Category: 2. World

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin discussed life-prolonging organ transplants and immortality as they chatted before Beijing’s massive military parade this week, in comments picked up by state media microphones.

Historic images showed Xi shaking hands and speaking with Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as they walked down a red carpet by Tiananmen Square, in scenes viewed as a challenge to US President Donald Trump.

“These days… 70 years old,” Xi said in Mandarin as he walked beside Putin and Kim, footage from state broadcaster CCTV showed.

Xi’s translator, conveying his remarks to Putin, is then heard in Russian quoting a line from a Tang dynasty poem: “In the past, it used to be rare for someone to be older than 70 and these days they say that at 70 one’s still a child.”

Putin then turned towards Xi, speaking while gesturing with his hands, though this is inaudible on the CCTV feed.

The same Chinese translator then relayed Putin’s remarks to Xi.

“With the… development of biotechnology, human organs can be continuously transplanted, people could get younger as they grow older, and may even become immortal,” Putin said, according to the translator.

Xi then spoke again in Mandarin as the camera cut away: “Predictions are, in this century, it may be… possible to live to 150 years old.”

Putin confirmed the exchange during a press briefing on Wednesday.

“Ah, I think it was when we were going to the parade that the Chairman spoke about this,” he told reporters, referring to Xi.

“Modern means — both health improvement and medical means, and then even all kinds of surgical ones related to organ replacement — allow humanity to hope that active life will continue not as it does today,” Putin added.

The Chinese and Russian leaders, both 72, have not expressed any intention of stepping down.

While Xi’s predecessors Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao relinquished power after 10 years in office, he abolished term limits in 2018 and in 2023 was handed a third term as Chinese president.

Hot Mic catches Xi and Putin’s bizarre chat about immortality and organ harvesting during live video feed. pic.twitter.com/C5EBESlZmn

— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 3, 2025

JAKARTA: Indonesian students will stage protests at the parliament building in the capital Jakarta on Thursday, a student group said, as a proposed meeting with the government on massive demonstrations that have left 10 people dead was yet to materialise.

Led by students, workers and rights groups, last week’s protests over police violence and state spending priorities spread across the world’s third-largest democracy after a police vehicle hit and killed a motorcycle taxi driver.

The demonstrations have at times turned violent. Rights groups said 10 people have died and over 1,000 people were injured in incidents of looting and rioting.

Rights groups have condemned the use of force by security forces.

The coalition of student bodies, known locally as BEM SI, said ahead of Thursday’s protest that “the people’s anxiety isn’t due to protests on the street, but it’s due to corruption and the politicisation of the law.”

Ten student unions met with parliamentarians on Wednesday.

They called for an independent investigation into police violence, while drawing a contrast between generous benefits for lawmakers and the economic hardship faced by most Indonesians.

The deputy house speaker offered them a chance to meet with the government on Thursday but BEM SI leader Muzammil Ihsan said there had been no follow-up on the invitation.

The protests have been called for by several Indonesian student bodies with varying and at times unaligned interests.

Workers with the union Gebrak will also stage a demonstration in Jakarta on Thursday against the heavy-handed security response and demand the release of those detained.

Indonesian authorities have detained over 3,000 people in a nationwide crackdown, New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.

“Indonesian authorities should not respond to protests over government policies by using excessive force and wrongfully locking up demonstrators,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director of the group.

President Prabowo Subianto has said the military and police would stand firm against violent mobs, and that some of the unrest bore the signs of terrorism and treason.

An aid worker supporting rescue efforts after the devastating Sudan landslide which reportedly killed hundreds of people has told the BBC that it had caused a “mountain to collapse”, leaving just one known survivor so far.

“We have so far managed to recover nine bodies,” said Abdul Hafeez Ali, head of the Coordinating Council of the Tawila and Jebel Marra Emergency Room.

Heavy rainfall led to Sunday’s disaster, which killed at least 370 people according to a UN estimate, and “destroy[ed] the village” of Tarseen in the western Darfur region, Mr Ali added.

The armed group in control of the area has said that 1,000 people died and has appealed for urgent assistance.

Another man told the BBC’s Sudan lifeline programme that many members of his family were still unaccounted for.

“So far, I’ve confirmed the deaths of two relatives: one of my uncles and his grandson. The rest of my family members are still missing,” said Ahmed Abdel Majeed, who lives in Uganda but is originally from Tarseen and keeps in touch with locals from around the affected area.

“The bodies are still buried under the rubble,” he added, stating that rescue teams were struggling to find them due to “massive blocks of stone and mud covering the area”.

An initial estimate of deaths provided by the group which controls the Marra Mountains area, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), stated that 1,000 people could have been killed.

The UN’s deputy humanitarian co-ordinator for Sudan, Antoine Gérard, said it was difficult to ascertain the exact death toll because the area is hard to reach.

In an interview with the BBC’s Newsday radio programme SLM/A leader Abdel Wahid Mohamed al-Nur stood by his group’s estimate of the number of people killed, saying many had fled the country’s civil war to go to the relatively peaceful area.

The SLM/A has remained neutral in the conflict which has devastated much of the country over the past two years.

“People on the ground have confirmed [the death toll]. We have a civil authority there and they estimate above 1,000 people are dead or at least they are under the mud,” said Mr Nur.

He also called for emergency aid like medical supplies and food as well as urgent rescue efforts.

Speaking to the AFP news agency on Wednesday, an SLM/A official said 270 bodies had been recovered.

“Hundreds remain trapped under the rubble that swallowed homes and farmland,” said Mogeeb al-Rahman Mohamed al-Zubeir via satellite phone.

Aid worker Mr Ali said carrying out his work has been hard because of the conditions.

“Unfortunately, due to limited resources, we have not been able to carry out full-scale rescue operations. Although a support team has already arrived in Sudan, ongoing heavy rains and extremely rough terrain have made access to the affected area very difficult. Despite these challenges, the search for the missing continues.”

Mr Majeed added that communicating with those in the affected area has been challenging: “I try to stay in contact with the rescue teams, but communication is difficult. There are no working networks in the area because the solar-powered systems have gone down.”

He said that two villages had been affected by Sunday’s landslide.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday praised China’s “beautiful ceremony” commemorating the end of World War II but said it should have given greater emphasis to the role of the United States in Japan’s defeat.

“I thought it was a beautiful ceremony. I thought it was very, very impressive,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. His remarks came just hours after he suggested on social media that the gathering of foreign leaders in Beijing could be part of a conspiracy against Washington.

“I watched the speech last night. President Xi is a friend of mine, but I thought that the United States should have been mentioned last night during that speech, because we helped China very, very much.”

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has made the 80th anniversary of the war’s end a major showcase for his government and its close ties with countries at odds with Washington.

Flanked by Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Xi spoke before a crowd of more than 50,000 spectators at Tiananmen Square. He surveyed a parade of goose-stepping troops and cutting-edge military equipment aimed at deterring would-be adversaries including the United States.

Japan’s invasion of China in 1937 was a major escalation in fighting that would lead to World War Two, and Japan’s surrender in 1945 marked the end of the conflict. The US joined the war in 1941, aiding Chinese forces fighting the Japanese military and playing a decisive role in Japan’s defeat.

Deploying history to wage present-day political battles, Xi has cast World War Two as a major turning point in the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” now ruled by his Chinese Communist Party, and its allies.

On Wednesday, Xi thanked “the foreign governments and international friends who supported and assisted the Chinese people,” according to an official. But he did not dwell on the role of the United States in the war.

US-China relations are at a tense moment. The two sides are at odds on a range of security issues, from Ukraine to the South China Sea, and are wrangling over a broad trade deal to stave off tariffs on each other’s goods.

But Trump has repeatedly touted a positive personal relationship with Xi that his aides say can steer the world’s two largest economies in a constructive direction. He has also said he might soon meet with Xi.

In a post directed at Xi on Truth Social as the parade kicked off, Trump said, “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against the United States of America.”

The Kremlin said they were not conspiring and suggested the remarks were ironic.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman says deployment of a post-conflict security force would be ‘fundamentally unacceptable’.

Russia has flatly rejected the prospect of any talks that consider the deployment of foreign troops in Ukraine.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that Moscow would not entertain discussion of an international post-conflict security force “in any format”.

Recommended Stories

list of 4 itemsend of list

“Russia is not going to discuss the fundamentally unacceptable and security-undermining foreign intervention in Ukraine in any form, in any format,” Zakharova told reporters on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok.

Zakharova said that European leaders, who are working on plans for a multinational force in the event of an agreement to end the war in Ukraine, should take note that the “next time they aim to discuss this topic, they should have a pointer in the form of Russia’s position”.

“Judging by Ukraine’s losses, the European Commission has simply outdone itself,” she said.

Zakharova made her comments after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told The Financial Times earlier this week that the European Union had “pretty precise plans” for deploying a multinational force to Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders are set to meet in Paris on Thursday to firm up details of post-conflict security guarantees for Kyiv.

On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron said the details of the security guarantees for Ukraine had been worked out but remained “extremely confidential”.

“We are ready, we the Europeans, to offer the security guarantees to Ukraine and Ukrainians the day that a peace [accord] is signed,” Macron said.

Despite United States President Donald Trump’s pledge to bring a swift end to the conflict, Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart on the terms of any potential peace agreement.

Russia has said that any deal with Ukraine would need to include land in four regions it has annexed since 2022, while Kyiv has ruled out ceding any territory.

Trump is scheduled to speak with Zelenskyy by phone on Thursday, and has said he intends to speak to Putin in the coming days.