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Square Enix Blockbuster Touts Bogus Accolades In Launch Trailer

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Screenshot: Square Enix

Everything about the leadup to the release of Forspoken, Square Enix’s big new open-world action RPG, has been a lowkey mess. But you wouldn’t know that from the launch trailer which stays upbeat on the modern-day magical adventure by taking a bunch of words out of context and spinning them into deceitful accolades.

“This Forspoken launch trailer is kind of telling us that the game might not actually be that good and here’s how I know,” trailer editing aficionado Derek Lieu said in a TikTok video that blew up over the weekend. “The biggest red flag are these quotes which are either one word long or two words long.”

He proceeded to go through each phrase flashed on screen during it, found the original source it was from, and read the larger context aloud. In almost every instance the meaning was very different from the way the words were presented in the trailer, and not intended to be taken as unambiguous praise.

In one example, Square Enix lifted the word “Beautiful” from a December preview published over at Distractify. In context, however, the quote wasn’t saying that Forspoken was beautiful but that it had the “potential” to be a “beautiful story-driven game that will pull at your heartstrings with each new chapter.” It was, after all, a preview and not a review of the final game, though the site’s editor said she didn’t take issue with how the word was used.

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“Square Enix did ask for permission to use the quote, and we did approve,” Distractify gaming editor, Sara Belcher, told Kotaku in an email. “In our actual review, I do refer to the game as ‘beautiful’ (that was my opinion of the game’s world since the preview, which is why I didn’t personally feel the quote felt out of context). We do not charge for the use of quotes in promotional materials.”

In another example, the Final Fantasy maker quotes the word “impressive” from Game Informer. The only problem is that the word in question doesn’t even come from a hands-on preview, but from a news write-up of a gameplay trailer from a Sony State of Play. “Frey’s traversal abilities are impressive, allowing for fast movement in and out of combat, both in aerial and aquatic situations,” it reads.

To recap then, Forspoken’s newest trailer included a truncated quote of someone describing one of its older trailers. Game Informer’s actual review gave the game a 7.5 out of 10. It did not include the word impressive, instead describing main protagonist Frey’s overall adventure as “[not] without its highlights.”

Game Informer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Lieu told Kotaku that the intent of the video wasn’t to claim that he thinks the game is or will be bad, but rather that the misleading framing heavily implies that Square Enix wasn’t confident enough in the game to let it stand on its own without the bogus accolades.

“They could be entirely wrong taking this approach and the game is actually good, or has merits they could be focusing on instead of looking for quotes,” he said. “So I think it says more about the people in charge of marketing the game than it does the game itself.”

Companies relying on misleading quotes from critics and review outlets is nothing new. Sometimes they remove the original context. Sometimes they just search for any source, whether it’s reputable or not, that says your game is awesome. Almost always the accolades themselves are in giant fonts while the publications they’re pulled from are too small to read unless you’re taking time to analyze them in a TikTok video like Lieu.

As a point of comparison, he also shared two Forpsoken trailers that make the game look appealing without resorting to lies. The first was a trailer for the demo released last month. The second was a recut of an existing social media trailer that was repeatedly roasted online for its Joss Whedon-style fourth-wall-breaking dialogue.

“The real problem isn’t the narration at all, it’s that they don’t lean hard enough into the tone the narration should be selling and i know that because i proved it just now to be sure,” wrote Twitter user spellbang who took the same ingredients but remixed them in a way that looked much cooler while retaining the sensibility of the original.

The artistry behind making a good video game trailer aside, lying is bad and companies shouldn’t do that. It’s bad enough when a trailer full of pre-baked footage masks, say, how poorly a game actually runs. It’s even worse, though, when companies go out of their way to try and rope independent media outlets into their deceit. Publishers are supposed to get permission before using other people’s quotes in their marketing, and to be transparent about how they will be used.

Square Enix did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

               



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Sex pills, designer clothes found in mafia boss Messina Denaro’s hideout

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  • Messina Denaro caught after 30 years on the run
  • Apartment found in Western Sicilian town
  • Doctor who prescribed cancer treatment under investigation

PALERMO, Italy, Jan 17 (Reuters) – Perfumes, designer clothes and sex pills were found on Tuesday in an apartment which investigators believe was the last hideout of Sicilian mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, judicial sources said, a day after the arrest of the fugitive.

Messina Denaro, 60, caught on Monday at a private hospital in Palermo after 30 years on the run, is being held in the central Italian city of L’Aquila, the Palermo prosecutor said. He was transferred from Sicily on the day of his arrest.

The apartment is in an a modest building near the centre of Campobello di Mazara, a town in the Western Sicilian province of Trapani, just a few kilometres from Messina Denaro’s home town of Castelvetrano.

Investigators found clothes, shoes, a well-stocked fridge and restaurant receipts there, judicial sources said. They also found potency pills.

“He had a regular life, he went to the supermarket,” said magistrate Paolo Guido, one the officials investigating Messina Denaro.

Neighbours described him as a friendly person.

“I live on the first floor of the building, sometimes I have seen this person, greeted him and nothing else. He responded in a cordial manner,” Rosario Cognata told Italian media.

[1/5] Carabinieri police stand guard near the hideout of Matteo Messina Denaro, Italy’s most wanted mafia boss, after he was arrested, in the Sicilian town of Campobello di Mazara, Italy, January 17, 2023. REUTERS/Antonio Parrinello

TASTE FOR LUXURY

Messina Denaro was known for his taste for luxury goods, including designer clothes and expensive sunglasses. Police said he was wearing a watch worth 35,000 euros ($38,000) when he was arrested.

Messina Denaro is believed to have lived in the apartment for the past year, judicial sources said, but police are still searching for other places where he might have spent time.

Investigators believe Messina Denaro was driven on Monday to Palermo’s La Maddalena hospital from Campobello di Mazara to be treated for cancer. The town was home to his alleged aide Giovanni Luppino, who was arrested with him.

Police placed under investigation medical doctor Alfonso Tumbarello on suspicion of aiding and abetting the mafia boss, judicial sources said, because he attended to Messina Denaro, who was undergoing anti-cancer treatment under a false name.

The sources said he gave the name of Andrea Bonafede, who was the owner of the apartment Messina Denaro was living in, and who is also under investigation.

Nicknamed “‘U Siccu” (The Skinny One), Messina Denaro picked up 20 life prison terms in trials held in absentia for his role in an array of mob murders, including the bomb attacks that killed anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992.

Despite his illness, prosecutors said Messina Denaro was fit enough to serve time in prison where he will carry on with his cancer treatment.($1 = 0.9232 euros)

Additional reporting by Angelo Amante and Alvise Armellini in Rome
Writing by Angelo Amante
Editing by Keith Weir and Tomasz Janowski

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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After 30 years, Italy arrests mafia boss Messina Denaro at Sicilian hospital

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  • Cosa Nostra boss captured after 30 years
  • Detained at private hospital in Palermo
  • Convicted for his part in killing anti-mafia prosecutors

PALERMO, Italy, Jan 16 (Reuters) – Italy’s most wanted mafia boss, Matteo Messina Denaro, was arrested by armed police at a private hospital in Sicily on Monday, where the man who has been on the run since 1993 was being treated for cancer.

Nicknamed “Diabolik” and “‘U Siccu” (The Skinny One), Messina Denaro had been sentenced in absentia to a life term for his role in the 1992 murders of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, crimes that shocked the nation and sparked a crackdown on Cosa Nostra.

Messina Denaro, 60, was led away from Palermo’s “La Maddalena” hospital by two uniformed carabinieri police and bundled into a waiting black minivan. He was wearing a brown fur-lined jacket, glasses and a brown and white woolly hat.

Judicial sources said he was being treated for cancer and had an operation last year, followed by a series of appointments under a false name.

“We had a clue to the investigation and followed it through to today’s arrest,” Palermo prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia said.

Magistrate Paolo Guido, who was also in charge of investigations into Messina Denaro, said dismantling his network of protectors was key in reaching the result following years of work.

A second man who had driven Messina Denaro to the hospital was arrested at the scene on suspicion of aiding a fugitive.

Images on social media showed locals applauding and shaking hands with police in balaclavas as the minivan carrying Messina Denaro was driven away from the suburban hospital to a secret location.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni travelled to Sicily to congratulate police chiefs after the arrest.

“We have not won the war, we have not defeated the mafia but this battle was a key battle to win, and it is a heavy blow to organised crime,” she said.

Maria Falcone, sister of the murdered judge, echoed that sentiment.

A screengrab taken from a video shows Matteo Messina Denaro the country’s most wanted mafia boss after he was arrested in this handout photo obtained by Reuters on January 16, 2023. Carabinieri/Handout via REUTERS

“It proves that mafiosi, despite their delusions of omnipotence, are ultimately doomed to defeat in the conflict with the democratic state,” she said.

FAST CARS, FLASHY CLOTHES

Messina Denaro comes from the town of Castelvetrano near Trapani in western Sicily, and is the son of a mafia boss.

Police said last September that he was still able to issue commands relating to the way the mafia was run in the area around Trapani, his regional stronghold.

Before he went into hiding, he was known for driving expensive cars and his taste for wearing finely tailored suits and Rolex watches.

He faces a life sentence for his role in bomb attacks in Florence, Rome and Milan that killed 10 people in 1993 and is accused by prosecutors of being solely or jointly responsible for numerous other murders in the 1990s.

In 1993 he helped organise the kidnapping of a 12-year-old boy, Giuseppe Di Matteo, in an attempt to dissuade his father from giving evidence against the mafia, prosecutors say. The boy was held in captivity for two years before he was strangled and his body dissolved in acid.

The arrest comes almost 30 years to the day since police arrested Salvatore “Toto” Riina, the Sicilian Mafia’s most powerful boss of the 20th century. He eventually died in jail in 2017, having never broken his code of silence.

“It is an extraordinary event, of historic significance,” said Gian Carlo Caselli, who was a prosecutor in Palermo at the time of Riina’s arrest.

Despite the euphoria, Italy still faces a struggle to rein in organised crime groups whose tentacles stretch far and wide.

Experts say that Cosa Nostra has been usurped by the ‘Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia, as the most powerful organised crime group in Italy.

“There is a sense that the Sicilian Mafia is not as strong as it used to be, especially since the 90s, they have really been unable to enter the drug market and so they are really second-fiddle to the ‘Ndrangheta on that,” said Federico Varese, Professor of Criminology at Oxford University.

additional reporting by Angelo Amante and Alvise Armellini, writing by Keith Weir and Cristina Carlevaro, editing by Gavin Jones, Nick Macfie and Alex Richardson

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At least 64 killed in Nepal’s worst air crash in 30 years

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KATHMANDU, Jan 15 (Reuters) – At least 64 people were killed on Sunday when a domestic flight crashed in Pokhara in Nepal, the small Himalayan country’s worst air crash in three decades.

Hundreds of rescue workers were scouring the hillside where the Yeti Airlines flight, carrying 72 people from the capital Kathmandu, went down.

Local TV showed rescue workers scrambling around broken sections of the aircraft. Some of the ground near the crash site was scorched, with licks of flames visible.

“We have sent 31 bodies to the hospital and are still taking out 33 bodies from the gorge,” said police official Ajay K.C., adding that rescue workers were having difficulty reaching the site in a gorge between two hills near the tourist town’s airport.

Reuters Graphics

The crash is Nepal’s deadliest since 1992, the Aviation Safety Network database showed, when a Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A300 crashed into a hillside upon approach to Kathmandu, killing all 167 people on board.

The plane made contact with the airport from Seti Gorge at 10:50 a.m. (0505 GMT), the aviation authority said in a statement. “Then it crashed.”

“Half of the plane is on the hillside,” said Arun Tamu, a local resident, who told Reuters he reached the site minutes after the plane went down. “The other half has fallen into the gorge of the Seti river.”

Khum Bahadur Chhetri said he watched from the roof of his house as the flight approached.

“I saw the plane trembling, moving left and right, and then suddenly its nose dived and it went into the gorge,” Chhetri told Reuters, adding that local residents took two passengers to a hospital.

The government has set up a panel to investigate the cause of the crash and it is expected to report within 45 days, the finance minister, Bishnu Paudel, told reporters.

SERIES OF CRASHES

At least 309 people have died since 2000 in plane or helicopter crashes in Nepal – home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Everest – where sudden weather changes can make for hazardous conditions.

The European Union has banned Nepali airlines from its airspace since 2013, citing safety concerns.

Those on the twin-engine ATR 72 aircraft included two infants and four crew members, said airline spokesman Sudarshan Bartaula.

The journey to Pokhara, Nepal’s second largest city tucked under the picturesque Annapurna mountain range, from the capital Kathmandu is one of the Himalayan country’s most popular tourist routes, with many preferring a short flight instead of a six-hour-long drive through hilly roads.

The weather on Sunday was clear, said Jagannath Niroula, spokesman for Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority.

Passengers included five Indians, four Russians and one Irish, two South Korean, one Australian, one French and one Argentine national.

The ATR72 of European planemaker ATR is a widely used twin engine turboprop plane manufactured by a joint venture of Airbus (AIR.PA) and Italy’s Leonardo (LDOF.MI). Yeti Airlines has a fleet of six ATR72-500 planes, according to its website.

“ATR specialists are fully engaged to support both the investigation and the customer,” the company said on Twitter, adding that its first thoughts were for those affected, after having been informed of the accident.

Airbus and Leonardo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Flight tracking website FlightRadar24 said on Twitter the Yeti Airlines aircraft was 15 years old and equipped with an old transponder with unreliable data.

“We are downloading high-resolution data and verifying the data quality,” it said.

On its website, Yeti describes itself as a leading domestic carrier. Its fleet consists of six ATR 72-500s, including the one that crashed. It also owns Tara Air, and the two together offer the “widest network” in Nepal, the company says.

Reporting by Gopal Sharma; Additional reporting by Jamie Freed; Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal and Aditya Kalra; Editing by William Mallard and Susan Fenton

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Cardinal Pell lies in state, funeral plans overshadowed by memo revelation

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VATICAN CITY, Jan 13 (Reuters) – Australian Cardinal George Pell was lying in state on Friday, with funeral preparations overshadowed by revelations that he was the author of an anonymous memo that branded Pope Francis’ pontificate a catastrophe.

Pell’s closed dark brown wooden coffin was placed on the floor of the small church of St. Stephen of the Abyssinians, inside the Vatican walls just metres (yards) away from the Santa Marta residence where Francis lives.

Early on Friday, a reporter saw about 20 people kneeling in prayer in the church when it opened for 10 hours of lying in state.

Pell, 81, who spent more than a year in jail before being acquitted of sexual abuse allegations in his native Australia, died on Tuesday night in a Rome hospital of heart failure.

The small church, which is normally used for baptisms and weddings, is one of the oldest in the Vatican. Parts of it date back to the fifth century and it is one of the few structures not demolished to make way for the building of the current St. Peter’s Basilica, which began in the early 16th century.

His funeral is due to take place on Saturday just across the road in St. Peter’s.

In keeping with tradition for deceased cardinals, the Mass will be said by the dean of the College of Cardinals, currently Italian Giovanni Battista Re, and the pope will give the final blessing and commendation.

His surprise death of cardiac arrest during what was expected to be routine hip replacement surgery was followed by another shock the next day.

Last year, respected Italian journalist Sandro Magister, who has a long track record of receiving leaked Vatican documents, published an anonymous memo circulating in the Vatican condemning Pope Francis’ papacy as a “catastrophe”.

Magister disclosed on his widely read blog Settimo Cielo (Seventh Heaven) that it was Pell who wrote the memo and gave him permission to publish it under the pseudonym “Demos” – Greek for populace. It included what the author said should be the qualities of the next pope.

“Everyone here is talking about it,” said one Vatican official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The official said he did not doubt that Pell was the author but said the revelation should have been held back until after his funeral “out of respect for the dead”.

Father Joseph Hamilton, Pell’s personal secretary, declined to comment on Magister’s report and Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said he had no comment.

Pell will be buried in the crypt at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, where he served as archbishop, the Australian Church has announced.

Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Nick Macfie

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Benedict’s death clears path for Pope Francis to retire of old age in future

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VATICAN CITY, Jan 3 (Reuters) – Six months ago Pope Francis brushed off speculation he was about to resign due to health problems, but even if he had toyed with the idea, he faced one major obstacle: there was already another ex-pope in retirement.

The death on Saturday of Benedict, who in 2013 became the first pontiff in 600 years to step down instead of reigning for life, should make any decision to step down easier on Francis and the Church, which has struggled enough with having “two popes”, let alone three – two retired and one reigning.

It could also prompt the current pontiff to review what happens to future popes who decide to shuffle away from office because of old age rather than holding on until they die.

Francis is now 86, one year older than Benedict was when he retired. Despite needing a cane and a wheelchair, he shows no sign of slowing down. Trips are planned for Africa this month and Portugal in August.

He has made it clear that he would not hesitate to step down someday if his mental or physical health impeded him from leading the 1.3 billion-member Church.

In an interview with Reuters on July 2, he dismissed rumours of imminent resignation. “It never entered my mind,” he said, also denying rumours among diplomats that he had cancer.

The previous month, the Catholic media world and some secular outlets were caught up in a frenzy of unsubstantiated reports and frivolous tweets speculating he would be out within a few months.

But as he now approaches the 10th anniversary of his election in March, and in four years his life’s ninth decade, the chances of resignation will increase.

Church law says a pope can resign but the decision must be without outside pressure, a precaution that harkens back to the centuries when European potentates influenced the papacy.

NO LONGER UNTHINKABLE

[1/2] Pope Francis leads the Mass to mark the World Day of Peace in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, January 1, 2023. Vatican Media/­Handout via REUTERS

Now that longer life spans have made papal resignations no longer unthinkable, there have been repeated calls from Church leaders to regulate the role of former pontiffs, in part because of the confusion stemming wrought by two men wearing white living in the Vatican.

Francis told a Spanish newspaper last month that he did not intend to define the juridical status of popes emeritus, although he had previously indicated privately that a Vatican department could script such rules.

Australian Cardinal George Pell, a conservative who was close to Benedict, has written that while a retired pontiff could retain the title of “pope emeritus”, he should return to being a cardinal, and be known as “Cardinal (surname), Pope Emeritus”.

Pell also said a former pontiff should not wear white, as Benedict did, telling Reuters in a 2020 interview that it was important for Catholics to be clear that “there is only one pope”.

Academics and canon lawyers at Italy’s Bologna University who have studied the issue say the Church cannot risk even the appearance of having “two heads or two kings” and have proposed a set of rules.

They say a former pope should not return to being a cardinal, as Pell proposes, but be called “Bishop Emeritus of Rome”.

Francis told Reuters in July that is precisely what he would want to be called.

In that case there might not be any need for new legislation he would then be subject to existing rules covering retired bishops.

Existing rules say bishops emeritus should “avoid every attitude and relationship that could even hint at some kind of parallel authority to that of the diocesan bishop, with damaging consequences for the pastoral life and unity of the diocesan community”.

Although he had retired, Benedict wrote, gave interviews and, unwittingly or not, became a lightning rod for opponents of Pope Francis, either for doctrinal reasons or because they were loath to relinquish the clerical privileges the new pope wanted to dismantle.

Francis told Reuters that he would not stay in the Vatican or return to his native Argentina but live modestly in a home for retired priests in the Italian capital “because it’s my diocese”. He said he would want it to be near a large church so he could spend his final days hearing confessions.

Reporting by Philip Pullella
Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Tens of thousands view body of former Pope Benedict

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VATICAN CITY, Jan 2 (Reuters) – A steady stream of tens of thousands of people filed into St. Peter’s Basilica on Monday to pay their respects to former Pope Benedict XVI, whose body was laying in state without any papal paraphernalia ahead of his funeral this week.

Benedict, a hero to conservative Catholics who yearned for a return to a more traditional Church, died on Saturday at the age of 95 in the secluded Vatican monastery where he had lived since 2013, when he became the first pope in 600 years to resign.

“I feel like he was a grandfather to us,” Veronica Siegal, 16, a Catholic high school student from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who is in Rome for a programme of religious study, told Reuters in St. Peter’s Square after viewing the body.

She said she had read one of Benedict’s books on Jesus for one of her courses.

“I know that he is in a better place because he was a holy man and he led so well,” said her classmate, Molly Foley, also 16, from Atlanta, Georgia. A third girl in the group wore an American flag on her back.

Security was tight, with visitors going through several check points before entering the basilica. Many stopped to pray after viewing the body or stayed to attend Mass in side chapels.

Vatican police said that 65,000 people had filed past on the first day.

Benedict’s body, dressed in red and gold liturgical vestments and placed on a simple dais, was moved in a procession just before dawn through the Vatican Gardens from the monastery to a spot in front of the main altar of Christendom’s largest Church.

Two Swiss Guards stood at attention on either side of the body, which bore no papal insignia or regalia, such as a crosier, the silver staff with a crucifix, or a pallium, a band of cloth worn around the neck worn by archdiocesan bishops.

Both were on Pope John Paul’s body when it lay in state in 2005.

[1/17] Faithful pay homage to former Pope Benedict, as his body lies in state at St. Peter’s Basilica, at the Vatican, January 3, 2023. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

It was not clear if the pastoral cross or any other items he used will be buried with him but the decision not to have them during the public viewing appeared to have been decided to underscore that he no longer was pope when he died.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said Benedict will be buried according to his wishes in the same spot in the crypts under St. Peter’s Basilica where Pope John Paul II was originally interred in 2005 before his body was moved up to a chapel in the basilica in 2011.

ITALY’S LEADERS PAY RESPECTS

Before the Church was opened to the public, Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Georgia Meloni were the first outsiders to pay their respects.

Benedict’s closest aide, Archbishop Georg Ganswein, sat in the first pew to the side of the body along with Benedict’s household and medics who looked after him in his final days.

After a few hours, they rose to pray before the body. Ganswein stayed behind to receive condolences from visitors.

“I had to come,” Sri, a woman visiting from Jakarta, Indonesia, told Reuters. “He was the pope and I am a Catholic,” she said, declining to give her surname.

Benedict will lie in state until Wednesday evening. His funeral will be held on Thursday in St Peter’s Square and be presided over by Pope Francis. The Vatican has said it will be a simple, solemn and sober ceremony in keeping with Benedict’s wishes.

The Vatican has painstakingly elaborate rituals for what happens after a reigning pope dies but none for a former pope, so what happens in the next few days could become the template for future ex-popes.

Bruni said the details of the funeral Mass were not yet completed.

While the number of visitors was large, there were no signs of the huge crowds who came to pay their respects to Pope John Paul II, when millions waited for hours to enter the basilica.

Reporting by Philip Pullella, Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Nick Macfie

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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China state media plays down COVID wave severity before WHO meet

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  • State media says severe illness from COVID is rare
  • Chinese scientists expected to brief WHO
  • China factory activity shrinks in December

BEIJING, Jan 3 (Reuters) – China’s state media played down the severity on Tuesday of the COVID-19 wave surging over the country, with its scientists expected to give a briefing to the World Health Organization on the evolution of the virus later in the day.

China’s abrupt U-turn on COVID controls on Dec. 7, as well as the accuracy of its case and mortality data, have come under increasing scrutiny at home and overseas and prompted some countries to impose travel curbs.

The policy shift followed protests over the “zero COVID” approach championed by President Xi Jinping, marking the strongest show of public defiance in his decade-old presidency and coinciding with the slowest growth in China in nearly half a century.

As the virus spreads unchecked, funeral parlours report a spike in demand for their services and international health experts predict at least one million deaths in the world’s most populous country this year.

China reported three new COVID deaths for Monday, up from one for Sunday. Its official death toll since the pandemic began now stands at 5,253.

In an article on Tuesday, People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, cited several Chinese experts as saying the illness caused by the virus was relatively mild for most people.

“Severe and critical illnesses account for 3% to 4% of infected patients currently admitted to designated hospitals in Beijing,” Tong Zhaohui, Vice President of Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, told the newspaper.

Kang Yan, head of West China Tianfu Hospital of Sichuan University, said that in the past three weeks, a total of 46 critically ill patients have been admitted to intensive care units, accounting for about 1% of symptomatic infections.

More than 80% of those living in the southwestern Sichuan province have been infected, local health authorities said.

The World Health Organization on Friday urged China’s health officials to regularly share specific and real-time information on the COVID situation.

The agency has invited Chinese scientists to present detailed data on viral sequencing at a meeting of a technical advisory group scheduled for Tuesday. It has also asked China to share data on hospitalizations, deaths and vaccinations.

The European Union has offered free COVID vaccines to China to help contain the outbreak, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

EU government health officials will hold talks on Wednesday on a coordinated response to China’s outbreak, the Swedish EU presidency said on Monday.

The United States, France, Australia, India and others will require mandatory COVID tests on travellers from China, while Belgium said it will test wastewater from planes from China for new COVID variants.

China has rejected criticism of its COVID data and said any new mutations may be more infectious but less harmful.

“According to the political logic of some people in Europe and the United States, whether China opens or does not open is equally the wrong thing to do,” state-run CCTV said in a commentary late on Monday.

ECONOMIC CONCERNS

As Chinese workers and shoppers are falling ill, concerns mount about growth prospects in the world’s second-largest economy, weighing on Asian stocks.

Data on Tuesday showed China’s factory activity shrank at a sharper pace in December as the COVID wave disrupted production and hurt demand.

December shipments from Foxconn’s (2317.TW) Zhengzhou iPhone plant, disrupted late last year by a COVID outbreak that prompted worker departures and unrest, were 90% of the firm’s initial plans, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said.

A “bushfire” of infections in China in coming months is likely to hurt its economy this year and drag on global growth, said the head of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva.

“China is entering the most dangerous weeks of the pandemic,” warned analysts at Capital Economics.

“The authorities are making almost no efforts now to slow the spread of infections and, with the migration ahead of Lunar New Year getting started, any parts of the country not currently in a major COVID wave will be soon.”

Mobility data suggested that economic activity was depressed nationwide and would likely remain so until the infection wave began to subside, they added.

China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism said the domestic tourism market saw 52.71 million trips during the New Year holiday, flat year-on-year and only 43% of the 2019 levels, before the pandemic.

The revenue generated was over 26.52 billion yuan ($3.84 billion), up 4% year-on-year but only about 35% of the revenue created in 2019, the ministry said.

Expectations are higher for China’s biggest holiday, the Lunar New Year, later this month, when some experts expect daily COVID cases to have already peaked in many parts of the country. Some hotels in the southern tourist resort of Sanya are fully booked for the period, Chinese media reported.

Reporting by Beijing and Shanghai bureaus; Writing by Marius Zaharia; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan

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Rituals for Benedict’s passing could be template for future ex popes

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VATICAN CITY, Dec 30 (Reuters) – When Pope Gregory XII, the last pope to resign before Benedict, died in 1417, the world was not watching.

Gregory had stepped down two years earlier in 1415 and spent his remaining days in virtual obscurity hundreds of miles from Rome. He was quietly buried in Recanati, a town near the northern Adriatic coast.

It will be vastly different with the passing of ailing 95-year-old Benedict.

The Vatican has painstakingly elaborate rituals for what happens after a reigning pope dies but no publicly known ones for a former pope. It will be at least partially scripting new protocols. They could be a template for other popes who choose to resign instead of ruling for life, including Pope Francis himself someday, Vatican sources say.

Those for a reigning pope include a 30-page constitution called “Universi Dominici Gregis,” Latin for “The Shepherd of the Lord’s Whole Flock,” and “Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis,” (Funeral Rites for a Roman Pontiff) a missal of more than 400 pages that includes liturgy, music, and prayers.

Those rules say a pope’s burial should take place between four and six days after his death as part of a nine-day period of mourning known as the Novendiale.

Vatican officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss such matters, said the script for Benedict’s passing would depend on two key elements: If Benedict himself left any instructions and decisions that will be taken by Pope Francis.

SOLEMN FAREWELL

Francis has often praised his predecessor as a great pope who had the courage to resign, so he would probably like to give Benedict the most solemn ceremonial farewell as possible, perhaps even the whole works, one Vatican official said.

The last pope to die, John Paul II, was buried on April 8, 2005, six days after he died. His body first laid in state in the frescoed Clementine Hall for Vatican staff and then was moved to St. Peter’s Basilica for viewing by the public.

Millions of people queued up for hours to see him, in perhaps the biggest event in Vatican history, and monarchs and presidents attended his funeral.

He was first buried in crypts under St. Peter’s Basilica and moved in 2011 to a chapel on the main level of the largest church in Christendom.

Many people would want to pay their respects to Benedict, who succeeded John Paul in 2005 an resigned in 2013, so a period of lying in state would be likely, the sources said.

In 2020, Benedict’s authorised biographer, Peter Seewald, was quoted as telling Bavarian newspaper Passauer Neue Presse that the emeritus pope had prepared a spiritual testament stating that he wanted to be buried in the same crypt where John Paul II was originally laid to rest.

Benedict, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, presided at John Paul’s funeral in 2005 in St. Peter’s Square and Francis is expected to preside at Benedict’s.

After the death of a reigning pope, the person in charge of ordinary affairs at the Vatican until the election of a new pope is the camerlengo, or chamberlain.

The position is currently held by Irish-American Cardinal Kevin Farrell but because the Church has a pope and there will be no conclave to elect another, Farrell would have no role.

Most of the work, including the scripting of an unprecedented event in Vatican history, will fall to Monsignor Diego Ravelli, the papal master of ceremonies.

Reporting by Philip Pullella
Editing by Tomasz Janowski

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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World

COVID travel curbs against Chinese visitors ‘discriminatory’ -state media

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  • U.S., Japan, others require COVID tests from Chinese visitors
  • China state media calls COVID travel curbs “discriminatory”
  • China’s factory activity likely cooled in December -poll

BEIJING, Dec 30 (Reuters) – Chinese state-media said COVID-19 testing requirements imposed around the world in response to a surging wave of infections were “discriminatory”, in the clearest pushback yet against restrictions that are slowing down its re-opening.

Having kept its borders all but shut for three years, imposing a strict regime of lockdowns and relentless testing, China abruptly reversed course toward living with the virus on Dec. 7, and a wave of infections erupted across the country.

Some places have been taken aback by the scale of China’s outbreak and expressed scepticism over Beijing’s COVID statistics, with the United States, South Korea, India, Italy, Japan and Taiwan imposing COVID tests for travellers from China.

Malaysia said it would screen all international arrivals for fever.

“The real intention is to sabotage China’s three years of COVID-19 control efforts and attack the country’s system,” state-run tabloid Global Times said in an article late on Thursday, calling the restrictions “unfounded” and “discriminatory.”

China will stop requiring inbound travellers to go into quarantine from Jan. 8. But it will still demand a negative PCR test result within 48 hours before departure.

Italy on Thursday urged the rest of the European Union to follow its lead, but France, Germany and Portugal have said they saw no need for new restrictions, while Austria has stressed the economic benefits of Chinese tourists’ return to Europe.

Global spending by Chinese visitors was worth more than $250 billion a year before the pandemic.

The United States have raised concerns about potential mutations of the virus as it sweeps through the world’s most populous country, as well as over China’s data transparency.

The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention is considering sampling wastewater from international aircraft to track any emerging new variants, the agency told Reuters.

China, a country of 1.4 billion people, reported one new COVID death for Thursday, same as the day before – numbers which do not match the experience of other countries after they re-opened.

China’s official death toll of 5,247 since the pandemic began compares with more than 1 million deaths in the United States. Chinese-ruled Hong Kong, a city of 7.4 million, has reported more than 11,000 deaths.

UK-based health data firm Airfinity said on Thursday around 9,000 people in China are probably dying each day from COVID. Cumulative deaths in China since Dec. 1 have likely reached 100,000, with infections totalling 18.6 million, it said.

‘EXCESS MORTALITY’

China’s chief epidemiologist Wu Zunyou said on Thursday that a team at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention will measure the difference between the number of deaths in the current wave of infections and the number of deaths expected had the epidemic never happened. By calculating the “excess mortality”, China will be able to work out what could have been potentially underestimated, Wu said.

China has said it only counts deaths of COVID patients caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure as COVID-related.

The relatively low death count is also inconsistent with the surging demand reported by funeral parlours in several Chinese cities.

The lifting of restrictions, after widespread protests against them in November, has overwhelmed hospitals and funeral homes across the country, with scenes of people on intravenous drips by the roadside and lines of hearses outside crematoria fuelling public concern.

Health experts say China has been caught ill-prepared by the U-turn in policies long championed by President Xi Jinping.

In December, tenders put out by hospitals for key equipment such as ventilators and patient monitors were two to three times higher than in previous months, according to a Reuters review，suggesting hospitals were scrambling to plug shortages.

Experts say the elderly in rural areas may be particularly vulnerable because of inadequate medical resources. Next month’s Lunar New Year festival, when hundreds of millions travel to their hometowns, will add to the risk.

ECONOMIC WOES

The world’s second-largest economy is expected to slow down further in the near term as factory workers and shoppers fall ill. Some economists predict a strong bounce back from a low base next year, but concerns linger that some of the damage made by three years of restrictions could be long-term.

Consumers may need time to recover their confidence and spending appetite after losing income during lockdowns, while the private sector may have used its expansion funds to cover losses incurred due to the restrictions.

Heavily indebted China will also face slowing demand in its main export markets, while its massive property sector is licking its wounds after a series of defaults.

China’s factory activity most likely cooled in December as rising infections began to affect production lines, a Reuters poll showed on Friday.

Chinese airlines, however, look set to be the early winners of the re-opening.

Writing by Marius Zaharia. Editing by Gerry Doyle

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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