Harpreet Brar, leaving Kohli to play the anchor in a 54-ball knock laced with seven fours and a six.Bengaluru spinners Krunal Pandya and Suyash Sharma took two wickets each to set up victory as they helped restrict Punjab to 157-6.Priyansh Arya and Prabhsimran Singh started aggressively in an opening stand of 42 before Pandya was introduced in the fifth over.The left-arm spinner struck with his second ball to send back Arya for 22.Pandya struck again in his next over to dismiss Prabhsimran, who hit 33 off 17 balls, and finished with figures of 2-25.West Indies fast bowler Romario Shepherd, in his first Bengaluru outing this season, had skipper Shreyas Iyer out for six and Nehal Wadhera was run out soon after.England’s Josh Inglis attempted to hit back, smashing 29 off 17 balls, but was bowled by leg-spinner Suyash.Suyash hit the stumps again three balls later to remove Marcus Stoinis as Punjab slipped to 114-6.Shashank Singh, who made 31, and Marco Jansen, who hit 25, put on an unbeaten stand of 43 to boost the total but it was not enough to challenge Bengaluru.

Zimbabwe finished the first day of the first Test in a commanding position at 67-0 after an inspired bowling performance dismissed Bangladesh for 191 runs on Sunday. The visitors’ opening pair of Brian Bennett, unbeaten on 40 off 37 balls, and Ben Curran (17) took the attack to Bangladesh’s bowlers in the 14.1 overs they faced before bad light stopped play.Bangladesh skipper Najmul Hossain Shanto, who scored 40, earlier won the toss and opted to bat first on a pace-friendly wicket. But his batters failed to capitalise on the decision and none of them, including top-scorer Mominul Haque (56) or Jakir Ali, who made 28, were able to turn good starts into decent Test scores.  The Zimbabwe attack bowled aggressive and disciplined lines, with paceman Blessing Muzarabani and left-arm orthodox Wellington Masakadza both taking three wickets.They were assisted by Victor Nyauchi and Wessley Madhevere, who shared the other four wickets.Nyauchi set the tone for the visitors, sending back Bangladesh’s openers early in the first session with only 32 runs on the board. Shadman Islam was the first to fall for 12 in the ninth over, with Nyauchi also removing Mahmudul Hasan Joy (14) in his next over. A third-wicket partnership of 66 runs between Haque and Shanto gave the home team’s score some respectability. Bangladesh’s relatively inexperienced pace attack of Hasan Mahmud, Nahid Rana and Khalid Rana couldn’t find their lines against Bennett, who hit six fours.Trailing only by 124 runs, Zimbabwe have a rare opportunity to set a formidable first innings total with the pitch expected to be better for the batters on the second day. Bangladesh are ranked ninth and Zimbabwe are at the bottom of the 12-team ICC Test rankings after a disappointing year and both teams are hoping for a better start to the long season ahead.The hosts have been formidable on the slow and spin-friendly home pitches but have several veterans missing. The second and final Test of the series will be played in Chattogram from April 28.Day 1 scores:Bangladesh: 191 all out (Mominul Haque 56, Najmul Hossain Shanto 40; Blessing Muzarabani 3-50, Wellington Masakadza 3-21Zimbabwe: 67-0 Brian Bennett 40, Ben Curran 17; Hasan Mahmud 0-16Toss: Bangladesh won the toss and decided to bat first.