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.
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
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
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not