The Week That Was in Asia

In this May 1, 2019, photo, Japan’s new Emperor Naruhito and new Empress Masako are driven to Imperial Palace to greet Emperor Emeritus Akihito and Empress Emerita Michiko in Tokyo. Naruhito succeeded to the Chrysanthemum Throne Wednesday after his father Akihito abdicated Tuesday. Photo: Koji Sasahara / AP

In this April 30, 2019, photo, Japan’s Emperor Akihito, accompanied by Empress Michiko, speaks during the ceremony of his abdication in front of other members of the royal families and top government officials at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. The 85-year-old Akihito ends his three-decade reign on Tuesday as his son Crown Prince Naruhito will ascend the Chrysanthemum throne on Wednesday. Photo: Japan Pool via AP

In this April 30, 2019, photo, Japan’s Emperor Akihito, right, leaves after a ritual to report his abdication to the throne, at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. The 85-year-old Akihito ends his three-decade reign on Tuesday when he abdicates to his son Crown Prince Naruhito. Photo: Japan Pool via AP

In this May 1, 2019, photo, a protester runs around a burning effigy of President Rodrigo Duterte during a rally near the Presidential Palace in Manila, Philippines, to pay tribute to workers in celebration of International Labor Day. The workers scored Duterte allegedly for reneging in his campaign promise three years ago to end temporary hiring known as “contractualization” or “ENDO” (End of Contract). Photo: Bullit Marquez/ AP

In this April 30, 2019, photo, staff at a government waste management facility arrange seized ivory tusks before destroying them, outside Seremban, Malaysia. Malaysia has destroyed nearly four tons of elephant tusks and ivory products as part of its fight against the illegal ivory trade. Photo: Vincent Thian/ AP

In this April 30, 2019, photo, Chinese President Xi Jinping, center, applauds as he attends a commemoration ahead of the 100th anniversary of the May 4 Movement at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. The 100-year-old movement sought to overturn what was then called “feudal” thinking that opposed their calls for civil and women’s rights. China’s authoritarian Communist Party rulers now embrace the movement as a seminal moment in China’s transition to a modern nation. Photo: Ng Han Guan/ AP

In this May 1, 2019, photo, members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions hold up their banners during a May Day rally in Seoul, South Korea. Thousands of trade union members and activists are marking May Day by marching through Asia’s capitals and demanding better working conditions and expanding labor rights. The signs read “Let’s win the wage struggle.” Photo: Ahn Young-joon / AP

In this May 1, 2019, photo, North Korean soldiers look at the South side, seen during a press tour at the border village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone, South Korea. South Korea on Wednesday resumed the southern side of Panmunjom tour to tourists. Photo: Lee Jin-man/ AP

In this April 28, 2019, photo, Sri Lankan Army soldiers lower the national flag as the sun sets on Sunday, in Colombo, Sri Lanka. In a rare show of unity, Sri LankanPresident Maithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and opposition leader Mahinda Rajapaksa attended the Sunday Mass in person. Their political rivalry and government dysfunction are blamed for a failure to act upon near-specific information received from foreign intelligence agencies that preceded the bombings, which targeted three churches and three luxury hotels. Photo: Manish Swarup / AP

In this April 28, 2019, photo, a relative of a victim of Easter bomb blasts wipes her tears during a prayer at the burial site of her relatives after a televised Sunday mass by Sri Lankan Archbishop Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, in Negombo, north of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s Catholics celebrated Sunday Mass in their homes by a televised broadcast as churches across the island nation shut over fears of militant attacks, a week after the Islamic State-claimed Easter suicide bombings killed over 250 people. Photo: Manish Swarup/ AP

In this April 28, 2019, photo, protesters against an extradition law march along a downtown street in Hong Kong. Thousands of people protested to express their concerns about the proposed new extradition law that would make it possible for people to be sent to mainland China to face the justice system there. Photo:Vincent Yu/ AP

In this Thursday, April 25, 2019 photo, a statue of St. James stands on a wall speckled with fragments of shrapnel at St. Sebastian’s Church, where a suicide bomber blew himself up in Negombo, north of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Nearly a week later, the smell of death is everywhere, though the bodies are long gone. Yet somehow, there’s a beauty to St. Sebastian’s, a neighborhood church in a Catholic enclave north of Sri Lanka’s capital. You can see the beauty in the broken stained-glass windows. It’s there as the sun shines through the roof’s gaping holes. It’s there in the little statues that refused to fall over, and despite the swarms of police and soldiers who seem to be everywhere now in the streets of the seaside town of Negombo. Photo: Manish Swarup / AP

In this May 2, 2019, photo, Shaven-headed children ride a roller coaster during their visit at the Everland amusement park in Yongin, South Korea. Ten children entered a temple to have an experience of monks’ life for three weeks. Buddhists visit a temple across the country to celebrate the Buddha’s upcoming birthday on May 12. Photo: Lee Jin-man / AP

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