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Asia and Australia Edition

Robert Mugabe, Myanmar, Da Vinci: Your Friday Briefing

Good morning.

Here’s what you need to know:

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Credit...Azmat Khan for The New York Times

• The U.S. hails its battle against the Islamic State as the most precise air campaign in history. But far more Iraqi civilians are being killed than previously recognized.

Over 18 months, two reporters visited the sites of nearly 150 airstrikes across northern Iraq; interviewed hundreds of witnesses, survivors, family members, and local officials; mapped destruction through satellite imagery; and held meetings at the U.S. air base in Qatar, where the coalition directs the air campaign.

Their detailed, sometimes heartbreaking report concludes that one in five of the strikes results in civilian death, a rate more than 31 times higher than acknowledged.

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Credit...Kentaro Aoyama/Yomiuri Shimbun, via Associated Press

A grin from President Xi Jinping as he clasped hands recently with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was all it took for the Japanese news media to trumpet a breakthrough in the frosty relationship between Japan and China.

Our reporters look at the political expediency of the rapprochement as the region adjusts to President Trump, and also detail the many obstacles to real change.

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In Myanmar, the raping of Rohingya women and girls by government security forces has been even more widespread and systematic than suspected, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.

Dozens and “sometimes hundreds of cases” reported in refugee camps “likely only represent a proportion” of the total number, the report said.

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In Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe and his wife remained under house arrest in military custody. Representatives of South Africa and of the Roman Catholic Church sought to defuse the crisis with meetings in Harare, the capital, where people ventured into streets patrolled by armored vehicles and awaited what the new era might bring.

This video takes a look at Grace Mugabe, the first lady, whose rising power appears to have prompted the military takeover.

We also looked at how Mr. Mugabe’s fall has echoed across Africa.

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• As the “yes” side celebrates the result of Australia’s same-sex marriage survey, our Sydney bureau chief finds that many Australians remain frustrated.

“The costs of the mail-in survey — both financial and psychological — have been staggering,” he writes. Many wonder why it was even needed; polling had already showed what voters wanted.

And our Australia newsletter examines what the survey and its aftermath say about the health of the country’s democracy.

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• In the U.S., the House passed its version of a sweeping $1.5 trillion tax cut, moving Republicans closer to a signature victory.

And the growing outcry over sexual harassment reached the Senate. A radio newscaster accused Senator Al Franken of kissing and groping her in 2006, before he took public office. And four more accusers came forward against Roy Moore.

The sexual misconduct debate has revived questions about former President Bill Clinton.

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Credit...Julie Jacobson/Associated Press

Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” sold for a record $450.3 million, shattering the high for any work of art sold at auction. We tracked who was there.

Our reporters are trying to find out who the buyer is, but it’s clear that salesmanship has come to drive and dominate the conversation about art and its value.

Was it worth it? Our critic weighs in.

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•Auto executives from around the world are announcing ambitious plans this week to sell their electric models in China, while in the U.S., lawmakers are poised to make electric car ownership more expensive.

• Time Inc. is said to be negotiating its sale to the Meredith Corporation, the U.S. publisher, in a deal backed by a $500 million injection from the billionaire Koch brothers.

• A Japanese railway company apologized for the “severe inconvenience” caused when one of its trains left 20 seconds early.

• U.S. stocks were up. Here’s a snapshot of global markets.

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Credit...Noel Celis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

• Cambodia’s top court dissolved the country’s main opposition party, the only viable challenger to Prime Minister Hun Sen, above. The decision, the culmination of a long government crackdown, followed a lawsuit asserting that the opposition was involved in a U.S.-backed plot to overthrow the government. [The New York Times]

• An Afghan policeman stopped a suicide bomber trying to enter a wedding hall in Kabul with a bear hug, a selfless act that held the death toll to 14. [The New York Times]

• An Australian U.N. diplomat accidentally fell to his death in New York City after playfully leaning back on a seventh-floor balcony during a party. [A.P.]

• British Columbia authorities have accused a wealthy Chinese immigrant of pocketing nearly $6 million from investors, including many Chinese citizens led to believe he could help them secure permanent residency in Canada. [The New York Times]

• A former U.S. Marine admitted to raping a 20-year-old Okinawan woman but denied intending to kill her on the opening day of a murder trial that has intensified local anger over U.S. military bases. [Japan Today]

• A perfectly preserved 50,000-year-old cave lion cub was discovered in Siberia by a joint Japan-Russia research team. [The Asahi Shimbun]

• A missing British explorer was spotted “alive and well” near a remote airstrip in Papua New Guinea. Benedict Allen, 57, had been searching for the reclusive Yaifo tribe, whom he first met 30 years ago. [BBC]

Malaysia plans to conduct detailed studies into the purported aphrodisiac value of the durian. [The Straits Times]

Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.

• Our complete guide for how to be happy.

• You’re aging well. Your makeup should, too.

Recipe of the day: Your weekend can include Marcella Hazan’s classic Bolognese sauce.

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Credit...Andrew Faulk for The New York Times

• Cool new restaurants, bars and boutiques, plus cultural treasures and zany, only-in-Japan experiences: Our 36 Hours guide shows why Osaka’s star is rising.

• Scientists found that chimpanzees can change how they communicate based on what their audience knows, something that only humans had been known to do.

And we looked at the global debate over taxing sugary drinks. Such levies have been enacted in 30 countries, including India, Britain and Thailand, but in Colombia, proponents have been threatened.

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Credit...Alberto Pizzoli/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Pope Francis has declared Sunday as the World Day of the Poor.

The pope took his name from St. Francis of Assisi, who took a vow of poverty in the 13th century to serve the poor. Francis has focused his papacy on lives that he says have been sacrificed “on the altar of money and profit.”

The pope has urged the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics to honor the day. The Vatican will be observing it with a Mass celebrated by 4,000 poor and needy people, who will then be invited to lunch. This week, free medical services have been provided in front of St. Peter’s Square, and charitable volunteers will be honored in prayer.

In his message for the day, released in June, Francis exhorted Catholics to go beyond the “occasional volunteer work, or of impromptu acts of generosity that appease our conscience” and to truly encounter the impoverished.

“Even as ostentatious wealth accumulates in the hands of the privileged few,” he noted, “there is a scandalous growth of poverty in broad sectors of society throughout our world. Faced with this scenario, we cannot remain passive, much less resigned.”

The Mass will be streamed live on Sunday at 4 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Eastern. You can watch it here.

Lori Moore contributed reporting.

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Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings and updated online. Browse past briefings here.

We have briefings timed for the Australian, Asian, European and American mornings. And our Australia bureau chief offers a weekly letter adding analysis and conversations with readers. You can sign up for these and other Times newsletters here.

What would you like to see here? Contact us at asiabriefing@nytimes.com.

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