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Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen will send a special envoy to attend this week's funeral of former Pope Benedict, with her office saying it is a demonstration of the "deep friendship" between Taiwan and the Vatican, which has been courting China.

Benedict, the first pontiff in 600 years to resign and a standard bearer for conservatives who yearned for a more traditional Church, died on Saturday. His funeral will be held on Thursday.

The Vatican is Chinese-claimed Taiwan's sole European diplomatic ally, and Taipei has watched with concern as Pope Francis has moved to improve relations with China. The democratically governed island has formal ties with only 14 countries, largely due to Chinese pressure.

In a statement late on Saturday, Taiwan's presidential office said Tsai has appointed former Vice President Chen Chien-jen, a devout Catholic, as her special envoy to the funeral "based on the deep friendship between our country and the Vatican".

Chen went to the Vatican three times while in office, in 2016, 2018 and 2019, including attending the canonisation ceremony of Mother Teresa.

In September, while visiting the Vatican for the beatification of former Pope John Paul I, also as Tsai's envoy, Chen met Pope Francis and asked him to "pray for Taiwan". (Reuters)

South Korea's factory activity shrank for a sixth consecutive month in December, a business survey showed on Monday, as the global economic downturn and a local truckers' strike led to the worst slump in demand in 2-1/2 years.

The S&P Global purchasing managers' index (PMI) for South Korea manufacturers fell to a seasonally-adjusted 48.2 last month from 49.0 in November.

It fell again after two months of slight improvements from a more than two-year low of 47.3 reached in September, but remained below the 50-mark that separates expansion from contraction for the sixth month in a row.

Sub-indexes showed output contracted for an eighth straight month, new orders declined for a sixth month, and new export orders shrank for a 10th month.

In particular, new orders fell at the fastest pace since June 2020, both for overall orders and exports, while input purchases and backlogs of work also decreased at the fastest pace in about 2-1/2 years.

Meanwhile, suppliers' delivery times were their worst since June, as South Korean truckers went on a strike for the second time in 2022.

"The December PMI data provided further evidence that South Korean manufacturing firms have continued to struggle in the face of the current global economic downturn," said Laura Denman, economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

"Low levels of client demand, on both a domestic and international scale, were central to the latest deterioration."

On the inflation front, input prices rose at the slowest pace since January 2021, while the pace of output price increases significantly eased to the weakest in their 27-month rising streak.

Manufacturers were barely optimistic about the future output over the coming year, with the level of optimism just above the neutral threshold and at the lowest since July 2020. (Reuters)

The Taliban administration will encourage self-sufficiency and wants international trade and investment, the acting commerce minister said, as Afghanistan faces isolation and suspension of some humanitarian operations over restrictions on women.

"We will start a national self-sufficiency programme, we will encourage all government administrations to use domestic products, we will also try to encourage people through mosques to support our domestic products" Haji Nooruddin Azizi told Reuters. "We will support any item which can help us for self-sufficiency."

Another part of their strategy was to boost trade and foreign investment, he said.

"Those who were importing items to Afghanistan from abroad, they are asking us to provide opportunities for investing in Afghanistan and they want to invest here instead of importing from abroad," he said.

He said that countries including Iran, Russia and China were interested in trade and investment. He said some of the projects under discussion were Chinese industrial parks and thermal power plants, with involvement from Russia and Iran.

Already facing a lack of formal recognition and sanctions hampering the country's banking sector, investors are faced with growing security concerns after attacks on foreign targets in Kabul, claimed by the Islamic State.

An attack on a hotel catering to Chinese businessmen this month, which badly hurt several foreigners, could prompt some to re-think investing, a leading member of the Chinese business community has said. 

Azizi said authorities were working to ensure security.

"We do our best for our businessmen to not come to harm. The attack hasn't had any bad impact, (but) if it happened constantly, yes it might have bad impact," he said, referring to the investment environment.

Azizi laid out a plan to develop industry by creating special economic zones on land previously used for U.S. military bases. He said his ministry was presenting the plan to the administration's cabinet and economic commission.

He added that foreign investors were showing interest in Afghanistan's mining sector, which has been valued at more than $1 trillion. He said that an iron mine in western Herat and a lead mine in central Ghor province had seen 40 companies take part in an auction and that the results would be announced soon.

He said that a major contract signed with Russia in September for the supply of gas, oil and wheat would see the delivery of the items to Afghanistan in coming days.

The Taliban-led administration is facing increased isolation over policies in recent days restricting women from access to public life, including attending university.

An order barring female NGO workers has thrown the humanitarian sector, which is providing urgent aid to millions of people, into disarray, with some organisations suspending operations in the middle of the harsh winter.

Azizi did not comment on the new restrictions but said his ministry had allocated 5 acres of land for a permanent exhibition centre and hub for women-led businesses.

"We always support women investors," he said. (Reuters)

South Korea and the United States are discussing possible joint exercises using U.S. nuclear assets, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said, as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un labelled the South its "undoubted enemy" in flaring cross-border tensions.

Yoon's comments, in a newspaper interview published on Monday, come after he called for "war preparation" with an "overwhelming" capability, following a year marked by the North's record number of missile tests, and the intrusion of North Korean drones into the South last week.

"The nuclear weapons belong to the United States, but planning, information sharing, exercises and training should be jointly conducted by South Korea and the United States," Yoon said in the interview with the Chosun Ilbo newspaper.

The newspaper quoted Yoon as saying the joint planning and exercises would be aimed at a more effective implementation of the U.S. "extended deterrence," and that Washington was also "quite positive" about the idea.

The term "extended deterrence" means the ability of the U.S. military, particularly its nuclear forces, to deter attacks on U.S. allies.

A Pentagon spokesperson said: "We have nothing to announce today," when asked about Yoon's comments, adding that the alliance remains "rock-solid."

Yoon's remarks were published a day after North Korean state media reported that its leader Kim called for developing new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and an "exponential increase" of the country's nuclear arsenal.

At a meeting of the ruling Workers' Party meeting last week, Kim said South Korea has now become the North's "undoubted enemy" and rolled out new military goals, hinting at another year of intensive weapons tests and tension.

Inter-Korean ties have long been testy but have been even more frayed since Yoon took office in May, promising a tougher stance on the North.

On Sunday, North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile off its east coast, in a rare late-night, New Year's Day weapons test, following three ballistic missiles launched on Saturday.

The North's official KCNA news agency said the projectiles were fired from its super-large multiple rocket launcher system, which Kim said "has South Korea as a whole within the range of strike and is capable of carrying tactical nuclear warheads."

The North's race to advance its nuclear and missile programmes has renewed debate over South Korea's own nuclear armaments, but Yoon said in the Chosun Ilbo interview that maintaining the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons remained important.

To better cope with the North's growing threats, South Korea's military said on Monday it had established a new directorate under the Joint Chiefs of Staff to counter the North's nuclear and weapons of mass destruction capabilities.

North Korea, meanwhile, conducted a reshuffle of its military leadership at the year-end party gathering, sacking Pak Jong Chon, the second-ranked military official after Kim, and replacing its defence minister and the chief of the army's General Staff, according to state media.

The reason for Pak's replacement was not immediately known, although Pyongyang regularly revamps its leadership and uses the party event to announce major personnel reshuffles.

Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said this year could be a "year of crisis" with military tension on the Korean peninsula going beyond 2017, when Pyongyang first test-fired an ICBM and also conducted its sixth nuclear test.

"North Korea's hardline stance...and aggressive weapons development when met with South Korea-U.S. joint exercises and proportional response could raise the tension in a flash, and we cannot rule out what's similar to a regional conflict when the two sides have a misunderstanding of the situation," Hong said. (Reuters)