News Headlines - 07 January 2021
▽How Neil Sheehan Got the Pentagon Papers - The New York Times
From the moment he secured the 7,000 pages of classified government documents on the Vietnam War for The New York Times, until his death on Thursday, Mr. Sheehan, a former Vietnam War correspondent and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, declined nearly every invitation to explain precisely how he had pulled it off.
In 2015, however, at a reporter’s request, he agreed to tell his story on the condition that it not be published while he was alive. Beset by scoliosis and Parkinson’s disease, he recounted, in a four-hour interview at his home in Washington, a tale as suspenseful and cinematic as anyone in Hollywood might concoct.
▽England and Wales recorded most deaths last year for a century - ONS | Reuters
England and Wales recorded the most deaths in 2020 of any year in more than a century, with the COVID-19 pandemic leading to a rise in the number of excess deaths, a senior statistician said on Wednesday.
About 604,000 deaths were registered in the two countries in the last 52 weeks, about 73,000 or 14% above the five-year average, Nick Stripe from Britain’s Office of National Statistics said on Twitter.
He said only one year since 1900 had seen annual deaths top 600,000, which was 1918, when the Spanish flu pandemic struck.
Jailed Hong Kong democracy campaigner Joshua Wong was arrested by police on Thursday (Jan 7) under the city's new national security law, a senior police source told Agence France-Presse.
His arrest comes as more than 1,000 police officers detained 53 prominent figures - including a United States citizen - in dawn raids on Wednesday on charges of “subversion”, a new national security crime that carries up to life in prison.
▽Beijing freezes as temperature hits five decade lows
Temperatures in the Chinese capital plunged to their lowest for more than five decades on Thursday, as Beijing was hit by gale-force winds and bitter conditions.
On Thursday morning the mercury dropped to minus 19.6 degrees Celsius (minus 3.3 Fahrenheit), breaking a previous cold weather record set in 1969.
The cold reading was the lowest since 1966, when temperatures in the city fell to minus 27.4 degrees Celsius (minus 17.3 Fahrenheit).
▽KKR-backed Pepper to collect foreign investors' bad debt in Japan - Nikkei Asia
Australia's Pepper Group, owned by U.S. private equity giant KKR, will begin targeting nonperforming loans in Japan as the pandemic continues to wallop businesses, Nikkei has learned.
Pepper Group has already acquired Tokyo-based collection agency MC Group and will be entrusted with the collection of receivables that foreign funds have invested in through the local servicer. The company aims to help revive local businesses suffering under excessive debt loads amid the pandemic.
When foreign investors take on nonperforming loans in Japan, MC Group will take charge of coordinating with the financial institutions that sell the loans, as well as managing and collecting the loans.
