JAPAN
Abe avoids Yasukuni Shrine
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe yesterday offered a ritual cash donation to a controversial Tokyo shrine, but did not visit in person, as the country marked the 73rd anniversary of the end of World War II. Abe sent an aide to Yasukuni Shrine, once again staying away from a site that honors the nation’s war dead, including convicted war criminals. Visits by Abe and other senior politicians have angered China and other neighbors, and the prime minister’s decision to stay away comes as he works to improve ties with Beijing. “Please pray for the souls of the dead. I am sorry that I am not able to pay a visit myself,” aide Masahiko Shibayama quoted Abe as telling him.
ITALY
Firefighters seek survivors
At least 37 people were killed when a bridge collapsed in the port city of Genoa, police said yesterday after firefighters worked through the night looking for any survivors buried under the rubble. “The latest official number is 37, but we can’t rule out it could rise further,” a police spokeswoman said. A 50m-high section of the Morandi Bridge, including a tower that anchored several stays, crashed down on Tuesday. Three people were listed as missing and about a dozen are hospitalized in serious condition.
UNITED KINGDOM
Police search suspect’s home
Police searched three addresses in central England as part of an investigation into what they said appeared to be a terrorist attack outside the House of Parliament in London on Tuesday when a man drove a car into pedestrians and cyclists. A 29-year-old driver, a British citizen who had originally come from another country, was arrested after ramming his car into barriers outside parliament, injuring three people. Police said they were searching three addresses, two in Birmingham and one in Nottingham, in a bid to understand “the full circumstances and motivation behind this incident.”
CUBA
Free Internet for a day
The government said it provided free Internet to the nation’s more than 5 million cellphone users on Tuesday, in an eight-hour test before it launches sales of the service. State-run telecommunications monopoly ETECSA announced the trial, with Tuesday marking the first time that Internet services were available nationwide. There are hundreds of Wi-Fi hotspots, but virtually no home penetration. Mobile users said they were happy about the day of free Internet. “This is marvelous news because we can talk with family abroad without going to specific Wi-Fi spots, there is more intimacy,” taxi driver Andres Peraza said.
MEXICO
Diner busted for tarantulas
A Mexico City market restaurant put the arachnids on its menu and posted a video on Facebook showing a chef torching one until blackened. The only problem is that the Mexican red rump tarantula is a protected species. The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday said it was alerted to the situation via social media, and seized four tarantula corpses that were ready to be served up on tortillas. The tarantula tacos were apparently on offer for 50 times the price of a basic street taco. The restaurant’s menu also features other creepy-crawlies such as grasshoppers, worms and ant eggs, which have a long tradition in national cuisine.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema