SOUTH KOREA
Japan flight row deepens
Seoul lashed out at Japan yesterday after Tokyo told its diplomats to boycott Korean Air following the airline’s high-publicity test flight over a disputed territory. In the latest flare-up in the long-standing territorial row, Seoul’s foreign ministry said the directive by Japan was “disappointing and deeply regrettable” and urged Tokyo to withdraw the move. Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto this week told his ministry officials to refrain from flying Korean Air on their business trip for a month, after the airline made the test flight of its new Airbus A380 jet last month over the disputed islands — Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese. The waters surrounding the islands are rich in marine life and popular with squid fishermen, while the seabed in the area may have deposits of a natural gas hydrate that could be worth billions of US dollars.
PAKISTAN
Progress made with the CIA
Progress was made in mending rifts with US intelligence services in a relationship that had soured over the US raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, officials said on Thursday after meetings at CIA headquarters. Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha made a brief visit to Washington, arriving on Wednesday and leaving on Thursday, to meet with Acting CIA Director Michael Morell and other intelligence officials. Both sides sought to renew ties of cooperation and move forward in an often challenging relationship. “The discussions today between General Pasha and the acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency went very well,” a US official said on condition of anonymity.
JAPAN
Prototype reactor suspended
The government is considering suspending development of a prototype fast-breeder reactor at the Monju Nuclear Power Plant, Science Minister Yoshiaki Takaki was quoted as saying yesterday. Prime Minister Naoto Kan said on Wednesday that the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant crisis had convinced him Japan should wean itself off nuclear power and eventually have no atomic plants. The operator of Monju last month completed the potentially risky retrieval of a 3.3 tonne device that had fallen into a reactor vessel, although a restart of the long-idled project remained in doubt as worries mount about nuclear safety. Located on the Sea of Japan coast 400km west of Tokyo, the 280 megawatt Monju reactor is designed to burn plutonium refined from spent fuel at conventional nuclear reactors to create more fuel. The government hoped it would help to reduce Japan’s reliance on imports for its energy needs. The prototype, named after the Buddhist deity symbolizing wisdom, was shut for 14 years until May last year after a leak of liquid sodium from a cooling system.
NORTH KOREA
Body returned to the South
North Korea has handed over the body of a South Korean man found in the North’s western waters. The South Korean Unification Ministry said the body was repatriated at the truce village of Panmunjom yesterday. It is rare for the bodies of South Koreans to be found in North Korean waters. North Korea last repatriated the corpse of a South Korean in 2005. The Unification Ministry said it believes the North confirmed the man’s nationality throughout his identification card. It was not immediately known how the man died and why his body drifted into North Korean waters.
ITALY
Fake priest arrested
Police said on Thursday they had found a fitting temporary home for an accused jewelry robber whose priestly disguise failed to help him slip past their dragnet. Police said they tracked down and arrested the 37-year-old male suspect by reviewing closed circuit television footage around Via del Corso and Via Condotti, the swanky shopping district near the Spanish Steps, after a hold-up at one of Rome’s most prestigious jewelry shops on July 4. Police have detained the suspect in the Queen of Heaven jail on the Tiber River not far from the pope’s Vatican headquarters.
KENYA
Cabinet sets food measures
The Cabinet said on Thursday it had authorized an emergency expenditure of 9 billion shillings (US$100 million) to buy food for victims of drought in parts of the country. It also set out strict conditions for the import and sale of genetically modified (GMO) maize, restricting imports to millers only, for processing and not for planting. The world’s worst food crisis is devastating large areas of the Horn of Africa — including Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia, and it is estimated that more than 10 million people could face extreme hunger. A maize supply shortage because of poor rainfall has forced the government to zero rate the commodity’s import until the end of the year and allow GMO maize into the country for the first time. Kenya is expected to import 4 million 90kg bags of maize in the second half of the year to plug a production deficit.
SUDAN
Peace accord signed
The government and a Darfur rebel group, the Liberation and Justice Movement, on Thursday signed a peace accord in the Qatari capital, Doha, in the absence of key rebel factions. President Omar al-Bashir and leaders of Chad, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Eritrea and Qatar attended the signing of the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur, an accord which follows talks sponsored by the African Union, the UN and the Arab League. The Liberation and Justice Movement is an alliance of rebel splinter factions. However, the main armed groups in Darfur — the Justice and Equality Movement, and factions of the Sudan Liberation Army headed by Minni Minnawi and Abdelwahid Nur — were absent and did not sign the agreement.
TURKEY
Probe on autonomy starts
Prosecutors have launched an investigation into the proclamation of Kurdish autonomy in the country’s southeast. The prosecutor’s office in Diyarbakir, the largest city in the southeast, announced yesterday that it was examining the declaration, which the government sees as a threat to national unity. An umbrella group that includes the country’s Kurdish party proclaimed Kurdish autonomy in Diyarbakir on Thursday, hours after a clash left 13 soldiers and seven Kurdish guerrillas dead in the region.
UNITED NATIONS
IAEA raises Syria concern
An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on Syria’s alleged clandestine nuclear activities has raised concerns the country violated its nonproliferation obligations, several Western ambassadors on the Security Council said on Thursday. US Ambassador Susan Rice said her country’s concerns were confirmed in the report delivered by the IAEA on Thursday to a closed council meeting. The IAEA says Syria has refused to cooperate with an investigation of its alleged secret nuclear activities.
UNITED STATES
Gay history to be taught
California is to become the first state to require public schools to teach gay and lesbian history. As expected, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill on Thursday that mandates the contributions of gays and lesbians to the state and country be included in social science instruction and in textbooks. Schools districts will have until next January to begin implementing the new law, which was also promoted in part as a way to combat bullying of gay and lesbian students. “This is definitely a step forward, and I’m hopeful that other states will follow,” said Mark Leno, California’s first openly gay state senator, who sponsored the bill. “We are failing our students when we don’t teach them about the broad diversity of human experience.”
CANADA
Reservation water unhealthy
Nearly three-quarters of the water systems on First Nations reservations pose a risk to water quality and health, the government said on Thursday, citing the first large-scale study on the subject. The almost two-year long investigation revealed that 34 percent of water systems on the reservations pose a “moderate risk” to clean drinking water and health, while 39 percent pose a “high risk.” In some areas, residents must boil their water before drinking it. The report “is shocking in that it reveals the quality of drinking water in First Nation communities is even worse than anticipated,” Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo said.
HAITI
First son becomes musician
There is now more than one professional musician in the first family. President Michel Martelly said his 18-year-old son has released his first album. Sandro Martelly is being called “Ti-Micky,” which means “Little Micky” in Haitian Creole. That’s to distinguish him from his father, who was known as “Sweet Micky” before he became president in May. President Martelly is considered a master of the music known as compas, a local form of merengue. His son’s first album is a blend of compas and hip hop. Sandro launched his career on Wednesday at a hotel in Port-au-Prince. The father announced his son’s new album on Twitter and said he was very proud of it.
MEXICO
Huge marijuana farm found
A military commander said on Thursday that his soldiers discovered a record-breaking 120 hectare marijuana plantation in Baja California State. “It is the largest marijuana plantation in Mexican history,” said General Alfonso Duarte, the commander of the military region based in the far north-western border city of Tijuana. Duarte said the plantation can produce 120 tonnes of marijuana, which he valued at nearly US$160 million. The plantation, which includes housing for about 60 workers, is hidden in an area best known for raising tomatoes, he said, and nearly twice as large as the previous largest find. Soldiers discovered the plantation while on ground patrol and arrested six people who were working at the time, Duarte said.
UNITED STATES
Couple guilty in snake death
A central Florida couple has been convicted in the death of a toddler strangled in her crib by a pet python. A jury found 21-year-old mother Jaren Hare and her live-in boyfriend, 34-year-old Charles “Jason” Darnell, guilty on Thursday of manslaughter, third-degree murder and child neglect. They each face 35 years in prison. Testimony revealed that the snake had not been fed for a month before the attack.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia