Category World News

In many Asian nations and their eponymous diasporas all over the world, the Lunar New Year or the Chinese New Year is a significant holiday.

The Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival, is a roughly two-week celebration marking the start of the Chinese calendar year, which falls on Wednesday this year.

Each Chinese New Year revolves around a 12-year cycle and is associated with an animal in the Chinese zodiac, which is then paired with any one of the five elements: metal, wood, water, fire and earth.

The wood snake’s year began this new year.

While its namesake is used to refer to Chinese customs in countries like Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore, other countries like Vietnam and the Korean Peninsula have entirely different names for their Lunar New Year celebrations.

How is the Chinese New Year celebrated?

In order to clear any negative luck from the previous year, households are thoroughly cleaned the days leading up to the new year.

This cleaning is thought to bring good fortune for the upcoming year. Decorations also go up, including lanterns, paper cuttings and fresh paint – all in a bright red colour, which invites good luck as well.

On the eve of the new year, family reunion dinners are held.

Homes are filled with people coming home with gifts, oranges, and red envelopes filled with small amounts of money, known as ang pao or hongbao, for the young people as the new year begins.

Greetings and well wishes are exchanged, including the more common Chinese-language phrases Gong Xi Fa Cai, and Xin Nian Kuai Le, which roughly translate to happiness, peace and prosperity for the upcoming days.

According to Yvonne Goh, a Malaysian of Chinese descent, some people avoid sweeping their homes or cutting their hair and nails in the first few days out of fear of losing good fortune brought on by visiting New Year’s snitchs.

The celebrations feature lion dances that traditionally bring good fortune and ward off evil spirits in homes, businesses, and places of employment.

The first day of the Chinese New Year was traditionally reserved for daughters to visit their parents, while married women were typically expected to spend the day with their in-laws.

The fourth and fifth days are dedicated to the God of Wealth, while the third day is anticipated to be quieter and restful. People reportedly get rid of old or unneeded items on the sixth day of the festivities and resume employment.

On the seventh day, China’s mother goddess Nuwa is believed to have created humans.

Koreans celebrate ‘ Seollal’, Vietnamese mark ‘ Tet ‘

The Korean New Year (Seollal) and the Vietnamese New Year (Tet) are also celebrated, in their own unique ways.

Three days of celebrations traditionally center on family gatherings, Korean traditional food, and rituals. For South and North Koreans alike, this will be the year of the green snake, believed to bring transformation, growth and development.

The sebae, a deep bow of respect performed by younger generations to their elders as a way to wish them a happy new year, is one of the more important aspects of the Korean festivities.

Traditional hanbok costumes are typically worn during the sebae. Elders give younger people cash in the form of sebaetdon, or sebaetdon, as gifts.

Worshipping ancestors, known as charye, is also an important part of the new year. Deep bows are made as a sign of respect and food is distributed among the ancestors on a table.

Other dishes like Korean dumplings and rice cake soup, or tteokguk, are also served alongside them. The tteokguk occupies a special place on the dining table because it is only served once per year, according to theories that eating it would make a person one year older.

Instead of the traditional 15 days of the Chinese New Year, Tet, or Tet Nguyen Dan, is celebrated over three days.

Offices and businesses shut down for seven to nine days during Tet, one of Vietnam’s most significant holidays, during which time it lasts.

Prioritizing resting before the new year’s ring, spending time with family, and honoring ancestors, praying to God, and doing so in Vietnamese culture.

Before Tet, Vietnamese people observe Ong Cong, the day of the Kitchen God, a deity believed to govern the family’s affairs. On this day, family altars to ancestors are cleaned, new offerings are put out, and incense is burned.

Wrapping of the Chung cake, also called the Tet cake, cleaning and decorating homes with kumquats, peach blossoms and apricot blossoms are also an integral part of preparations.

And families make offerings to the graves of their ancestors the day before Tet, and families prepare five fruit trays to be strewn out at the altar for the deceased.

The paternal side of the family typically has its celebrations on the first day, while the maternal side typically has the second day.

With the third day of the new year dedicated to honoring teachers, Vietnamese culture also values teachers highly.

Tibet’s ‘ Losar ‘ and Mongolia’s ‘ Tsagaan Sar ‘

Losar, which is the Tibetan monastic calendar’s new year, is observed on the same day as the Chinese New Year in Tibet and other parts of India with significant Tibetan Buddhist communities.

However, the dates are slightly different, with this year’s Losar set to be marked on February 28 and extending over a period of 15 days.

Traditional and religious rituals in monasteries and temples, cultural celebrations, and family gatherings over shared meals and presents are frequently used as observance of Losar.

According to the Mongolian lunisolar calendar, Mongolia will observe its new year, Tsagaan Sar, on March 1.

Arvind Agrawal, an Indian-born businessman based in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, has been providing stationery items throughout India for 40 years.

The city is currently hosting the Mahakumbh, often simply called the Kumbh, the world’s largest religious gathering of Hindus.

Callers asking for the prices of key rings, calendars, and diaries, all of which depict a Mahakumbh smart gimmick that has caused sales to rocket, appear on his mobile phone every few minutes.

Due to the high demand for our products, I haven’t slept for more than four to five hours at night for the past three months. Agrawal tells Al Jazeera that the shop is kept operational longer than the factory’s normal schedule for delivering orders.

The extra demand is going to boost his annual revenues of about $570, 000 to more than $660, 000, he says.

According to the planets’ alignment with the stars, the Mahakumbh is held every 12 years in four holy places in India, Prayagraj, Haridwar, Nashik, and Ujjain, on rotation. Hindus view the festival as an opportunity to cleanse their sins and seek spiritual retribution.

The festival is planned to commemorate the split of the amrit, the elixir of immortality, that fell on various locations in India as the gods guarded it from demons, according to mythological legends.

The Sangam event, which took place on the banks of the Ganges, Yamuna, and Saraswati Rivers in Prayagraj on January 13 and ended on February 26th, is expected to draw in tens of millions of Hindu devotees and saints.

The festival is being held on 10, 000 acres (4, 046 hectares) where makeshift tents have been constructed to accommodate monks and devotees.

Massive business opportunity

Apart from its spiritual importance, Mahakumbh is also a massive business opportunity for the city’s entrepreneurs, the government says. Over 400 million people are likely to visit the city during the 45-day festival to pray and take a bath in the Ganges.

The volume being hacked is staggering.

Local businesses will make close to $3 billion, according to Mahendra Goyal, president of the Confederation of All India Traders in Uttar Pradesh. According to state chief minister Yogi Adityanath, the festival is projected to bring in more than $2 trillion in revenue for the nation, according to the analysis of the 58-pound sum spent by each of the 400 million people who are expected to attend the event.

The state has placed hoardings up all over the state’s airports in addition to using social media influencers to promote the event.

According to Mukesh Kumar Meshram, principal secretary of the state Department of Tourism, “luxury cottages have been constructed, and the tour packages have been made for devotees coming to the Kumbh.”

The tourist boom has undoubtedly had an impact on some businesses. Ashish Mittal, 48, a businessman who sells paper cups and plates among other disposable items, claimed that his company has experienced rapid growth in recent days as a result of the demand from the numerous community kitchens that are regularly open to the public.

“Disposables are in huge demand. We usually do a turnover of 40 million rupees]$462, 086] every financial year, but we are expecting additional sales of 15 million rupees]$173, 282] due to the Mahakumbh”, Mittal told Al Jazeera.

Similarly, Vritti iMedia, a company that sells advertisement space on LED screens on moving vans, has snapped up multiple clients for the duration of the Mahakumbh.

“Our 25 display vans are moving through the festival area, catching millions of eyeballs,” said one witness. Because of its enormous scale, we anticipate earning four to five times as much money as the previous Kumbhs, says co-founder Rajesh Radhakrishnan.

The state government has pumped 70 billion rupees ($808.5m) into developing infrastructure, including water and waste management, and fixing roads and highways. The federal government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has chipped in close to $250m.

Senior state government officials tell Al Jazeera that the investment is also intended to draw investors because of the upgraded infrastructure.

According to KV Raju, economic adviser to the state chief minister, “the massive arrangements like building up 150, 000 tents, building state highways, improving the rail and air connectivity are meant to show to the investors that the government is not only capable of organizing such a mega event but also can create livelihood for several thousand people,” according to Raju.

Some economists, however, are sceptical of the government’s claim of generating $2 trillion from the event.

The majority of devotees who visit the Kumbh do so in groups, belong to the lower classes of society, and don’t even have $58 to spend on themselves, according to Sunil Kumar Sinha, an economist who was previously the chief economist at India Ratings, a Fitch company.

The government has to spend massively on their accommodation, safety and food for 45 days and that could outstrip the investment claimed publicly by the government, Sinha said.

Only those who are directly benefited by tourism and hospitality are true. There were no investments in other sectors, despite the fact that those with a focus on tourism received a portion of the business even in Ayodhya, where the grand Ram Temple was dedicated last year. He continued, “Events like the Mahakumbh are merely focused on showcasing the good governance of the government and nothing else.”

Despite all the arrangements, issues persist, and some devoted fans have complained that the fairground has not enough shelter for them.

“We are compelled to sleep with blankets we brought from our homes under the open sky in the chilling cold. Accommodation and food arrangements are not made. As eating out is very expensive in this country, we have prepared some dry food items, says homemaker Sunita Roy, 45, who traveled with a group from Indore, Madhya Pradesh, to the Mahakumbh.

Sayantan Mukherjee, a 25-year-old software engineer from Kolkata, said his main problem was the unhygienic toilets at the fairgrounds.

The government has made good progress with managing traffic and crowds, but the lack of sanitation and human waste is the main issue. It is impossible to even enter and stand there for a second, but they are the only option”, he said.

Soaring ticket prices are another issue.

Airfare to Prayagraj from cities like New Delhi and Kolkata is anywhere from 20, 000 to 35, 000 rupees ($230 to $405), many times the standard fare of under 7, 000 rupees ($81).

Democrats in the US Senate have obstructed the passage of a bill that would allow the International Criminal Court (ICC) to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes committed in Gaza.

The bill received 54 votes in favor and 45 opposed in the vote on Tuesday, which is below the 60 required for a final vote.

The bill would set a dangerous precedent in a time when the international legal order is increasingly important, according to experts from the UN, European officials, and the current and former presidents of the ICC’s management body.

However, many of the Democrats who voted against the measure still alleged that the court had issued warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant to bring unfair charges against Israel. Mohammed Deif, the leader of Hamas, is also on a warrant for his involvement in the southern Israeli attack on October 7, 2023.

The ICC has denied bias in its actions.

Speaking before the vote, Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Party leader in the Republican-controlled Senate, said the sanctions bill is “one I largely support and would like to see become law”.

The bill before us is poorly drafted and incredibly problematic, he said, arguing that the bill could hurt both US allies and businesses that deal with the court. “As much as I oppose the ICC bias against Israel, I want to see that institution drastically reformed and reshaped,

He demanded that Republicans revisit the negotiation table to change the legislation’s language.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican, said the targeting of a “close US ally should concern everyone.” He spoke on the floor in support of the bill.

“While the ICC is targeting Israelis today, it could easily set its sights on Americans”, he said.

Only one Democrat cast a ballot in favor of the legislation, Senator John Fetterman. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israel organization, praised him quickly.

The organization thanked Fetterman for his “principled pro-Israel leadership and for standing with Israel against the ICC’s baseless attacks” in a post on the social media platform X.

President Donald Trump has previously been harsh with the ICC and has imposed sanctions on its officials in 2020 due to concerns that it is looking into US military operations abroad.

Former President Joe Biden’s administration later reversed that decision, but Trump did so last week when he took office.

His move has so far been symbolic, as the reversal did not automatically re-impose the sanctions.

The “culture of impunity”

The Rome Statute, which established the ICC, was signed by neither Israel nor the US.

However, the court has argued that, because the alleged war crimes occurred in Gaza, Israeli officials could be held liable for their actions.

Since 2015, the State of Palestine has been an ICC member.

Similar arguments were made by the court when it issued arrest warrants for Russian officials for alleged abuses in Ukraine, which US officials at the time praised. Ukraine is a member of the ICC, but Russia is not.

In their prosecution of Netanyahu and Gallant, ICC prosecutors argued that Israeli restrictions on providing humanitarian aid to Gaza, including water and medicine, constituted starvation as a form of warfare.

The two Israeli officials are also accused of waging war crimes against civilians, including murder and persecution, and of directing attacks against them.

To date, Israel’s war in Gaza has killed 47, 354 Palestinians, while displacing nearly the entire population of the enclave. Since January 19, there has been a flimsy ceasefire.

Before both of the men were killed in Israeli strikes, the ICC also sought arrest warrants for Ismail Haniyeh, the country’s political leader, and Yahya Sinwar, its top leader in Gaza.

Earlier this month, UN experts called on the US Senate to reject the bill after it was passed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

The experts said it is shocking to see a nation that values itself as a proponent of the rule of law trying to thwart accountability by blocking the actions of an independent and impartial tribunal established by the international community.

They added that ICC threats “promote a culture of impunity.”

Current and former leaders of the Assembly of States Parties of the International Criminal Court, the body that oversees the court, warned that sanctions could “significantly impede” at least 20 investigations around the world in an article published by the Just Security website on Monday.

“While challenges remain, we are committed to the ICC’s vision of justice and its mandate to ensure that no one is above the law, regardless of power”, they wrote.

In a letter from his cousin, Donald Trump’s choice to lead the US Department of Health and Human Services has been described as a “predator.”

As members of the Senate considered the candidacy of her cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Caroline Kennedy, a former United States ambassador and the only surviving child of former president John F. Kennedy, wrote the letter on Tuesday.

Her son, Jack Schlossberg, later posted a video of her on social media, reading the letter aloud.

I feel an obligation to speak out now that Bobby has been chosen by President Trump to lead the charge of the health of the American people, she said.

After that, Kennedy explained how she thought her cousin Robert was “unqualified” for the position he is running for.

But, she warned, there are “personal qualities” she deemed to be of “even greater concern”.

“I’ve known Bobby my whole life”, she explained. “We grew up together. Because Bobby is a predator, it should come as no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets.

Ambassador Caroline Kennedy’s statement to the US Senate on RFKJr’s nomination for HHS Secretary

This is a reading of a letter she just sent to Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions

I’m so proud of my courageous mother, who’s lived a life of dignity, … pic. twitter.com/feysNA0Wwp

She alleges that, as a young man, Robert “encouraged” family members “down the path of substance abuse”, though he himself eventually recovered from addiction.

His “he always had his basement, his garage, and his dorm room at the forefront of the action, where drugs were readily available, and where he enjoyed demonstrating that he had blended his chickens and mice to feed his hawks,” Kennedy said. It frequently sounded like a scene of perverse desperation and violence.

Although Kennedy acknowledged that people can change as they get older, she maintained that Robert has continued to “lie and defraud his way through life.”

She warned he would continue to “profit and enrich himself” if appointed to President Trump’s second-term cabinet, in part by peddling “conspiratorial half-truths” against vaccinations.

“He’s always been charismatic, able to attract others through the strength of his personality, his willingness to take risks and break the rules”, she said.

But, she added, “Bobby preys on the desperation of parents of sick children, vaccinating his own kids while building a following, hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs”.

It was an unusually direct missive for Kennedy, who served in the administration of former President Barack Obama, a Democrat.

Former environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has since grown to be a political lightning rod, notably because of his advocacy of conspiracy theories that undermine vaccine safety and effectiveness.

In 2023, he launched a long-shot bid for the presidency, following in the footsteps of his famous family members, several of whom served in the White House.

His father and namesake, for example, had been assassinated during his 1968 presidential bid, after serving as US attorney general and in the Senate. Although his uncle was shot dead as well, he was also the 35th US president.

However, close family, including five of his siblings, have spoken out against Robert F Kennedy Jr’s White House ambitions.

In April 2024, 15 members of the Kennedy family endorsed President Joe Biden, who was a candidate at the time, in a public snub of Robert’s bid for the White House.

When Robert eventually suspended his campaign and threw his support behind Trump, five of his siblings also issued a public statement, calling the endorsement a “betrayal” of their father’s values.

Caroline Kennedy has less resolutely opposed Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign for higher office.

Shortly after his victory in November’s presidential election, Trump made good on a promise to nominate Robert to his cabinet. Prior to this, he had promised to “go wild” with his public health concerns.

Another former Obama official, David Axelrod, noted on Tuesday that it was unusual for Caroline Kennedy to speak out.

“It is noteworthy and significant that Caroline Kennedy, who is famously private about family matters, felt moved to issue this searing indictment of RFK Jr’s nomination”, Axelrod wrote on social media.

But it is unclear whether her letter will galvanise opposition to her cousin’s nomination.

After receiving complaints about allegations of sexual misconduct and alcohol abuse at work, veteran and former Fox News host Pete Hegseth was appointed head of the Department of Defense.

Hegseth had denied the allegations. But in the lead-up to his Senate confirmation vote, lawmakers received an affidavit from his sister-in-law, Danielle Hegseth, levying new accusations against the nominee.

She claimed Hegseth was “abusive” and made his second wife, Samantha, concerned for her safety.

Hegseth was ultimately confirmed to Trump’s cabinet on Friday evening. The Senate was split 50-50 over whether to approve Hegseth’s nomination, but Vice President JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote.

Al-Rashid Street, Gaza City, Palestine – There are many stories among the tens of thousands of people walking along Gaza’s al-Rashid Street, heading for the north.

A white man walks with tenacity alongside his family in the crowds. In one hand, he carries a blanket and a few meagre possessions. In the other, he holds onto his adult son, who has Down Syndrome.

Rifaat Jouda doesn’t pretend that he isn’t tired. He started his journey in the morning in southern Gaza, in Khan Younis’s al-Mawasi, where his family had been displaced for 15 months during Israel’s war on Gaza.

After a ceasefire broke out on January 19, Israel finally allowed Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip to travel north on Monday, making the goal of reaching Gaza City.

But it’s a long walk – some 30 kilometres (18.6 miles) along a coastal road – and Rifaat’s family were forced to stop to rest every hour.

“The journey has been exhausting and very difficult”, Rifaat tells Al Jazeera, after finally reaching Gaza City. “Despite that, we were determined to return”.

Now that he has returned home, Rifaat is unsure of his strategy. He claims that his physical home in northern Gaza City, which was attacked by Israelis in October, was destroyed.

“They]Rifaat’s contacts in Gaza City] say the situation is very difficult, with no water, no services, and widespread destruction”, Rifaat says. What difference, however, does it make? We are transforming from a challenging to a more difficult situation. What we have available will be rebuilt. But]making the journey to return] back has lifted our spirits and renewed our hope”.

Regretting displacement

Before the war began 15 months ago, the majority of Gaza’s population lived in the north, centred around the enclave’s biggest urban area, Gaza City. Israel has focused its attacks on that area, and it issued forced evacuation orders to people flee to “safe zones” in central and southern Gaza early in the conflict.

The majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people were displaced there, below a Netzarim corridor that Israel called the center of Gaza.

Although the destruction was sizable in the north, where 74 percent of Gaza City’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed during the war, the supposed safe havens were spared, and the areas people had fled were also devastated: Deir el-Balah’s Deir el-Balah’s buildings in Deir el-Balah’s buildings were damaged or destroyed in southern Gaza, where 55% of buildings were destroyed, and 48% of those

Palestinians were forced to flee from their homes by constant Israeli attacks, which resulted in at least 47,300 casualties throughout the conflict. Many people felt they should never have left Gaza City and the north in the first place.

“The days of displacement were the hardest and most exhausting”, Rifaat says. We have no way of seeing ourselves moving away from our homes and continuing our lives.

Anyone who sees these crowds is aware that no plans for forced displacement, regardless of what happens, will succeed, he adds, before suggesting that his family may be able to move back to Ashdod, a city north of Gaza but now in Israel, from where they were forcibly displaced in 1948 during the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” with the establishment of Israel.

Due to the Nakba in 1948, when at least 750 000 Palestinians were forced to leave their homes, displacement is a central theme for Palestinians. Many of the people who live in Gaza are refugees, and many of them have families in Israeli-occupied towns and villages. Many people regret ever leaving their homes in the north, especially after the events of the current Gaza war.

Sami al-Dabbagh, a 39-year-old returning to Sheikh Radwan in northern Gaza, claims he was relocated to various locations before making his home in central Gaza. The father-of-four, having walked on foot for hours, says he will never make the same mistake again.

“We will never repeat the experience of displacement, no matter what happens”, al-Dabbagh says.

It’s a sentiment shared by another man travelling up to northern Gaza, Radwan al-Ajoul.

“Displacement has taught us never to leave our homes again”, he says, as he carries his belongings on his shoulder.

The 45-year-old father of eight has been living in Deir el-Balah, but like al-Dabbagh, he is also from Sheikh Radwan.

“The feeling of returning is indescribable, especially since the conditions are no different between the north and the south”, he says.

Returning without family members

After more than a year of fighting and displacement, the people walking on al-Rashid Street have been moving for hours, attempting to track down their loved ones, assisting those who are less fortunate, and carrying the few things they have managed to keep track of.

However, the details shared reveal how devastated Palestinians in Gaza have been.

Khaled Ibrahim, 52, came from Khan Younis and is headed to Beit Lahiya, north of Gaza City.

His four children, who he has, are without homes to return to. He plans to set up a tent instead.

But more than a home, he has lost those closest to him, Ibrahim’s wife, granddaughter, and two of his brothers were killed in a bombing near their tent in Khan Younis last June.

“Our lives are hard. We have lost everything in every way”, Ibrahim says.

Another returnee, Nada Jahjouh, has also lost family. Before the war, one of her sons was killed in the Great March of Return in Gaza in 2018. Another victim was killed in a May Israeli attack. She now carries a grandson and one son with her wherever she goes.

“We are exhausted, physically and mentally”, Jahjouh says. “Returning without my sons makes me feel very sad. My joy is incomplete”.