Without a thought for his own safety, Mamoudou Gassama took just seconds to reach the child in a spectacular rescue captured on film and viewed millions of times on social networks.

The incident took place at around 8:00 pm (1800 GMT) on Saturday in northern Paris.

Film of the rescue shows Gassama, 22, pulling himself up from balcony to balcony with his bare hands as a man on the fourth floor tries to hold on to the child by leaning across from a neighbouring balcony.

On reaching the fourth floor Gassama puts one leg over the balcony before reaching out with his right arm and grabbing the child.

Firefighters arrived at the scene to find the child had already been rescued.

“Luckily, there was someone who was physically fit and who had the courage to go and get the child,” a fire service spokesman told AFP.

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo praised the young migrant on Twitter for his “act of bravery” as well as phoning him personally to “thank him warmly”.

“He explained to me that he had arrived from Mali a few months ago dreaming of building his life here.

“I told him that his heroic act is an example to all citizens and that the city of Paris will obviously be very keen to support him in his efforts to settle in France,” she added.

The young Malian will next be honoured for his brave rescue by French President Emmanuel Macron who has invited him to the Elysee Palace on Monday, his office told AFP.

Tracked down by reporters 24 hours after the heroic rescue, Gassama said he had acted without thinking.

“I saw all these people shouting, and cars sounding their horns. I climbed up like that and, thank God, I saved the child,” he said.

“I felt afraid  when I saved the child… (when) we went into the living room, I started to shake, I could hardly stand up, I had to sit down,” he added.

According to initial inquiries by the authorities, the child’s parents were not at home at the time.

The father was later held for questioning by police for having left his child unattended and was due in court later, a judicial source said. The child’s mother was not in Paris at the time.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s special envoy for interfaith and civilization dialogue and cooperation, Din Syamsuddin, who is also former Muhammadiyah chairman, said the world religious leaders met with Suu Kyi in Naypyidaw on Friday.

They include three Buddhist figures, including Supreme Patriachs from Sri Lanka and Cambodia and Risho Kosakai from Japan; Bishop Gunnar Stalsett from Norway; Vinu Aram from India and Rev. Koichi Sugino, the vice secretary-general of New York-based Religions for Peace International.

“The religious leaders called to the government and the people of Myanmar to resolve the religious and ethnic conflicts in Myanmar in the spirit of humanity, peace and reconciliation,” Din said in a statement on Monday.

Din further said Aung San Su Ki welcomed them in “an open and intimate dialogue” where she stated that Myanmar had adopted democracy and therefore highly respected human rights and democratic values. She said the problems in Rakhine province and other areas in Myanmar would be resolved with a spirit of peace and reconciliation.

Din said the latest developments in Myanmar, especially in Rakhine state had raised concerns in the region and needed to be addressed appropriately.

”There was no other way to do it except to develop peaceful coexistence and the recognition of common citizenship for all people,” he said, adding that he had asked for recognition and citizenship rights for Rohingyas “who happened to be Muslim.”

The religious figures also proposed an international conference on Myanmar in October. The conference is expected offer solutions to justice-related issues in Myanmar .

Known for boyish good looks, floppy haircuts and meticulously choreographed dance moves, the septet has become one of South Korea’s best known and most lucrative musical exports.

On Sunday, they passed a new milestone — becoming the first K-Pop group to top the Billboard 200 music charts which ranks albums via sales, downloads and streams.

“It’s the first No. 1 for the seven-member group, and the first K-pop album to lead the tally,” Billboard wrote in its online report detailing the latest chart ranking.

While plenty of older music listeners in the West might be asking “who?”, it’s hard to underestimate the popularity of BTS and their seven stars Suga, J-Hope, Rap Monster, Jimin, V, Jungkook and Jin.

According to one data analysis, they were they most talked about phenomenon on Twitter in 2017, with nearly double the number of mentions on the social media platform than US President Donald Trump and Canadian badboy heartthrob Justin Bieber combined.

Throw in their similarly massive appeal across the globe — they have huge social media followings in Japan, China, Southeast Asia and parts of Latin America — and you have a truly global supergroup.

Their new album “Love Yourself: Tear” toppled “Beerpong and Bentleys” by rising hip-hop star Post Malone, whose facial tattoos are the very antithesis of BTS’ wholesome, meticulously manicured image.

While BTS sing in Korean, their style successfully fuses the catchy earworms of K-Pop with hip-hop and R’n’B.

Last year, their previous release “Love Yourself: Her” became the first K-Pop album to make it into the top 10 US album charts, rising to number seven, and hit the number one spot on iTunes in more than 70 countries.//AFP

“The former president is awake and alert, and not in any discomfort,” Jim McGrath said on Twitter.

The 41st president will likely remain at Southern Maine Health Care, in the state of Maine, under observation for a few days, McGrath wrote.

Bush, 93, spent more than a week at a Houston, Texas, hospital in late April and early May, immediately after the funeral of his beloved wife Barbara Bush.

At that time, Bush contracted an infection that spread to his blood and initially left him in intensive care.

Bush, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease and is wheelchair-bound, has been hospitalized on several occasions in recent years.

Bush is the father of George W. Bush, who served as president from 2001 to 2009.

The elder Bush was elected president in 1988 but served only one term, going down to defeat against Democrat Clinton in 1992.

Without a thought for his own safety, Mamoudou Gassama took just seconds to reach the child in a spectacular rescue captured on film and viewed millions of times on social networks.

The incident took place at around 8:00 pm (1800 GMT) on Saturday in northern Paris.

Film of the rescue shows Gassama, 22, pulling himself up from balcony to balcony with his bare hands as a man on the fourth floor tries to hold on to the child by leaning across from a neighbouring balcony.

On reaching the fourth floor Gassama puts one leg over the balcony before reaching out with his right arm and grabbing the child.

Firefighters arrived at the scene to find the child had already been rescued.

“Luckily, there was someone who was physically fit and who had the courage to go and get the child,” a fire service spokesman told AFP.

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo praised the young migrant on Twitter for his “act of bravery” as well as phoning him personally to “thank him warmly”.

“He explained to me that he had arrived from Mali a few months ago dreaming of building his life here.

“I told him that his heroic act is an example to all citizens and that the city of Paris will obviously be very keen to support him in his efforts to settle in France,” she added.

The young Malian will next be honoured for his brave rescue by French President Emmanuel Macron who has invited him to the Elysee Palace on Monday, his office told AFP.

Tracked down by reporters 24 hours after the heroic rescue, Gassama said he had acted without thinking.

“I saw all these people shouting, and cars sounding their horns. I climbed up like that and, thank God, I saved the child,” he said.

“I felt afraid when I saved the child… (when) we went into the living room, I started to shake, I could hardly stand up, I had to sit down,” he added.

According to initial inquiries by the authorities, the child’s parents were not at home at the time.

The father was later held for questioning by police for having left his child unattended and was due in court later, a judicial source said. The child’s mother was not in Paris at the time.

A Change.org petition, comparing Dr Mahathir to anti-apartheid revolutionary Nelson Mandela, was launched on Saturday (May 26) and has since received over 26,300 signatures.

Started by Alexandria Abishegam, the petition which was addressed to the Nobel Foundation, wants Dr Mahathir to be nominated for The Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his determination to return to politics at age 92 and casting aside his political prejudices to work with his former detractors for the purpose of “saving our nation”.

“The fact that Dr Mahathir has also openly admitted his own faults and apologised for his mistakes of the past makes him truly a ‘Giant of a Man’ and a leader to emulate,” the petition read.

Empowered by their democratic right that saw the nation’s first transfer of power since gaining independence from the British in 1957, Malaysians have been taking to petitions to voice their thoughts on the new Government.

This is the fourth Change.org petition that has been launched since Pakatan formed the Government on May 10.

The first petition was launched on May 19 in response to dissatisfaction over the appointment of the new Education Minister.

One petition called for Dr Mahathir to retain his decision to helm the Education portfolio despite criticisms of him violating a clause in the Pakatan manifesto stating that the Prime Minister would not hold ministerial positions.

At the same time, a second petition was launched in support of Dr Maszlee Malik as the Education Minister.

On Monday (May 21), a third petition was launched asking for Home Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin to ban controversial preacher Zakir Naik from Malaysia.

    The fluffy little cub was the second born to Liang Liang, who has been on loan to Malaysia since 2014, aong with a male panda, a rare success story for natural reproduction among giant pandas which are notoriously clumsy at mating on the rare occasions they are actually in the mood.

The family of three were in good health, said Mat Naim Ramli, director of the national zoo’s panda centre outside Kuala Lumpur.

“The cub weighs nine kilograms (20 pounds). She is so cute. Her growth is quite fast and she is already able to move slowly,” he told reporters.

The cub’s sister Nuan Nuan was born in August 2015 and sent to China in November last year as part of Beijing’s agreement with Malaysia that cubs born in captivity must go back at the age of two.

Mat Naim attributed the success of having two baby pandas born in Malaysia to having a healthy pair that “are able to accept each other”.

Inside a glass pen, the baby panda crawled slowly towards photographers but for most of the time was content to lie on her belly.

“I love pandas. They are so adorable. I want to cuddle the baby because it is so fluffy,” visitor Karene Lee, 25, a business consultant, told AFP.

Mat Daim said the only diet at the moment for the baby panda was its mother’s milk.

Chinese ambassador Bai Tian said he was pleased to see the cub was “comfortable and happy”.

“We will have an online competition to name the baby,” he said.

Liang Liang and the male, Xing Xing, came to Malaysia are on a 10year loan.

It costs zoo authorities some 56,000 ringgit ($14,000) a month to maintain the panda centre.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies the giant panda as “vulnerable”. There are an estimated 2,000 left in the wild, in central China.//AFP

The moonwalker who went on to become a painter died Saturday in Houston after suddenly falling ill weeks before, the statement said.

He was among the elite group NASA chose for its third group of astronauts in 1963, having served as a test pilot in the US Navy.

He twice ventured into space, originally in 1969 on the Apollo 12 moon landing mission, and later as commander of the second crew to fly to the first US space station Skylab in 1973.

His second foray outside of Earth’s atmosphere saw Bean log a record-breaking 59-day, 24.4 million-mile flight (39.3 million kilometers).

He retired from NASA in 1981 to embark on a third career as an artist, creating Apollo-themed paintings textured with lunar boot prints or using acrylics infused with small bits of his mission patches sprinkled with moon dust.

Fellow astronaut Harrison Schmitt called Bean “one of the great renaissance men of his generation — engineer, fighter pilot, astronaut and artist.”

Born March 15, 1932 in Wheeler, Texas the future moonwalker earned a degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Texas in 1955.

He is survived by his wife, sister and two children from a prior marriage.

Walt Cunningham, who flew on Apollo 7 and called Bean his best friend of 55 years, said “we are accustomed to losing friends in our business but this is a tough one.”

“Alan and I never missed a month where we did not have a cheeseburger.”

In 1994 Bean told The New York Times the otherworldly perspectives he got in space inspired him to devote the latter half of his life to art, to the surprise of many of his colleagues.

“Every artist has the Earth or their imaginations to inspire their paintings,” he said. “I’ve got the Earth and my imagination, and I’m the first to have the moon, too.”//AFP

The latest conciliatory declarations capped a turbulent few days of diplomatic brinkmanship that had sent tensions soaring.

Trump rattled a sabre on Thursday by cancelling the planned June 12 meeting with Kim in Singapore, citing “open hostility” from Pyongyang.

But within 24 hours he reversed course, saying it could still go ahead after productive talks were held with North Korean officials.

“It’s moving along very nicely,” Trump told reporters when asked for an update. “We’re looking at June 12 in Singapore. That hasn’t changed.”

Trump’s unpredictability sparked a surprise meeting on Saturday between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in — only the fourth time leaders from the two countries have ever met — as they scrambled to get the talks back on track.

Pictures showed them shaking hands and embracing on the North Korean side of the Demilitarised Zone separating the two nations.

Moon said Kim reached out to him to arrange the hasty meeting “without any formality”, a stunning development given that the Koreas only reopened a defunct hotline between the two nations last month.

The North Korean leader described the Singapore summit as a landmark opportunity to end decades of confrontation.

“He… expressed his intention to put an end to the history of war and confrontation through the success of the North-US summit and to cooperate for peace and prosperity,” Moon told reporters on Sunday.

Moon added that Kim reaffirmed his commitment to “complete denuclearisation” but was uncertain “whether he could trust that the US would end its hostile policy and guarantee the security of his regime” if he gave up those weapons.

Pyongyang’s state-run KCNA news agency said Kim “expressed his fixed will” to meet Trump, adding South and North Korea would hold another round of “high-level” talks on June 1.

– Shaky detente –

There was a further signal of progress Saturday as White House press secretary Sarah Sanders confirmed a team of US officials was leaving for Singapore “in order to prepare should the summit take place”.

Trump’s original decision to abandon the summit initially blindsided South Korea, which had been brokering a remarkable detente between Washington and Pyongyang in a desperate bid to avoid a devastating conflict.

Last year Trump and Kim were trading war threats and insults after Pyongyang tested its most powerful nuclear weapon to date and missiles which it said were capable of reaching the US mainland.

Tensions were calmed after Kim extended an olive branch by offering to send a delegation to the Winter Olympics in South Korea, sparking a rapid detente that led to Trump agreeing to hold direct talks with Pyongyang.

But the flurry of diplomatic backslapping and bonhomie disappeared in recent weeks with increasingly bellicose rhetoric from both top US administration officials and Pyongyang.

There are still stark differences between what the two sides hope to achieve.

Washington wants North Korea to give up all its nukes in a verifiable way as quickly as possible in return for sanctions and economic relief.

Pyongyang has a different view of what denuclearisation might look like and remains deeply worried that abandoning its deterrent would leave the country vulnerable to regime change.

– ‘Back on track’ –

Saturday’s meeting between Moon and Kim took place on the North Korean side of Panmunjom, a village that straddles the border between the two countries, where the 1953 armistice was signed.

The two leaders had met in the same village only last month.

Kim Yong-hyun, professor of North Korea studies at Dongguk University in Seoul, said Moon and Kim moved quickly to defuse the crisis after Trump’s shock cancellation.

“Moon essentially helped relay messages from Trump to Kim and vice versa, to further smooth the process and to resume negotiations,” he told AFP, saying the Singapore meeting was “clearly back on track”.

In Seoul Sunday most people whom AFP spoke to appeared to welcome Moon’s move to talk to Kim.

“I think it was a good thing if meeting in person and having a direct conversation about each other’s intentions helps us proceed to the next step,” said Lee Tae-kyoung.

Unlike last month’s summit, which was held in front of live TV cameras, Saturday’s meeting took place in utmost secrecy, with reporters only told later that it had taken place.

Footage released by the Blue House on Twitter, accompanied by a dramatic orchestral score, showed Moon arriving in a convoy of cars and first shaking hands with Kim’s sister Kim Yo Jong, who has played a major public role in recent talks with the South.//AFP

The summit would be an unprecedented meeting between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader, which Washington hopes will result in the full denuclearization of the reclusive state.

Trump said in a tweet that “very productive talks” were ongoing with North Korea about reinstating the summit.

“If it does happen, will likely remain in Singapore on the same date, June 12th,” he wrote, adding the meeting could be extended further if necessary.

On Thursday, Trump cancelled the summit that was due to take place in Singapore, blaming “tremendous anger and open hostility” from Pyongyang in recent days.

But North Korea responded Friday by saying it was willing to talk to the United States “at any time” — a reaction Trump welcomed as “warm and productive.”

“We’re talking to them now,” Trump said of the North Koreans. “They very much want to do it. We’d like to do it.”

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said there was “possibly some good news” on the summit, while White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters: “If the meeting takes place on June 12, we will be ready.”

On Saturday, South Korea, which had brokered the remarkable detente between Washington and Pyongyang, cautiously welcomed Trump’s latest comments.

“We find it fortunate that the embers of the North Korea-US talks are reignited. We are watching developments carefully,” Presidential Blue House spokesman Kim Eui-gyeom said.

Trump’s initial cancellation of the summit blindsided treaty ally Seoul, with President Moon Jae-in calling the move “shocking and very regrettable”.

‘Twists and turns’

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert cast the fast-moving developments as simply “twists and turns” in the process.

“We never expected it to be easy,” Nauert told reporters.

But the whiplash from the White House was unusual even for the chaos-loving president. In March, apparently acting on impulse, Trump agreed to the talks with Kim after only limited input from aides.

In a letter to Kim, Trump blamed Pyongyang for his decision to call off the summit, and warned North Korea against committing any “foolish or reckless acts” while also highlighting America’s “massive and powerful” nuclear capabilities.

North Korea’s First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan called Trump’s decision “unexpected” and “regrettable” but sounded a conciliatory tone, saying officials were willing “to sit face-to-face at any time.”

Just before Trump announced the cancellation of the meeting, North Korea declared it had completely dismantled its nuclear test site in the country’s far northeast, in a carefully choreographed goodwill gesture.

‘Show goodwill’

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he respected and supported the US president’s move to cancel the summit while China, Pyongyang’s sole major ally, urged the two foes to “show goodwill.”

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin held out hope the talks would eventually take place.

Politically, Trump had invested heavily in the success of the planned summit.

As the date drew nearer, however, a gulf in expectations between the two sides became apparent.

Before Trump’s announcement, Pyongyang had hardened its rhetoric, calling comments by Vice President Mike Pence “ignorant and stupid.”

Washington has made it clear it wants to see the “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization” of the North.

Pyongyang has vowed it will never give up its nuclear deterrent until it feels safe from what it terms US aggression.

Libyan model

The White House was unhappy about what it considered to be a “trail of broken promises” by North Korea — including failure to show up for summit preparatory talks and complaints about the latest US-South Korean joint military exercise.

It also was unhappy about the North’s failure to allow international observers to verify the dismantling of the Punggye-ri test site, the staging ground for all six of its nuclear tests.

But the North’s Kim Kye Gwan countered that Pyongyang’s angry statements were “just a backlash in response to harsh words from the US side that has been pushing for a unilateral denuclearization.”

Both Pence and Trump’s hawkish National Security Advisor John Bolton had raised the specter of Libyan leader Moamer Khadafi, who gave up atomic weapons only to die years later at the hands of US-backed rebels.

Joel Wit, founder of the respected 38 North website that monitors North Korea, said Kim’s hand has been strengthened regardless of whether the summit goes ahead because recent weeks have seen him forge connections with Chinese President Xi Jinping, as well as with Russia and South Korea.

“Kim has created sort of a cushion for failure that if the US backs away, the Chinese and Russians will be behind him,” Wit said.

But others said Trump’s demonstrated willingness to walk away could yet extract further concessions from Pyongyang.

“North Korea will have to propose more detailed plans for denuclearization if it wants to talk in the future,” said Go Myong-hyun, an analyst at the Asan Institute of Policy Studies.