NewsBytes

Three Chinese astronauts, including a woman, who spent six months in China's space station returned to Earth safely. The return capsule of the Shenzhou-19 crewed spaceship, carrying astronauts Cai Xuzhe, Song Lingdong, and Wang Haoze -- China's third female astronaut and a space flight engineer, touched down at the Dongfeng landing site in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The three were taken out of the capsule one by one by the crew on the ground. They landed at a new site in the Inner Mongolia region, after poor weather had delayed their return from the Tiangong space station. The three astronauts stayed in orbit for 183 days, during which they carried out three spacewalks, breaking the previous world record for the longest single spacewalk set by the Shenzhou-18 crew members. The crew set the record during its first extravehicular activity on December 17, 2024, which lasted for nine hours, according to CMSA.

The Philippines signed a military pact with New Zealand, allowing their forces to hold joint exercises as Manila continues to build security alliances as it faces an increasingly aggressive China in the disputed South China Sea. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr witnessed the ceremony in Manila, where Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr and and his New Zealand counterpart, Judith Collins, inked the Status of Visiting Forces Agreement. The treaty sets the legal framework to allow military engagements of both countries, including joint drills in each other's territory and other cooperative activities. It has been approved by New Zealand officials, but still needs to be ratified by the Philippine Senate for it to take effect. China has frowned on the security alliances being pursued by the Philippines, one of the staunchest allies of the United States in Asia, under Marcos.

A coalition of survivors of clergy sexual abuse demanded that cardinals entering the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis pick a pope who will adopt a universal zero-tolerance policy for abuse and himself has a clean record handling cases. The group End Clergy Abuse issued an open letter to the cardinals who are meeting informally this week before the start of the May 7 conclave. SNAP, the main US-based survivor group, also identified cardinals who themselves have problematic records in a new database, highlighting a new level of scrutiny of all possible contenders for the papacy. The developments come amid real questions about how prominent the abuse scandal is featuring in the discussions about finding a new pope. After two decades of unrelenting revelations about abuse and cover-up that have discredited the Catholic hierarchy, many church leaders would like to think the issue is in the past, the survivors said.