■ Japan
Raptors arrive on Okinawa
Two US F-22 stealth fighter planes arrived yesterday on Okinawa in their first deployment overseas. Two Raptors, the US Air Force's most advanced fighters and said to be the most expensive fighter planes ever built, arrived at US Kadena Air Base, wire agency photographers said. The US Air Force said 10 other F22 Raptors were expected to land today, a week later than originally scheduled. The Air Force first cited "operational reasons" as the cause of the delay of the three-month deployment, then said it was because of software problems. The planes will be on Okinawa for a three to four month deployment.
■ China
Nuclear controls boosted
Beijing said it would strengthen controls on the export of nuclear equipment, state press reported yesterday. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) signed a decree banning the use of Chinese nuclear goods and technology to carry out atomic explosions without prior agreement, the reports said. Importers of Chinese goods will also be barred from using them for nuclear proliferation, except under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The Xinhua news agency said existing Chinese regulations on the control of exports had not been tough enough to prevent proliferation.
■ Japan
Missing crewman found
A crew member who has been missing since a whaling ship caught fire off Antarctica has been found dead on Wednesday, Kyodo News agency reported yesterday. Kazutaka Makita went missing after fire broke out below deck on the Nisshin Maru. Fisheries officials have said they may have to cut short the season's whale hunt due to the ship's damage. Kyodo said Makita was found dead inside a whale processing plant on board, where the fire is believed to have started. The Nisshin Maru is the mother ship for five other Japanese vessels that hunt whales in annual hunts that Japan says are for research. The fleet planned to hunt up to 945 whales from mid-December to next month.
■ Singapore
Motorist busts wardens
Two traffic wardens got a taste of their own medicine when they were captured having breakfast -- with their motorbikes parked illegally nearby -- after "busting" a rush hour motorist. The unidentified motorist used his camera phone to film the pair after being annoyed when he spotted them taking pictures of his car in a bus lane, the Straits Times reported yesterday. He posted the video clip on YouTube (www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v96fSeGWdE), the paper said. In the two-minute video, the man is heard asking the wardens why their own vehicles were illegally parked -- to which one of the wardens replies they were just "doing our job" before brushing him off. Wardens cannot issue fines, but they can submit photographs of errant motorists to police for further action.
■ Russia
H5N1 kills poultry
The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed poultry in the Moscow region for the first time, the chief sanitary expert and head of a consumer watchdog was quoted by RIA news agency as saying on Friday. "The pathogenicity of this virus for people has not been confirmed. Vets have detected it, they confirm it is the H5N1 strain," Gennady Onishchenko said.
■ United States
Remote inventor dies
Hit the mute button for a moment of silence: The co-inventor of the TV remote, Robert Adler, has died. Adler, who won an Emmy Award along with fellow engineer Eugene Polley for the device, died on Thursday of heart failure at a Boise nursing home at 93, Zenith Electronics Corp said on Friday. In his six-decade career with Zenith, Adler was a prolific inventor, earning more than 180 US patents. He was best known for his 1956 Zenith Space Command remote control, which helped make TV a truly sedentary pastime.
■ United Kingdom
Postcard 92 years late
A postcard sent from the trenches during World War I by a private to his wartime sweetheart finally arrived -- 92 years after he had sent it. Private Walter Butler wrote to Amy Hicks in 1915, telling her he was alive and well -- but the army issue postcard never made it to her home in Wiltshire, 100km west of London. Butler survived the war and the couple went on to marry. The postcard turned up in a postal sorting office, which sent it along last week to the post office near Hicks' address. A local postman called the home of the couple's daughter, Joyce Hulbert, to announce the discovery.
■ United States
Urinals warn drinkers
Urinals in New Mexico have a few words to say to drinking men before they zip their pants, leave bar restrooms and head for their cars: Only drive if you're sober. Electronic urinal inserts bought for a pilot program launched this week by the state department of transportation sense when someone is in position and then a female voice delivers a sultry warning not to drive drunk. The message warns about the dangers of crashing or being caught by police and then playfully concludes with "Your future is in your hand." "The woman's voice is flirtatious yet stern," said Tom Trowbridge of the New Mexico Department of Transportation.
■ United Kingdom
Prince Harry off to Iraq?
Prince Harry will be serving in southern Iraq by the end of the month with his army regiment, probably taking part in reconnaissance missions near the Iran border, a newspaper reported on Saturday. A Ministry of Defense spokeswoman said the Daily Mirror report was "entirely speculative" because no final decisions have been made on which units will relieve the 19th Light Brigade currently in Iraq. She added that the next handover is not even due until around May. But a senior military source told the Mirror that the decision has been made to send Harry, a second lieutenant in the Blues and Royals Regiment.
■ United States
Teen can't stop hiccuping
For more than three weeks, despite medical tests and home remedies, a St Petersburg, Florida, teenager has been hiccuping. A lot. In fact, Jennifer Mee is hiccuping close to 50 times a minute, stopping only when she sleeps. The 15-year-old has had blood tests, a CT scan and an MRI. Drugs have not worked. Neither has holding her breath, putting sugar under her tongue, sipping pickle juice, breathing into a paper bag and drinking from the wrong side of a glass. And, yes, people have tried to scare them out of her. The hiccups started on Jan. 23 at school, but it is not clear why.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema