JAPAN
Chinese fisherman arrested
The coast guard said yesterday it had arrested a Chinese boat captain in a possible fresh test for sometimes fraught maritime relations, just days after a South Korean officer was stabbed to death at sea. A coas guard vessel pursued the fisherman’s 130 tonne boat for more than six hours after it was spotted lowering ropes into the water about 4km off islands in Nagasaki, in the southwest of the country, the second arrest in the area in less than two months. The boat’s captain, Zhong Jinyin (鍾進音), 39, was taken to the coastguard’s Nagasaki office while investigators inspected the boat, which had 10 other crewmembers on board, a spokesman said. “We have asked the Japanese side to ensure the safety of the Chinese crew and the boat and ensure their legitimate rights and interests,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Liu Weimin (劉為民) told a regular daily press briefing.
JAPAN
Minister to visit Myanmar
Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba said he will visit Myanmar next week and coordinate closely with the US to encourage further reforms in the military-dominated country. Gemba met in Washington on Monday with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who made a landmark visit to Myanmar earlier this month. Gemba said he was encouraged by progress toward democracy and national reconciliation in Myanmar. He and Clinton agreed to deepen coordination so “this positive trend will be further solidified.”
FRANCE
Gun-wielding Santa arrested
A Santa spent several hours in custody after threatening a Christmas tree seller who set up shop next to his grotto in Bordeaux, an official said on Monday. The market employee, dressed as Father Christmas, threatened the vendor, who happened to be his nephew, with an unloaded gun at the market in Bordeaux after starting an altercation on Sunday. “It’s a family problem,” market spokesperson Florence Cambon said. The arrested Santa was released later in the day, but his pine-tree selling nephew has filed an official complaint. “From tomorrow we will have a new Father Christmas until Dec. 24,” Cambon said.
UNITED KINGDOM
DHEA helps menopause
A hormone called DHEA, mostly secreted by the adrenal glands, might be able to help women who are going through menopause and could also give them better sex lives, a study found yesterday. Italian researchers writing in the journal of the International Menopause Society, Climacteric, said they had found the first robust evidence that low doses of DHEA can help sexual function and menopausal symptoms, suggesting it might one day become an alternative to hormone replacement therapy (HRT).
SWEDEN
‘Dragon’ marketing decried
The longtime partner of late Swedish crime writer Stieg Larsson says he would not have approved of merchandise being linked to this week’s release of a Hollywood adaptation of his bestselling novel, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Eva Gabrielsson said on Monday that Larsson instead would have used the buzz around his work to call attention to violence and discrimination against women. Gabrielsson and Larsson were a couple for more than 30 years, but never married. Larsson did not leave a will, so his brother and father inherited the rights to his works when he died of a heart attack at age 50 in 2004.
PERU
Berenson travels to US
Lori Berenson, a New Yorker who spent 15 years in prison for aiding Marxist insurgents, boarded a plane late on Monday for her first trip back to the US since her 1995 arrest, officials said. Berenson, 42, the mother of a two-year-old boy, was paroled last year after serving 15 years of a 20-year sentence. A judge on Friday gave Berenson permission to travel abroad, but she was turned back at Lima airport by migration officials because she did not have a document from the Interior Ministry authorizing her to travel as a parolee. On Monday, assisted by two officials from the US embassy, she went to Peru’s migration office and was given a document allowing her to travel. She boarded a Continental Airlines flight, which took off for Newark, New Jersey. The judge said Berenson must return to Lima by Jan. 11.
CUBA
Mourning for Kim decreed
The government has decreed three days of mourning for the death of former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. An official statement read on Monday on state television also said the Communist government had ordered that flags be flown at half-staff at public buildings and military installations. The mourning period began yesterday and runs through tomorrow. The leftist governments of Venezuela and Nicaragua also expressed condolences for the death of the North Korean leader on Saturday.
UNITED STATES
Sperm donor warned
A San Francisco Bay-area man who gives away his sperm for free to childless couples is facing scrutiny from federal regulators who want him to halt the practice. Trent Arsenault of Fremont says he has fathered 14 children since he began donating sperm in 2006 and four more are on the way. The 36-year-old says he donates sperm out of a sense of service to help people who want to have children, but can’t afford conventional sperm banks. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told Arsenault he must stop because he doesn’t follow the agency’s strict rules for getting tested for sexually transmitted diseases. Arsenault says he gets tested regularly, but that following the FDA’s rules would make it impossible to keep offering his sperm for free.
UNITED STATES
Teen sentenced for killing
A teen who fatally shot a gay classmate in the back of the head in a computer lab nearly four years ago was sentenced on Monday to 21 years in state prison. Brandon McInerney, 17, dressed in a white T-shirt and blue pants, didn’t speak at the hearing, but his lawyer said his client was sorry for killing 15-year-old Larry King. McInerney will report to prison next month, after he turns 18. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and unlawful use of a firearm after jurors deadlocked during his trial as an adult on a first-degree murder charge.
VENEZUELA
Beauty queen dies at 28
Former Miss Venezuela Eva Ekvall, whose struggle with breast cancer was closely followed by her compatriots, has died at age 28. Her family said Ekvall died on Saturday at a hospital in Houston. Ekvall was crowned Miss Venezuela at age 17 in 2000 and the following year she was third runner-up in the Miss Universe pageant in Puerto Rico. She went on to work as a model, actress and television news anchor. She also wrote a book, Fuera de Foco (Out of Focus), about her struggle with cancer, which included images by photographer Roberto Mata.
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
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