JAPAN
Ex-wrestler in dog poo tiff
Hawaiian-born former sumo wrestler Konishiki admitted on Thursday to a physical confrontation with a neighbor in a dispute over dog poo. Konishiki, 47, now a popular television personality, said on his blog that he was trying to defend his wife over charges she had allowed her dog to foul private property in Tokyo. Media reports said Konishiki, who weighed 275kg during his time in the ring, pushed a man who demanded that the former wrestler’s wife clean up the mess. The incident happened on Nov. 12 as the couple walked their dogs near an apartment building. She denied that her dog was responsible and tried to walk away, the apartment owner’s son told the Sports Nippon newspaper. Konishiki stepped between them and pushed the man, who was not injured, but reported the incident to police as an assault, Kyodo News said.
JAPAN
Chinese tourist numbers up
Chinese visits to Japan rose last month, the first increase since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and a sign that recovery for the nation’s tourism industry may be near. Arrivals last month from China, the nation’s second-biggest tourist market after South Korea, jumped 35 percent from a year earlier, according to Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO). Visits from Hong Kong rose 23 percent, the agency said. The number of visitors from China, which fell by 50 percent in April, was unchanged from a year earlier in October. While the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis drove almost 230,000 people to flee the country, hotel chains across Japan are expanding and airlines are adding international flights, betting Chinese tourists will lead a recovery.
SINGAPORE
Metro hit by new disruption
The troubled metro system was hit by a fresh disruption yesterday, two days after a severe breakdown that required emergency evacuations of people trapped in trains. Metro operator SMRT Corp gave no reason for the latest disruption, which affected services in the Orchard Road shopping belt and Raffles Place financial district. An estimated 127,000 commuters were affected when a power fault, that lasted five hours, hit the same North-South line on Thursday, in what is believed to be the worst breakdown in the metro’s 24 years of operation. SMRT, which also runs taxis and buses, further enraged the public when an electronic message went out to its cabbies during the outage saying there was an “income opportunity” to ferry stranded train passengers.
NORTH KOREA
Nuclear suspension agreed
Pyongyang has agreed to suspend its enriched-uranium nuclear weapons program, a key US demand for the resumption of disarmament talks, news reports said yesterday. Yonhap news agency and the Chosun Ilbo daily quoted an unidentified diplomatic source saying that Washington had also agreed to provide the North with up to 240,000 tonnes of food aid. The nation pledged “to implement initial measures of denuclearisation that include a suspension of its uranium enrichment program,” Yonhap said. The agreements came when US special envoy for North Korean Human Rights Robert King met with Ri Gun, head of North American affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday and Friday in Beijing, the source said.
HAITI
UN troops accused of abuse
The UN said on Friday it was investigating allegations of assault and attempted homicide by peacekeepers in the country, the latest charges of misconduct to be leveled against the blue--helmeted force. Local media have alleged that a group of Brazilian peacekeepers working for the UN mission in the country, known as MINUSTAH, severely beat and left for dead three young Haitian men earlier this week. “The mission is doing everything it can to establish the facts as soon as possible,” UN spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters. “It [MINUSTAH] reiterates its zero tolerance policy regarding misconduct of its personnel and will examine all allegations with the utmost seriousness,” he said.
CANADA
Qaddafi’s son owns condo
Former Libyan leader Muammar Qadaffi’s son Al-Saadi owns a C$1.6 million (US$1.54 million) luxury penthouse condominium in Toronto, media reported on Friday. The National Post said the unit had apparently gone unnoticed by Canadian and Libyan authorities following a UN order to seize the family’s worldwide assets in response to Qaddafi’s crackdown on dissidents earlier this year. Al-Saadi purchased the apartment in May 2008, around the time he reportedly made frequent visits to Toronto. Local media said the unit is not occupied, but condo fees are regularly paid from a Swiss bank account. The 38-year-old fled Libya across its southern frontier to Niger in August during the fall of Tripoli that ended his authoritarian father’s 42-year regime. He then sought to hide out in Mexico under an assumed name, but was thwarted by Mexican authorities.
FRENCH GUIANA
Soyuz rocket launched
A Soyuz rocket carrying six satellites has been launched from the country in the -Russian-built rocket’s second mission this year. The rocket will first release a French Earth observation satellite followed by four French micro-satellites. A Chilean Earth observation satellite will be released last. The satellites weigh a total of more than 2,000kg.
ISRAEL
Zuckerberg’s name stolen
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, meet your doppelganger: Mark Zuckerberg. Entrepreneur Rotem Guez says he has legally changed his name to that of Facebook’s chief executive, a gimmick meant to persuade the social networking site to back down from what he says are threats to take legal action against him. “If you want to sue me, you’re going to have to sue Mark Zuckerberg,” he said. He said a lawyer for Facebook pressed him this week to close his online business Like Store, calling it illegal. Like Store promises to enhance companies’ online reputations by offering Facebook users free content only accessible by clicking “like” on the companies’ profiles.
TUNISIA
Presidential palaces on sale
President Moncef Marzouki announced on Friday he would sell off most of the presidential palaces built by the country’s ousted dictator and use the cash to fund new jobs, a gesture aimed at soothing anger over high unemployment. Protests demanding jobs and improved living standards toppled former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on Jan. 14. The revolution inspired the “Arab Spring” upheavals, but the social problems behind the country’s revolt have since grown worse. Marzouki, a political prisoner under Ben Ali, was made president this week as part of a governing coalition brought to power in the country’s first election.
‘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