A public vigil was held in a gymnasium in Progreso, the modest village in the province of Santa Fe which Sala left as a teenager to forge a career in Europe.

Sala’s father, mother, sister and friends were seen arriving at the ceremony and dozens of local people filed in after them.

The 28-year-old died on January 21 just two days after completing a £15 million ($19.3 million, 17.1 million euros) move to the Premier League club from French club Nantes.

The single-engine private plane carrying Sala and pilot David Ibbotson crashed in the English Channel near Alderney. Sala had been flying back to Wales after returning to France to say goodbye to his former teammates.

The player’s body was recovered from the submerged wreckage on February 7 but Ibbotson remains missing, with funds being raised to continue the search for the 59-year-old.

Cardiff City manager Neil Warnock and the club’s chief executive Neil Warnock and chief executive Ken Choo both travelled to Argentina to attend the ceremony.

Nantes, for whom Sala scored 42 goals in 120 league appearances, were represented by the defender Nicolas Pallois and general secretary Loic Morin.

Sala, a lanky striker, began his career at San Martin de Progreso, and the local club was at the centre of Saturday’s ceremony.

“People will be able to pass by the coffin, leave a letter, a drawing or flowers,” the club’s president, Daniel Ribero, told AFP.

“He represented a lot for us. We’re a small village and Emi was a celebrity, the only player to turn professional.” One mourner, Miguel Angel Pereira, 68, made the 70-kilometre (43-mile) journey from Santa Fe to pay his respects.

“I wanted to be here. I was a San Martin player myself in the 1960s,” he said.

Li was admitted to a Beijing hospital for a pulmonary infection last year and died of organ failure in Beijing, his daughter said in an email to AFP.

Li earned a position alongside China’s paramount leader in the mid-1950s, focusing on industrial development.

But then he spoke up on the failures of Mao’s Great Leap Forward policy — which intended to boost China’s economic output but instead unleashed havoc and famine across the country.

The Communist Party expelled Li and during the Cultural Revolution he was imprisoned for eight years in the infamous Qincheng prison near Beijing.

He was rehabilitated in 1979 when moderates took power and eventually rose to take a key position in the party’s powerful Organization Department before he was again forced out of office in 1984.

Later he became an advocate for political reform, and in 2007 published articles calling for the party to become a European-style socialist party.

Li also opposed a constitutional change last year which removed presidential term limits and paved the way for current president Xi Jinping to stay in power indefinitely.

“Xi Jinping wants a lifelong system,” Li said in an interview with Hong Kong-based newspaper Ming Pao.

As a well-known expert on Chairman Mao, Li published several books on the former leader.

Li said in an open letter last year that some of his works had been banned from publication in China.

“We should let the people speak, so as to enhance the party’s trust in the people,” Li said in the letter. He continued to write in his final days, his daughter Li Nanyang said.

He wrote the same words over and over, she said: “Everyone should be subject to four kinds of restrictions in life: age, knowledge, ideological ability and personal character.”

“The words inspire me to continue to push for an opening for constitutional government which my father and grandfather pursued their entire lives,” she told AFP.

Maria Jose Reyes Castro, 25, conducted a study to develop the device, which uses a mobile app and a smart sensor to check the pH level of kimchi as it’s fermenting.

With the app, users input the desired levels of fermentation and salinity. The app then forecasts the date and time when the kimchi can be expected to be ready. Though the timer is optimized for cabbage kimchi, it can be used to check other types of kimchi too.

The kimchi timer developed by Maria Jose Reyes Castro (KAIST)

After coming to South Korea in 2012, Castro met foreign students from other Asian and European nations who complained of difficulty making kimchi. That inspired her to learn about the process by watching recipe videos on YouTube and seeking advice from kimchi experts to gain a better understanding of Korea’s traditional culinary culture.

“Practical studies that can add convenience to daily life is as important as high technologies that changes the world,” Castro said. “Using expert knowledge, I would like to focus on science that makes various products that people can use in daily life.”

Biodesign professor Daniel Saakes from the Netherlands was her academic adviser for the study. In 2017, Saakes invented a device to help users make dumplings in various shapes. Now in his seventh year in Korea, the professor shared his experience of Korean culinary culture when working with Castro.

“Adding to the design value and the practicality of the study, it holds great meaning as a student from Costa Rica conducted a study related to kimchi under the direction of a professor from the Netherlands,” said professor Nam Taek-jin, head of the university’s department of industrial design.

“Finding a team that will really support you, cater to building you up whether it is a skill in walking and speaking, whatever it is that you need. Going to a pageant is not easy, it requires a support team that will lift you up constantly, I am blessed to have them. I can say it plays a very big part in what allows to get the Miss Universe crown.”

Gray credits a big group of professionals with helped her in all aspects of her performance: designers; hairstylists; make-up artists. She thanked Carlos Buendia Jr. and Nicole Cordovez for coaching her through the training sessions, which started in May 2017, during the Bb. Pilipinas 2018 class.

Training alone, however, does not make a Miss Universe. “It’s not really the training that makes the girl. You work with what you have, and the girl is a big part of that. I have been approached by girls about what’s the secret to my training and I tell them, ‘Girls if you only knew how hands-on I was, how much work I put in when no one was watching, when I was by myself, you could have my exact same team and it would not guarantee the same result.’ So, I really feel it originates from the girl. You have to have that drive for whatever reason you find it. For me it was to fulfill a purpose, through my advocacy. For another girl it may be something else.”

Only three years ago, in winter of 2016, Miss Universe 2015 Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach was in the same seat talking to the Filipino American media and community members, saying, “If you really, really want something, you must keep working for it.” Wurtzbach noted that training for Binibing Pilipinas was tough. It seemed like running for this beauty contest is almost like a career.

Catriona Gray returned to New York where in 2016 she was embraced by Filipino-American community as Miss World Philippines. INQUIRER/ Carol Tanjutco.

As Gray emphasized, “It’s that drive, I’m sure Pia will agree with this, that gets you to those times when you get tested, when you are faced with challenges that might make you feel like giving up, it is that drive that you will push for it. You can have the best training in the world but if you don’t have that drive, you will never make it to that theme.”

The Miss Universe title brings a lot of attention and draws a huge following. Catriona Gray has 4 million followers on Instagram, 1.4 million on Facebook and 459,000 on Twitter. Her advocacy for free access to education for the poor, Young Focus at Tondo, Manila, has expanded to several other charities. She continues to express interest in helping to raise funds not only for Philippine-based charities. In particular, she is drawn to the Latino Commission on HIV’s campaign for testing.

“It is a personal link that drew me to this cause. Being a volunteer for Love Yourself Philippines, talking to volunteers and having friends who had their own experiences, there is an incredible amount of fear.  People don’t know the truth about it. At the end of the day, it is a medical condition but we stigmatize it too much.

“We have a lot of young people who are at most risk, who are afraid to get tested. Because of fear, a lot of people are not tested. As MIss Universe I want to address this, showing that getting tested for HIV should be treated like a regular physical like a blood test, it should be seen in this light not something to be feared.”

The campaign is powered by AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Inc., an international HIV awareness group, which partners with the leading local organizations, The LoveYourself, Inc. and the Project Headshot Clinic – The Red Whistle. The campaign also draws support from the Department of Health – National Capital Region office, Philippine National AIDS Council and Pilipinas Shell Foundation, Inc.

According to LoveYourself founder and executive director Ronivin G. Pagtakhan, “The only way to #KissAIDSGoodbye is by early detection, which can be done through timely testing and early treatment. This is the first-ever HIV awareness campaign in the Philippines on billboards, which practically aims to erase the stigma about HIV and its related health services by putting our message on the mainstream media in order to normalize the discussion about the topic.”

Among the challenges facing Thailand this year as chair of Asean is finding ways to tap into the region’s cultural diversity and develop a unified “creative industry”. Failure to do so, scholars warn, would damage the bloc’s credibility and hamper its pursuit of the goals of Asean 4.0.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha this month launched Asean Cultural Year 2019, announcing a 12-month series of cultural events involving all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

The promotional scheme is part of Thailand’s “soft-power” push to boost economic and political solidarity in a region seeking trade leverage with the rest of the world.

“Asean will strengthen our cooperation under the ‘3M’ strategy – mutual trust, mutual respect and mutual benefit – to achieve this year’s goal of ‘Advancing Partnership for Sustainability’,” Prayut said.

“We will step forward together, leaving no one behind, as we follow the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. We will turn our cultural diversity into creative industry and turn our region into Asean 4.0.”

Representatives of the member-states and foreign diplomats attended the launch in Bangkok. Thailand, led by the Culture Ministry, will coordinate efforts to promote regional culture, including Asean roadshows touring Europe and China.

People there will get to see the new Thai animation “Rama Avatar” and other films from Southeast Asia, sample Asean street food, enjoy a puppet festival and view the exhibition “Asean Heritage: The World Heritage”.

Also heading overseas in an ambassadorship role is a band called C Asean Consonant, whose 10 musicians from across the region play the traditional instruments of their homelands.

Khon, recently added to Unesco’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, will be at the forefront of events throughout the year, including at an international symposium taking place at Thammasat University at the end of April. Interest in Thailand’s version of the mask dance will be shared with Cambodia’s similar art form known as khol.

“The government needs to reset the mindset that we are all global citizens,” says Asean scholar Piti Srisangnam. “We have to respect differences and cultural diversity. As an Asean member, we should learn about our neighbouring cultures.

Interviewed by The Nation Weekend, Piti – director of academic affairs at Chulalongkorn University’s Asean Studies Centre – cited the Ramayana as an example.

The epic Indian tale steeped in Hindu mythology has always held enormous significance across Southeast Asia, he noted, “but different Asean members adapted their own unique versions. No single version is ‘right’ compared to the others, so we have to respect every country’s heritage and interpretation.”

Piti, also an economics teacher at Chulalongkorn, warned that nationalism and patriotism should never be factors in assessing the merits of foreign cultures, saying culture was “a sensitive issue”.

“Though Asean’s rich and diverse culture provides good capital for building for the future, developing an Asean creative industry will not be easy,” he said. “It will require innovation and clever marketing to expand trade. We have think outside the box and introduce cultural innovation, which rarely happens in Thailand.”

Although the March 24 election will not significantly disrupt the Asean cultural calendar, Piti said, post-election changes in the Cabinet could slow promotional efforts.

The same applies in other countries holding elections in the first half of 2019, he said, including India, Indonesia and the Philippines. “Thailand has yet to achieve Thailand 4.0 because the bureaucracy is divided on how to interpret the concept,” former Culture Ministry permanent secretary Apinan Poshayanand said.

“So how can we push the whole region towards Asean 4.0? Implementing the creative-industry strategy and Asean 4.0 is complex because there are so many stakeholders.”

Apinan left the ministry to work for ThaiBev, under whose auspices he succeeded in merging the idea of a creative economy with the culture and tourism sectors by inaugurating the Bangkok Biennale, the country’s first international festival of contemporary art.

The Bt150-million festival generated several million baht in income and gave Bangkok the spotlight as a regional art hub.

“To properly promote regional cultural unity, Thailand needs to do more than host cultural parades,” he said. “It has to provide a platform for addressing socio-political issues like minority rights and social inequality. That’s how to understand the real cultural diversity of the region.”

Dulyapak Preecharush, a Thammasat University scholar, suggested that Asean “expand the cultural corridors along the borders of neighbouring countries and formulate a ‘sharing the benefits’ policy”.

Pooled efforts in marketing with an eye to mutually sustainable development could possibly arise between Chiang Rai and Chiang Saen in Myanmar and between Chaiya in Surat Thani and Kedah in Malaysia, he said.

“Thanks to the similarities in culture, and through better understanding, we might even hope to reduce political conflicts.”

“Meanwhile we should tap the economic power of our cosmopolitan cities like Bangkok and Chiang Mai and dual-nationality places like Nakhon Panom, which are all international melting pots,” Dulyapak said. “The same could be applied to other urban centres across Asean that display similar diversity.”

Around 740,000 Rohingya fled over the border into Bangladesh after a bloody military campaign in 2017.

The UN condemned the crackdown as ethnic cleansing and investigators called for top military leaders, including Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, to be prosecuted for genocide.

But the military has maintained its operations were justified to root out Rohingya insurgents following a series of deadly attacks on police posts and has denied nearly all allegations of wrongdoing.

In an interview Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper published Friday, Min Aung Hlaing doubled down on previous claims, arguing “there is no certain proof that the national army was involved in the persecution” of Rohingya.

The army chief added that accusations the military committed atrocities “hurts the nation’s dignity”.

Min Aung Hlaing rarely speaks to the press and has instead preferred to communicate over Facebook, but the social media giant kicked him off the platform last year for his role in stoking hate speech.

His comments were at odds with testimony from Rohingya in the crowded, sprawling camps in Bangladesh.

The refugees have recounted widespread murder, rape, torture and the burning of entire villages to the ground at the hands of Myanmar soldiers.

A UN probe report released in September also outlined atrocities committed by the military in meticulous and searing detail.

It said Myanmar’s “clearance operations” were disproportionate to the insurgent attacks and cited prior troop deployments as evidence of premeditation.

Investigators called for Myanmar to be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) but any road to prosecution would be long and fraught with political difficulties at the UN.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government remains in a fragile power-sharing agreement with the military, which holds three key ministries and a quarter of parliamentary seats.

Suu Kyi’s international reputation lies in tatters for refusing to stand up for the Rohingya.

In Myanmar, the Rohingya are widely seen as interlopers from Bangladesh and have been denied citizenship, rights and access to services for decades under what Amnesty International calls apartheid-like conditions.

Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said this after Ressa claimed that her arrest is a clear case of “abuse of power” and that the Duterte administration is using the law as “weapon” against its critics.

Ressa was arrested for a cyberlibel case late Wednesday night but was ordered freed on P100,000 bail by the Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) on Thursday morning.

“You are the one using or weaponizing the law, what is the law? The constitutional right to freedom of expression. You’re using that now against the government,” Panelo said in a Palace briefing.

Panelo, who is also Duterte’s chief legal counsel, turned the tables on Ressa and claimed that the veteran journalist is the one “abusing” her power as a media practitioner.

“Excuse me, Maria. Abuse of power? You are the one abusing your power as a journalist, you’re marshaling your colleagues to support you on the basis of a misplaced and baseless cause. What is the cause? You’re saying that the government is instilling fear because of the case filed against you,” Panelo said.

“There is no connection whatsoever. So you’re the one using your power as a journalist, we all know that media is the fourth estate, in attacking the government as well as this administration,” he added.

Panelo reminded Ressa “to be woman enough to face the complaint.”

“Stop blaming the government. In the same way that the case filed against you relative to tax evasion, that has nothing to do with your work as a journalist,” he said.

Ressa was arrested over an article published in Rappler in May 2012, which its subject, businessman Wilfredo Keng, said was “clearly defamatory.”

The Department of Justice has filed the cyber libel case against Ressa and Rappler researcher Reynaldo Santos Jr. and found probable cause for violation of Republic Act 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act, which was enacted in September 2012, four months after the article was published.