JAPAN
Radical leftist dies in prison
The ex-leader of an armed leftist group from the 1970s has died while on death row, having been in jail since her 1972 arrest over the savage killings of 14 fellow radicals, reports said yesterday. Hiroko Nagata, 65, a central figure in the now-defunct United Red Army, died late on Saturday due to multiple organ failure, Jiji Press and other news outlets said, quoting the Justice Ministry. In August 1971, Nagata conspired with another member to kill two people who had tried to leave the group. Over the following year she and the United Red Army’s chairman led the horrific group killings of another 12 members who were deemed not revolutionary enough.
UNITED STATES
Taliban condemn death
Taliban extremists condemned an Afghan inmate’s death at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp as a “clear indicator” of US human rights violations and “brutal behavior,” US-based monitors said Saturday. Awal Gul, who was held at Guantanamo for nearly nine years over alleged links to the Taliban and al-Qaeda collapsed and died on Tuesday of “apparent natural causes” after exercising on an elliptical machine, the US military said. In a statement posted on its Web site in Pashto on Friday and in English on Saturday, the Afghan Taliban called Gul an “eminent commander” and blamed his death on the “bestiality of the American rulers,” according to SITE Intelligence Group monitors.
NORTH KOREA
Mineral deal with China set
Pyonygang will sign an agreement this month to allow Chinese companies to explore its potentially vast mineral wealth, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said yesterday. Yonhap said officials of the two countries will sign a deal in Beijing on Feb. 15, a day before the birthday of Pyongyang’s leader Kim Jong-il. Seoul estimates the total value of mineral deposits in the North at US$6.3 trillion. “The agreement contains a specific list of mines to be developed ... including gold, anthracite coal and rare earth mineral mines,” Yonhap quoted a source familiar with the North’s affairs as saying. Under the agreement the nations will open a Hong Kong-based firm to seek investment from private Chinese companies, the source was quoted as saying.
PHILIPPINES
Official fears for peace talks
The chief government negotiator said yesterday he was “seriously concerned” after a feared rebel commander broke from the main Islamic separatist group ahead of peace talks. Ameril Umbrakato’s split from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) could compromise talks between the government and the rebels, negotiator Marivic Leonen said. He is due to meet his MILF counterparts on Wednesday to reopen the stalled talks. Umbrakato quit the rebel organization seven months ago, taking at least a thousand fighters with him.
GAZA STRIP
Hamas commander returns
A senior Hamas commander returned home on Saturday after breaking out of a Cairo jail during the political upheaval in Egypt, sources in the Palestinian Islamist movement said. They said Ayman Nofal had been arrested in the Egyptian Sinai in early 2008. Five other Palestinian militants who had been held at Abu Zaabal prison in Cairo made their way back to Gaza last week, using smuggling tunnels to circumvent Egyptian border controls. Abu Zaabal was raided during anti--government protests on Saturday.
SAUDI ARABIA
Women protest in Riyadh
Dozens of family members, mainly women, of detainees in jails held an unprecedented gathering outside the Ministry of the Interior in Riyadh on Saturday, despite an official ban on demonstrations, witnesses said. The women, fully covered in black and veiled, men and children asked to meet with ministry officials to call for the release of their relatives, they said. Those detained were arrested in 2003 and 2004 at the height of a security sweep against al-Qaeda suspects during a wave of attacks on oil installations and other targets. Police were deployed in force and barred access to the ministry.
VENEZUELA
Expropriations condemned
Hundreds of people demonstrated on Saturday in Caracas to demand the government halt expropriations of private companies and condemning its stance toward union protests. Some protesters held signs saying “Free Ruben Gonzalez!” — a union leader jailed on charges stemming from a 2009 strike at the state iron-mining company. Marchers said they oppose attempts to punish labor leaders. The rights group Provea says more than 2,200 people who have taken part in protests have been charged with crimes over the past five years.
UNITED STATES
Navy test robot bomber
A robotic, bat-winged bomber designed to take off from an aircraft carrier has passed its first test in a debut flight in California, the navy said on Saturday. The X-47B jet, which looks like a smaller version of the B-2 stealth bomber, stayed in the air for 29 minutes in a test flight on Friday at Edwards Air Force Base, according to the navy and defense contractor Northrop Grumman. Military leaders see the plane as part of a new generation of drones that would be able to evade radar and fly at much faster speeds than the current fleet of propeller-driven Predators and Reapers used in the war in Afghanistan. With no pilot on board, the experimental aircraft was operated by a joint Navy and Northrop team on the ground. The first tests on a carrier are scheduled for 2013, Northrop said in a release.
YEMEN
Pirates hijack Chinese ship
Somali pirates hijacked a Chinese commercial ship off the port of Al-Hudaydah, the Interior Ministry said on Saturday. The pirates steered the ship toward the Somali coast, the ministry quoted Al-Hudaydah coast guard personnel as saying. Meanwhile, the Indian navy and coast guard captured a suspected Somali pirate “mothership” and detained more than 50 people after a firefight off southwestern India yesterday, the Indian defense ministry said. “There were 52 people in all,” defense ministry spokesman Captain M. Nambiar said. He was unable to specify the numbers of pirates and rescued hostages, nor could he give their nationalities.
ITALY
Thousands rally against PM
Thousands of people attended a rally in Milan on Saturday to demand Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s resignation following allegations he paid for sex with a 17-year-old girl and used his office to cover it up. Notable left-leaning intellectuals, including Umberto Eco and anti-mafia author Roberto Saviano, and union leaders addressed the crowd at a sports stadium. Organizers said more than 100,000 people had signed a petition calling for Berlusconi to resign. The 74-year-old Berlusconi said on Saturday that early elections would do “grave damage” to the country.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese