Latest news with #Mi

Xiaomi Redmi Note 14 SE 5G launched in India with 50 MP Sony sensor for budget buyers

The Hindu

2 days ago

The Hindu

Xiaomi Redmi Note 14 SE 5G launched in India with 50 MP Sony sensor for budget buyers

Xiaomi on Monday (July 28, 2025) launched the Redmi Note 14 SE 5G for budget segment buyers in India. The Chinese smartphone maker already has three smartphones in the Redmi Note 14 lineup: Redmi Note 14 Pro+ 5G, Redmi Note 14 Pro 5G, and Redmi Note 14 5G. The Redmi Note 14 SE 5G features a 6.67 inch AMOLED display with a 120 Hz refresh rate and peak brightness of up to 2,100 nits and Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection. Redmi Note 14 SE 5G runs on a 5,110 mAh battery and supports 45 W fast charging. Redmi Note 14 SE 5G uses the MediaTek Dimensity 7025 processor. (For top technology news of the day, subscribe to our tech newsletter Today's Cache) Redmi Note 14 SE 5G sports a 50 MP Sony Lyt 600 main camera with optical image stabilisation (OIS), supported by an 8 MP ultrawide lens and a 2 MP macro sensor. It has a 20 MP selfie camera. Redmi Note 14 SE 5G is equipped with Dolby Atmos supported dual stereo speakers and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The Redmi Note 14 SE 5G comes at ₹14,999 in Crimson Art colour with 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage. It will be available starting August 7 on Mi, Flipkart and across Xiaomi retail stores and authorised partners.

Xiaomi launches Realme Note 14 SE 5G with 50 MP Sony sensor for budget buyers in India

The Hindu

2 days ago

The Hindu

Xiaomi launches Realme Note 14 SE 5G with 50 MP Sony sensor for budget buyers in India

40 Palestinians killed in Gaza as Netanyahu and Trump meet over ceasefire

Rhyl Journal

09-07-2025

Politics
Rhyl Journal

40 Palestinians killed in Gaza as Netanyahu and Trump meet over ceasefire

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a second meeting in two days with US president Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday evening. Mr Trump has been pushing for a ceasefire that might lead to an end to the 21-month war in Gaza. Israel and Hamas are considering a new US-backed ceasefire proposal that would pause the war, free Israeli hostages and send much-needed aid into Gaza. Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis said the dead included 17 women and 10 children. It said one strike killed 10 people from the same family, including three children. The Israeli military did not comment on specific strikes, but said it had struck more than 100 targets across Gaza over the past day, including militants, booby-trapped structures, weapons storage facilities, missile launchers and tunnels. Israel accuses Hamas of hiding weapons and fighters among civilians. Many Palestinians are watching the ceasefire negotiations with trepidation, desperate for an end to the war. In the sprawling coastal Muwasi area, where many live in ad-hoc tents after being displaced from their homes, Abeer al-Najjar said she had struggled during the constant bombardments to secure sufficient food and water for her family. 'I pray to God that there would be a pause, and not just a pause where they would lie to us with a month or two, then start doing what they're doing to us again. We want a full ceasefire,' she said. Her husband, Ali al-Najjar, said life had been especially tough in the summer, with no access to drinking water in a crowded tent in the heat of the Middle East. 'We hope this would be the end of our suffering and we can rebuild our country again,' he said, before running through a crowd with two buckets to fill them from a water truck. People chased the vehicle as it drove away to another location. Amani Abu-Omar said the water truck came every four days, not enough for her dehydrated children. She complained of skin rashes in the summer heat. She said she was desperate for a ceasefire but feared she would be let down again. 'We had expected ceasefires on many occasions, but it was for nothing,' she said. The war started after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage. Most of the hostages have been released in earlier ceasefires. Israel's offensive in Gaza has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza's health ministry. The ministry, which is under Gaza's Hamas-run government, does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. The UN and other international organisations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties. Mr Netanyahu told reporters in the Capitol on Tuesday that he and Mr Trump saw 'eye to eye' on the need to destroy Hamas. He added that the co-operation and co-ordination between Israel and the US was currently the best it had ever been during Israel's 77-year-history. Later this week, Mr Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, is expected to head to the Qatari capital of Doha to continue indirect negotiations with Hamas on the ceasefire proposal. Mr Witkoff said late on Tuesday that three key areas of disagreement had been resolved, but that one key issue still remained. He did not elaborate. After the second meeting, Mr Netanyahu said he and Mr Trump also discussed the 'great victory' over Iran from Israeli and American strikes during the 12-day war that ended two weeks ago. 'Opportunities have been opened here for expanding the circle of peace, for expanding the Abraham Accords,' Mr Netanyahu said, referring to normalisation agreements between Israel and multiple Arab nations that were brokered by Mr Trump in his first term. Washington has been pushing for normalisation between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Otago Daily Times

05-07-2025

Health
Otago Daily Times

DIY funerals — a big undertaking

Dad was still alive when Mum told the care facility manager we did not intend to use a funeral director. The manager was flummoxed. In 30 years, she had never heard of such a thing, she said. Over the next few days, as Dad grew weaker and the pain and nausea medication to manage symptoms of terminal cancer ramped up, behind-the-scenes conversations and emails focused not so much on his exit from this world but rather on how his body would exit the hospital-level care facility. Both management and family were negotiating unfamiliar territory. Could you please put in writing what you propose to do, management asked. And are you aware of all the necessary paperwork? Yes, we are, sort of, thanks. And would management like us to perhaps carry Dad out in a coffin under a sheet or maybe wheel him in his bed out through the laundry? A coffin out through the main entrance would be fine, but if the family prefers to use the laundry could you please let us know. The front door would do nicely, thank you. Depending on how hands-on you want to be, a DIY funeral can include delivering the coffin containing the body of your loved one to the crematorium or funeral service venue, as Bruce Munro and his mother discovered. Photo: Bruce Munro So, mid-morning on the Saturday of a recent long weekend, with one son overseas and the other on the wrong side of Cook Strait, Mum rounded up half a dozen able bodies who marched Dad in a plain white coffin out the care facility's glass front doors to the waiting, open boot of my sister's SUV. And it was all done without family realising, nor staff raising the alarm, that the body should not be moved until a doctor signed the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD). In the week to come, there would be several more missteps, hastily scribbled costings and belated discoveries before 200 people would rise to their feet as Dad's ashes were carried from a church auditorium reverberating to the sonorous skirl of bagpipes. Funeral debt has become a national conversation, fuelled by hushed calculations in hospital hallways, heartfelt exclamations over post-funeral sausage rolls and heated declarations in parliamentary hearings. People are feeling the sharp financial pinch of the legal, health and societal requirements of dealing with the body of their loved ones and memorialising their memories. It is estimated a basic funeral package, using a funeral director, now costs about $7500 for cremation and $10,000 for burial. To pay these bills, one in three New Zealanders are suffering financial hardship that often lasts six months or longer, according to a survey conducted in 2019. Anecdotal evidence suggests that hardship is increasing. Last year, Parliament's health select committee decided to take a look at the power of the funeral industry and the cost of cremations and funerals. It heard from affordable funeral advocates Death Without Debt, as well as representatives of the Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand and the Ministry of Health, before reporting back to the House just over a month ago. Death without Debt (DWD) spokespeople told the politicians DIY funerals were far cheaper, but that only about 230 people took this option in 2023. A significant barrier to more DIY funerals was the industry's control of part of the death certification process, they said. DWD wanted more of the cremation paperwork put online and the funeral industry's role limited to disposal of the body. The Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand (FDANZ) took umbrage at what it described as DWD's "allegations of predatory behaviour". It did not think the funeral industry was broken, but added the government could improve things by finishing a review of the Burials & Cremations Act 1964, which began in 2010. The FDANZ urged the government to increase the maximum amount of the Work and Income funeral grant, currently $2445, and suggested legislation requiring funeral prices be transparent. It also argued the asset-testing threshold for funeral plans should be increased from $10,000 to $15,000 and said the legislative review should consider burial and cremation alternatives such as water cremation and human composting. The Ministry of Health (MoH) agreed burial and cremation processes, as dictated by law, were "outdated and disproportionate". It said it was in discussion with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the Department of Internal Affairs about modernising funeral sector regulations. It estimated the cheapest option, a DIY funeral involving cremation, could be done for $1550. It appears most of the changes suggested to the health committee would do little to reduce the actual price of funerals, except for ideas that would help families more easily do it for themselves. It is certainly not easy at the moment. For Dad's funeral, we had to work hard and smart; we made mistakes but got there in the end. Implementation of changes suggested in the report, however, are mostly beyond the line of sight. In the meantime, in the hope it is useful, here is what our family found out and what we did. My Dad was a quiet, caring man — a retired school teacher and church minister — who loved rugby, a good joke and God. He was not perfect but was sincere and never, even in his final days, showed any signs of self-pity. Diagnosed in February with stage four melanoma that had spread to lung and brain, and declared beyond treatment two months later, he was reconciled to a shorter-than-expected life but was a little concerned about the process of a tumorous death. We, his family, were determined it would be as comfortable and pain-free as possible. That was an easy decision during the week we spent together while he could still walk, talk, eat and joke. Those days, especially after he ended up in hospital and palliative care doctors began appearing at the foot of his bed, were also filled with questions, lists and phone calls as we tried to navigate the alien world of death and dying. Doing it all ourselves was not a conscious decision; not at first. Faced with the option of filling out the 30-page Residential Care Subsidy (RCS) application ourselves or giving it to a lawyer to handle — "that's what a lot of people do" — an unspoken family belief in our capacity and a Scots-heritage aversion to unnecessary expense naturally led us down the DIY path. A couple of quick tips about the RCS application form that determines whether the State pays most of your loved one's asset-tested stay in rest home and hospital-level care: you can fill out the form as a "helper" without having Enduring Power of Attorney or having to apply to be an "agent"; while the form might be woefully worded, the Work & Income senior services call-centre staff are consistently fabulous; and even if the application is successful, your spouse or parent's superannuation plus the State's contribution might not cover the full, per-day cost of care. During that week, as well as precious moments and conversations with Dad and each other, we also settled on cremation rather than burial, selected a coffin and started to explore the bureaucracy of death. At my parents' nearest council-owned cemetery and crematorium, casket burials cost up to three times as much as the combined cost of cremation and ashes burial in a memorial plot. When a loved one dies, doing all the paperwork and many of the practical tasks is demanding, but a DIY funeral can save thousands of dollars. In the case of Bruce Munro's father, the cost was reduced from about $7500 to $4249 — more than 40% less than the average funeral involving cremation. In Dunedin, the differential is just as large — casket plot, internment fee and plot maintenance costs $5696.90, whereas cremation and internment in an ashes plot costs $1907.50. Dad's casket came from the local Coffin Club. During the past 15 years, more than half a dozen Coffin Clubs have popped up around the country — providing cheaper coffins and, in some cases, helping people build their own. There is only one in the South Island, the Kiwi Coffin Club Christchurch, started by Donna Sutherland, 12 years ago. Mrs Sutherland says demand has taken off during the past five years, driven by growing concern about the cost of funerals. In partnership with a local Men's Shed, the Christchurch club supplies about 100 adult-sized coffins each year — including the occasional one south of the Waitaki River — plus more than that number of "angel boxes" for babies. One of their plain, adult-sized MDF caskets costs $475; another $200 gives it a coat of paint. By comparison, the starting price of caskets available from Otago and Southland funeral directors ranges from $1150 to $1995. Dad's coffin was made of MDF, with wooden handles, lined, painted glossy white and met local crematorium standards. We know he was happy with it because he asked to see photos, joking he would not be able to see it when he needed it. By the end of those 10 days together as a family, Dad had been transferred to the hospital-level care facility. My brother and I then flew to our respective homes, having said our goodbyes to Dad; leaving Mum, our sister and her family to do shifts at his bedside, bearing a fortnight's helpless witness to the steady depletion of his life force. It was about then we got valuable guidance from two sources, started filling out the paperwork that would soon be needed and seriously wondered whether we had made the wrong decision. One information resource was the local crematorium, the other a death doula. Photos: supplied Death doulas, also known as death midwives, can educate, support and advocate for people preparing for death and those closest to them. The End of Life Doula Alliance Aotearoa lists dozens of professional and informal doulas, including a handful in Otago and Southland. The phone call yielding the crematorium's free guide to organising a private cremation and the death doula's $100 consultancy were both money well spent; each providing largely overlapping information we then cross-referenced to work out who did what, what forms needed to be filled in, when and sent to who. This is not a watertight list, but it might be helpful: When Dad died, the care facility would wash and dress his body; the GP would complete a Medical Certificate of Cause of Death, Cremation Forms B and AB and Death Documents ($200 approx); we would arrange to remove Dad's body and ask the death doula to deliver the manaaki mats ($50); we would fill out the Application for Cremation and send it, along with all the death documents from the GP, to the Medical Referee; the Medical Referee would then fill out and send us Form F ($48); we would then book the cremation and, if we wanted, book to view the cremation; on the right day and time we would turn up at the crematorium with Dad's body in a compliant coffin, hand over the paperwork and pay for the cremation ($1125); within three days of the cremation we would register the death with Births, Deaths and Marriages ($33 to get the Death Certificate posted); and at about the same time, the ashes would be ready to collect from the crematorium in readiness for the memorial service. That's the theory. In practice, we reached a point one night a few days before Dad died — talking online in three cities across two hemispheres — at which we thought maybe we did need a funeral director. The forms were still confusing, negotiations with the care facility were getting ridiculous, and the logistics of caring for Dad's body without embalming until the cremation could occur seemed fraught with difficulty. We already had a quote from a funeral director for just the basics — arranging transfer of the body, care of the body for two nights, handling all the paperwork, delivering the body to the crematorium — but had decided against it after realising we could save $2480 by doing those things ourselves. For a moment that evening our resolve wobbled, thinking Mum might prefer to have a funeral director take it all off her plate. But she was the one who said, "No, we're well on our way, we can do this." I was five hours' drive from my home and an inter-island flight away from my parents' city when I woke to the message that Dad had died, peacefully, during the night. It was the afternoon of the next day before I could get there. By then, the care facility staff had gathered for a touching farewell as Dad's body exited the building; the coffin was placed in the coolest room of my parents house, the garage; and the GP had visited to view the body and fill out the forms that should have been completed at the outset. Dad had died at the start of a long weekend, which was challenging. The crematorium was phoned, messages left, forms emailed through; but it would be Tuesday before we could speak to anyone to confirm the cremation date. Then, we would still need to get the cremation done, wait three days for the ashes and then pick them up in time for the memorial service that an ever-growing number of people said they would be attending. The death of ODT journalist Bruce Munro's father, Murray Munro, 87, six weeks ago, led to the family organising a DIY funeral to celebrate his life. Photos: supplied All we could do was get on with caring for Dad's body, prepare for the service and pray it would all come together. Caring for his body mostly meant, every eight hours, changing the dry-ice gel manaaki mats covering his body and replacing the frozen water bottle beneath the crook of his neck. It was confronting, good for the grieving process — my main impression was just how thoroughly devoid of life his body was, a costume he had cast off. There were plenty of other things to do, including planning the service in which we were all going to take a full part. Mum and Dad's church community lifted the load significantly, offering to take care of flowers, most of the music, catering and printing the service booklet. Hurrying back with Mum from a shopping mall visit to get a memorial book for guests to sign, I was pulled over by a gaggle of police with speed cameras. Why were you doing 71kmh in a 60kmh zone? I'm just heading home to put my father's coffin in the back of the vehicle that will hopefully take it to the crematorium tomorrow, I replied. How about we make that 70kmh, dropping the fine from $80 to $30? That would be great, thank you. In the end, we had the ashes with a day to spare. A DIY funeral can be confronting, but it aids the grieving process and gives family and friends a chance to participate deeply in honouring the person's memory. Photo: supplied The parliamentary health select committee concluded "the current process and regulations impose high costs on the public and create a barrier for people who want to organise their own funerals, particularly when their loved ones are about to be cremated". Our family agrees. We got there, but it was a mission and not a cheap one. At the same time, although harder to navigate than it needs to be, DIY is eminently do-able and will save thousands of dollars. Taking into account the unavoidable costs plus extras such as death doula, manaaki mats, bagpiper, memorial garden ashes plot and koha to the church and livestream technician, we spent a total of $4249 — more than 40% less than the average cremation and almost 60% less than a typical burial. The select committee's report encourages the Ministry of Health (MoH) to prioritise updating cremation regulations and to carry out planned work to facilitate DIY funerals. An easy win, it says, would be for the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) to make it easier to find DIY funeral information on the Te Hokinga ā Wairua End of Life Service website. In response to questions from The Mix, an MoH spokeswoman said a review, to make sure authorising cremation when the deceased had been in a care facility was as streamlined and cheap as possible, should be completed this year. But any legislative changes would need agreement from the government, she said. A DIA spokesman said work was under way to improve the website. Dad's memorial service was a month after we first gathered as a family and seven days after he died. It was a sad, wonderful and hope-filled occasion. As the piper led us out to the rousing, haunting tune of Amazing Grace, I was pleased we had done so much of it ourselves; from caring for Dad's body to battling with the paperwork and organising the service. It had allowed us, and others who loved Dad and cared for us, to more fully celebrate his life, mourn our loss and honour his memory. DIY funeral The plan was ... • When Dad died the care facility would wash and dress his body. • The GP would complete a medical certificate of cause of death, cremation forms B and AB and death documents ($200 approx). • We would arrange to remove Dad's body and ask the death doula to deliver the manaaki mats ($50). • We would fill out the application for cremation and send it, along with all the death documents from the GP, to the medical referee. • The medical referee would then fill out and send us form F ($48). • We would then book the cremation and, if we wanted, book to view the cremation. • On the right day and time we would turn up at the crematorium with Dad's body in a compliant coffin, hand over the paperwork and pay for the cremation ($1125). • Within three days of the cremation we would register the death with Births, Deaths and Marriages ($33 to get the death certificate posted). • At about the same time, the ashes would be ready to collect from the crematorium in readiness for the memorial service.

Mi Jingyang: the guardian and torchbearer of Chinese painting

AllAfrica

04-07-2025

Entertainment
AllAfrica

Mi Jingyang: the guardian and torchbearer of Chinese painting

Skip to content The Mi Jingyang exhibition at Jingshan Park in Beijing. All photos have been provided courtesy of the Mi Jingyang family and are used with permission. In recent months, a retrospective exhibition honoring the late Mi Jingyang (1936–2023)swept through Shanghai and Beijing to packed crowds and glowing praise. More than just a showcase of his rich and colorful ink works, the exhibition reignited public interest in a figure who stood at the unique crossroads of artist, connoisseur and cultural steward. To call Mi Jingyang a painter alone would be like calling Leonardo da Vinci just a draftsman. Over nearly seven decades, Mi played an outsized role in the preservation, authenticationand global promotion of Chinese painting. His career began in 1956 at Rongbaozhai (榮寶齋), the storied Beijing-based art house that traces its legacy back centuries. There, hemastered the exacting craft of traditional woodblock printing and was soon seconded to thePalace Museum to assist in the restoration of Song and Yuan masterpieces – a role that fine-tuned his eye for historical authenticity. As China opened its doors to the world in the late 20th century, Mi became a tirelessambassador for Chinese painting. He helped organize landmark international exhibitions inJapan, Hong Kong and the United States, showcasing works by iconic 20th-century masters such as Dong Shouping, Wu Guanzhong and Cheng Shifa. His efforts earned him a reputation as a visionary curator with a rare mix of scholarship and strategic savvy. One of the Four Talents of the Capital, Beijing, Wu Huan once put it. 'Aside from Qi Baishi and Xu Beihong, nearly every modern Chinese master whose work has achieved international acclaim owes something to Mi Jingyang's advocacy.' From left to right: Fan Zeng, Mi Jingyang Pictured left: Cheng Shifa; right: Mi Jingyang From left to right: Mi Jingyang, Zhang Rongbo, Qi Gong Chen Shaomei's painting, of a court lady Art, for Mi, was never abstract. It was personal. He married into a family steeped in artistic excellence – his father-in-law was none other than Chen Shaomei, one of Republican China's most celebrated painters. Chen's style synthesized the rugged elegance of Guo Xiand Li Tang with the lyrical refinement of Ma Yuan, Xia Gui, Tang Yin, and Qiu Ying. Hiscourtly ladies were so admired that some called him the heir to Tang Bohu. In 1930, Chenwon a silver medal at Belgium's centennial international exposition, making his name spoken in the same breath as those of Zhang Daqian and Qi no wonder that Mi, growing up in such an environment, developed not only a discerning eye but also an artist's soul. While he humbly called himself a 'Sunday painter,' hisflower-and-bird ink paintings, influenced by Wang Xuetao, won accolades far beyond hobbyist circles. Exhibited in Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Los Angeles, his artworks are now held in numerous public and private collections. They exude a refined elegance and a meditative stillness – a kind of visual haiku that bridges East and West. Mi's judgement as an art authenticator was revered. Appointed by China's Ministry of Culture as a national-level appraisal consultant, he advised major auction houses and museums. His evaluations carried weight not just because of his technical accuracy, but because of his unimpeachable integrity. In a rapidly commercializing art world, Mi Jingyang remained an anchor of credibility. In his later years, Mi turned to teaching, writing, and reflection. His memoir, Forty Years at Rongbaozhai , remains a rare insider's chronicle of China's evolving art market and institutional dynamics. Through it, readers gain insight not just into works of art, but into the art of staying true to one's ideals amid shifting tides. Mi passed away in 2023 at the age of 87. Two years later, Shanghai's Duo Yun Xuan ArtHouse mounted a major retrospective of his ink works, accompanied by the posthumous publication of The Collected Works of Mi Jingyang's Color-Ink Paintings . It was a celebration not only of his brushwork, but of a life lived in service to beauty, history, and truth. 'Dawn Crow' by Mi Jingyang In an era in which art is increasingly valued by clicks, prices and spectacle, Mi Jingyang's life offers a timely reminder: the true value of art lies not in its trendiness, but in its ability to carry the soul of a culture across generations. 'A Room Aglow' by Mi Jingyang So, the next time you stand in front of a Monet, a Hokusai or a Qi Baishi, think of Mi Jingyang, the man who spent his life making sure the old masters still had a voice in our modern world. I once asked his son, Mi Chuan, how he would sum up his father's legacy. He told me simply: 'I just hope people remember my father – not only as an art authenticator or a gallery owner, but as a truly gifted painter in his own right. Jeffrey Sze is chairman of Habsburg Asia (partially owned by the Habsburg family) and general partner of both Archduke United Limited Partnership Fund and Asia Empower LPF. He specializes in high-end art transactions and in real-world asset tokenization transactions using blockchain technology. In 2017, hw secured a cryptocurrency exchange license in Switzerland.