JAPAN
Abe visits Iwo Jima
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Iwo Jima yesterday to review efforts to recover the remains of those killed in fierce fighting on the Pacific island during World War II. He attended a memorial service to remember those who perished in the final months of the war. About 22,000 Japanese soldiers are thought to have died on the island, which is officially known as Iwoto, but the remains of most of them have yet to be recovered. In 2010, Tokyo launched a three-year project to recover more remains, saying it was a question of national duty to bring them back and lay them to rest.
NEPAL
TV talk show record set
Presenter Rabi Lamichhane has set the world record for the longest television talk show by staying on air for 62 hours and 12 minutes, organizers said yesterday. Lamichhane, a 36-year-old based in the US, returned to Kathmandu to stage the Lord Buddha Was Born in Nepal program, which took the Guinness world record late on Saturday night. “Our campaign was aimed to spread the message to the world that the Buddha was born in Nepal,” said Anil Joshi, chairman of News24, the television station broadcasting the program said, adding that the program also promoted tourism destinations. One hundred guests, ranging from former Maoist rebel leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal to local TV celebrities and ordinary people joined Lamichhane during the program. According to Guinness World Records rules, Lamichhane was allowed five minutes every hour for a break. Organizers said he ate some meals while interviewing guests, banked several of the slots for a longer rest period and otherwise survived on energy drinks. The show was live-streamed on the channel’s Web site and several partner Web sites.
PHILIPPINES
Hackers deface Web site
Suspected Chinese hackers defaced the Web site of the Philippines News Agency (PNA) yesterday, officials said, a possible repeat of cyber attacks last year also blamed on China during a territorial row. The state-run agency’s Web site temporarily displayed the Chinese flag and the text: “China Hacker EvilShadow Team, We are evil shadow. We are the team. We have our own dignity China Hacker Lxxker.” Asked if Chinese hackers were behind the attack, presidential spokeswoman Abigail Valte said an investigation was pending, but added: “The note left on the site tends to invite that conclusion.” Another government spokesman, Herminio Coloma, said the hackers group shared news of the attack via Facebook. “The site is working again now,” Coloma told reporters, but did not say how long it had been down. He added authorities were attempting to track down the group and had beefed up cybersecurity in the wake of the attack. The hacking came days after authorities arrested 12 suspected Chinese poachers whose boat ran aground in a protected coral reef in the Sulu Sea.
BELGIUM
Teens among bus crash dead
At least five people died and several were injured when a bus carrying Ukrainian and Russian teenagers crashed in the north, news media reported yesterday. Television stations RTL and RTBF said the Polish-registered bus was carrying about 40 Ukrainians and Russians aged between 15 and 17 years old. Three adolescents died as well as the driver and a chaperone, according to local media. Pictures showed the bus lying on its side below a bridge and then being righted by a crane. The accident occurred on a highway heading toward Antwerp at about 6:30am, police told the Belga news agency. Reports said no other vehicle was involved and the bus apparently swerved off the road through a guard rail and then ran down the embankment by the bridge. The immediate cause of the crash was unknown.
FRANCE
Emigration on the increase
The number of young adults going abroad has swelled 14 percent in the past four years, many of them seeking better opportunities as economic malaise grips their nation, according to government figures picked up by the newspaper Le Figaro. There are now 155,266 emigres aged 18 to 25, the newspaper said. A sampling survey carried out in January by the Deloitte and Ifop firms found that 27 percent of young people who obtained a university degree in the past three years saw their professional future outside France — up from 13 percent last year. “With an unemployment rate reaching 25 percent [in their age group], young people naturally want to go abroad to avoid the bad start they would feel for several years” of their working lives, Stephane Carcillo, a professor at the Sciences-Po university in Paris, told the daily. Overall unemployment tops 10 percent and the country has seen thousands laid off in recent months.
SAUDI ARABIA
Machinegun killer beheaded
Authorities yesterday beheaded a man in Medina after he was convicted of shooting dead another man, the Ministry of the Interior said. Sultan bin Rashid al-Mutairi had been found guilty of using a machinegun to kill Mused bin Nayer al-Mutairi after a dispute between the pair, the ministry said in a statement carried by the SPA news agency. Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death in the nation.
BURUNDI
‘Prophet’s’ followers jailed
A court has sentenced 182 followers of a Catholic prophet, who claims to see visions of the Virgin Mary, to up to five years in jail for defying police orders, a court spokesman said on Saturday. The disciples of the 30-year-old prophet, Zebiya, were arrested on Tuesday morning after defying a ban to gather on a hilltop that has become a place of pilgrimage. Zebiya has reportedly seen visions on the hill on the 12th day of every month. “Fifteen adults thought to be the leaders of the group were sentenced to five years each,” said Elie Ntunwanayo, the Supreme Court spokesman. Court documents showed 182 people had been sentenced, with jail terms varying between three years and six months. Twenty children under 14 years old were released by the court. The trial took just over five hours, with a verdict reached at about midnight on Friday. Last month, police clashed with Zebiya’s followers, leaving at least six people dead and 35 wounded. Violence broke out after hundreds of her followers were blocked by police as they tried to gather at her hilltop shrine.
HONDURAS
Smoke shuts down airport
The main airport for the capital was closed for several hours on Saturday because smoke from forest fires reduced visibility. Civil aviation agency spokesman Ezequiel Oliva says visibility fell to about 3.2km during the closure. The Toncontin International Airport outside Tegucigalpa was closed for about four hours, affecting about 500 passengers. Almost a hundred fires burned in the pine-covered hills around the capital last week. Four such closures have affected Toncontin and two other airports in the space of a month.
UNITED STATES
Marchers protest cheese ban
About 40 protesters took to the streets of New York City on Saturday to demonstrate against a ban on Mimolette that has angered lovers of the distinctive French cheese. Since last month, several hundred pounds of the bright orange cheese have been held up by customs because of a warning by the Food and Drug Administration that it contained microscopic cheese mites. The mites are a critical part of the process to produce Mimolette, giving it its distinctive grayish crust. The decision has angered importers and consumers, who have even set up a Facebook page titled “Save the Mimolette.” Protesters in Greenwich Village — many dressed in orange — handed out bite-sized samples of the cheese to passersby to raise awareness of the ban. “We had eight balls of 3kg, so we decided to educate people a little,” said Benoit de Vitton, an importer of the cheese. De Vitton said he was baffled by the recent blockade, saying he has imported Mimolette for two decades without a problem.
UNITED STATES
Swallowed ring recovered
New Hampshire police say they have got the US$3,200 engagement ring a man allegedly swallowed during an attempted jewelry store theft. Authorities charged 52-year-old Ronald Perley with theft and falsifying physical evidence after they say X-rays showed the 14-karat white-gold ring with princess-cut diamonds inside him. WMUR-TV reports that police had recovered the ring as of Saturday. Perley allegedly went into a shop on Thursday asking about engagement rings. Workers said he grabbed a ring, then swallowed it after being confronted. Police say surveillance footage shows Perley taking the ring and putting his hand to his mouth.
‘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