■JAPAN
Reports of violence surge
Reported domestic violence surged by 20 percent to a record level of more than 25,000 cases last year, the fifth straight annual rise, police said yesterday. Police handled 25,210 cases of domestic violence by spouses and common-law partners last year — including murders, deadly assaults and rapes — an annual report released by the National Police Agency said. The report said 98.4 percent of the victims were women. Police pressed criminal charges in 1,650 cases, including 77 murders, seven deadly assaults and six rapes, the report said. Police also said 14,657 cases of stalking were reported last year, up 8.9 percent from 2007, and that 90.1 percent of known stalkers were men. Police included verbal threats of physical harm in the statistics for the first time last year.
■MYANMAR
Stimulant tablets seized
A total of 280 drug traffickers were arrested last month and more than 1 million stimulant tablets seized, state media said yesterday, after US reports accusing its military regime of failing to tackle drugs. The New Light of Myanmar newspaper said that police, customs officials and the military had recovered opium, heroin and low-grade opium last month. They seized 1.3 million stimulant tablets as well as chemicals used to make drugs, the newspaper said. The government has vowed that the country will be drug-free by 2014 but it remains the world’s second-largest opium producer after Afghanistan, while the US says the nation has become a hub for amphetamine production. This month the foreign ministry accused the US of giving “inaccurate and politically motivated assessments” in a Feb. 27 global narcotics report that said there had been a significant increase in opium poppy cultivation.
■PHILIPPINES
Police hunt gunmen
President Gloria Arroyo yesterday ordered police to track down and arrest gunmen who ambushed and shot a junior Cabinet member, leaving him critically wounded. Ramon Aquino, an undersecretary with the Department of Public Works and Highways, was on his way to meet Arroyo at the presidential palace on Wednesday when his vehicle was ambushed on a busy Manila street. Aquino is in critical condition after being shot in the chest and abdomen. His driver was also wounded. “The president has directed the PNP [national police] to conduct a thorough investigation,” deputy presidential spokeswoman Lorelei Fajardo said in a statement.
■JAPAN
Doctor sorry for comment
A doctor has apologized after saying that people should smoke themselves to an early death to save the country money on elderly care, his hospital said yesterday. “It is clear that medical costs will increase if non-smoking spreads,” the doctor said last week, according to Ida Hospital in Kawasaki City. “It’s better that people smoke a lot and die early.” The man, whose name has been withheld, made the comment at a gathering of doctors, the hospital said. “The hospital president has reprimanded him severely,” said Tetsuya Yamamoto, a public relations official of the hospital. “He said it was a careless remark and sincerely regrets it,” the official said, adding that he was being sarcastic as the doctor is a smoker himself. The country’s smoking rate is declining. The rate for men is 39.5 percent, half of the rate of 40 years ago, Japan Tobacco Inc said. The rate for women is 12.9 percent, down from 15 percent in 1968.
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