JAPAN
Tokyo slams China drilling
The government has protested to China for allowing a gas drilling vessel to operate in disputed waters in the East China Sea, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference yesterday. The two nations agreed to jointly develop gas fields in the area in 2008, but talks have since stopped. “It is extremely regrettable that China continues its unilateral development in the sea area in a situation where the maritime boundary between Japan and China has not been fixed in the East China Sea,” Suga said, adding that Japan would continue to urge China to return to talks. Bilateral relations have improved in recent years after deteriorating sharply in 2012, when Japan nationalized a cluster of East China Sea islets that China also claims.
CAMBODIA
Five charged with trafficking
Five people arrested last week for allegedly providing commercial surrogacy services were on Thursday also charged with human trafficking, Phnom Penh Municipal Court spokesman Ly Sophana said. Four Cambodian women and a Chinese man were formally charged with two counts of “The Act of Selling, Buying or Exchanging a Person for Cross-border Transfer,” which is punishable by seven to 15 years in prison, he said. The five had earlier been charged with providing surrogacy services, which were outlawed in 2016 as the nation was becoming a popular destination for would-be foreign parents seeking women to give birth to their children. That offense in punishable by one to six months in prison. Phnom Penh anti-trafficking police chief Keo Thea last week said that police who raided the surrogacy business rescued 33 pregnant surrogates who were allegedly hired by the Chinese man. The women are now under the care of the social welfare ministry.
RUSSIA
Oleg Navalny freed
The brother of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was jailed for three-and-a-half years in a fraud case that supporters say was politically motivated, was freed yesterday after serving his sentence. About 50 supporters and journalists had gathered outside the prison for the release. Oleg and Alexei were convicted in a 2014 fraud trial related to their work for French cosmetics company Yves Rocher. The opposition politician received a suspended sentence, while his brother was jailed for the same amount of time in a move activists compared to hostage-taking. The European Court of Human Rights ruled the convictions were “arbitrary and unreasonable,” and ordered Russia to pay the pair 83,000 euros (US$96,766) in damages. The older Navalny brother has served repeated short jail sentences in connection to his political activities. He most recently served a 30-day sentence for organizing a protest against President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration and was freed the day the World Cup started.
SOUTH KOREA
US forces open new HQ
US forces yesterday opened their new headquarters on what they called Washington’s biggest overseas base just weeks after US President Donald Trump said he wanted to bring the troops home. For decades, US Forces Korea have been headquartered in Yongsan in the center of Seoul. The two allies agreed as long ago as 1990 to relocate the headquarters to Camp Humphreys, about 60km south of the capital, but the project was delayed for years by resident protests, financial issues and extensive construction work. It was not until 2013 that the first unit transferred to the camp. The headquarters moved yesterday along with the US-led UN Command, with more units to follow suit later. US forces Commander Vincent Brooks told the opening ceremony that Seoul had contributed more than 90 percent of the US$10.8 billion cost of Camp Humphreys, “which we believe to be the largest overseas US base in the world.”
CUBA
Twenty-sixth diplomat ill
The US Department of State on Thursday confirmed that another diplomat has been affected by mysterious health incidents, bringing the total of Americans suffering from such ailments to 26. The diplomat was “medically confirmed” to have experienced health effects similar to those reported by other members of the US Havana diplomatic community, spokeswoman Health Nauert said. This and another case confirmed last week resulted from a single occurrence late last month in a diplomatic residence in which both officers were present, Nauert said. They were the first confirmed cases in Havana since August last year. Cuba has assured the US that it would continue its investigation, she added.
‘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