JAPAN
Emperor calls for openness
Emperor Akihito yesterday attended a ceremony to mark the 30th year of his reign while calling for the country to embrace openness in a more globalized world. The government-sponsored ceremony at the National Theater in Tokyo was attended by Empress Michiko and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. “Japan has long cultivated its own culture as an island nation, but now the world is becoming more globalized,” the 85-year-old emperor said. “I think it is now required for us to be more open to the outside world, to establish our own position with wisdom and to build relationships with other countries with sincerity.”
JAPAN
Donald Keene dies
Donald Keene, a longtime Columbia University professor who was a giant in the field of literature and translation, died yesterday of heart failure in Tokyo. He was 96. A prolific academic who worked well into his 90s, Keene published about 25 books in English, including translations of both classical and modern writers, and about 30 in Japanese. He move permanently to Tokyo in 2011 and became a citizen in 2012.
SENEGAL
Presidential election begins
Voters yesterday went to the polls in an election that President Macky Sall looks confident to win in the first round after his main challengers were banned from running. Sall faces competition from four lesser-known rivals who campaigned hard against his plans for a second phase of his “Emerging Senegal” infrastructure project, which critics call a waste of taxpayers’ money and a potential debt burden.
CHINA
New outbreak confirmed
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs yesterday confirmed a new outbreak of African swine fever in Hebei Province. The outbreak is on a farm in the Xushui District of Baoding, which has 5,600 hogs, some of which died because of the disease, the ministry said a statement on its Web site, without giving a death toll.
INDIA
Moonshine toll rises
At least 35 more workers have died in Assam State after drinking toxic liquor, police said yesterday, taking the death toll from the latest mass alcohol poisoning beyond 130. At least 200 more people were still hospitalized across Assam. “A total of 10 people have been arrested. We have sent the samples of the liquor ... to a forensic laboratory,” Mukesh Agarwala, additional director-general of state police, said. Police said people started falling sick after consuming a batch of illegally produced liquor late on Thursday. Those affected, who include many women, worked at local tea estates in the region.
PHILIPPINES
Central bank head dies
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Nestor Espenilla died on Saturday after a battle with cancer. He was 60. Espenilla disclosed his medical condition in February last year as he recovered from surgery and radiation therapy for tongue cancer. Espenilla had taken intermittent medical leave since September in addition to an overseas trip for treatment last month. The Monetary Board has designated Deputy Governor Cyd Tuano-Amador as the central bank’s officer-in-charge effective immediately until President Rodrigo Duterte appoints a successor, the bank said in a statement yesterday.
IRAN
Cruise missile tested
The navy yesterday successfully tested a cruise missile during naval exercises near the Strait of Hormuz, state media reported. “On the third day of the ... exercises, a Ghadir-class Iranian navy submarine successfully launched a cruise missile,” the official news agency Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported. More than 100 vessels were taking part in the ongoing three-day war games in an area stretching from the Strait of Hormuz to the Indian Ocean, state media reported. The nation’s other submarines, the Tareq and the new domestically built Fateh have the same anti-ship capability, IRNA quoted a military statement as saying.
MOLDOVA
Parliamentary elections held
Voters yesterday cast ballots in parliamentary elections that could deepen a split between pro-Western and pro-Russian forces. More than 3 million voters are eligible to elect representatives to the 101-seat legislature for a four-year term, and parties need to win 6 percent of the overall ballot to enter parliament. Opinion polls suggest the opposition Socialist party, which favors closer ties to Moscow, will win most seats, but fall short of a majority. The ruling pro-Western Democratic Party trails in second and an opposition bloc called ACUM, campaigning to fight entrenched corruption, is third.
EGYPT
Party complains of arrests
The Constitution Party founded by Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei on Saturday denounced what it said was a “campaign of arrests” targeting its members after it criticized a bid to extend President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi’s powers. Four of its members had been arrested “in the past 48 hours,” the party posted on Facebook, while others faced “security restrictions.” It called on authorities to “stop these violations and repressive practices.” Security sources said they had “no information” on the crackdown.
FRANCE
‘Yellow vests’ protest again
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday marched in Paris and other cities as the “yellow vest” movement staged its 15th consecutive weekend of demonstrations against the government. Dozens of people were arrested. About 46,600 people joined the protests nationwide, including 5,800 in Paris, the Ministry of the Interior said. Paris police said the march was largely peaceful, although scuffles broke out as it wound down.
ITALY
Winds kill four people
Strong winds whipping through the center of the nation on Saturday killed four people, including a teen who died when his father fell off the roof and crushed him, the Fatto Quotidiano said. The 14-year-old in Capena, near Rome, was holding the ladder for his father as he attempted to fix damage to the family roof, when the latter was knocked off by a gust of wind, falling 6m and landing on his son, the daily said. Two men in their 70s were killed by a farm wall that collapsed on top of them near Frosinone, while a 45-year-old man died when a pine tree in Guidonia crushed his car, it said.
UNITED STATES
Film director Donen dies
Filmmaker Stanley Donen, a giant of the Hollywood musical who directed Singin’ in the Rain, Anchors Away, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Funny Face among other films, died on Thursday. He died in New York from heart failure, his sons Joshua and Mark Donen said on Saturday. He was 94.
‘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