JAPAN
US trade deal approved
The parliament yesterday approved a trade deal that was agreed on earlier this year by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US President Donald Trump. The deal cutting tariffs between the countries takes effect from the beginning of next month. Some critics have said that the deal is more advantageous to the US, because the US would continue to levy a 2.5 percent tariff on vehicles manufactured in the nation.
EL SALVADOR
Chinese investment sealed
China is to help build several major infrastructure projects, including a stadium and water treatment plant, the two nations said in a joint statement on Tuesday. President Nayib Bukele, who this week met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing, said that the investment represented a “gigantic, non-refundable cooperation,” without disclosing the planned investment amount. The projects offer the strongest signal yet of the nation’s embrace of close ties with Beijing. The nation “adheres to the principle of one China, categorically rejects any act that goes against this principle and any form of ‘independence of Taiwan,’” the joint statement said.
PHILIPPINES
Typhoon leaves 17 dead
The death toll from Typhoon Kammuri yesterday rose to 17 people, after the weather system destroyed houses and displaced hundreds of thousands on its path across the nation. As it neared its exit yesterday, signals for tropical cyclone winds were lifted for 10 out of about a hundred areas placed on alert this week, the national weather bureau said. Parts of 12 roads and three bridges remain closed, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council’s latest bulletin said.
AUSTRALIA
Body found in hiker search
Police yesterday said they believe they have found the remains of a woman missing in the country’s remote outback for two weeks. “Police located the body, which is believed to be that Claire Hockridge during search efforts,” Northern Territory police said in an e-mailed statement. Hockridge had been missing since she went hiking with two friends, both of whom had been found.
RUSSIA
‘Tank’ bear sparks concern
A video showing a polar bear painted with the name of a Soviet-era tank, T-34, has caused alarm. A senior researcher at the Institute of Biological Problems of the North, Anatoly Kochnev, told RIA Novosti news agency that “at first, until he cleans himself off, it will be hard for him to hunt.” The video was posted on Facebook on Monday by Sergei Kavry, who works for the World Wildlife Fund in the Chukotka region. He said he was concerned at the large letters daubed on the side of the bear, seen plodding through snow. “Why? Why? He won’t be able to hunt inconspicuously,” Kavry wrote. Severpress news agency on Tuesday reported that scientists had marked the bear because it was scavenging for food near an inhabited area in Novaya Zemlya, a remote Arctic archipelago, but that the paint would wash off in two weeks.
PAKISTAN
Islamists besiege newspaper
Dozens of angry Islamists on Tuesday night swarmed the building of independent newspaper Dawn in Islamabad, blocking its entrance for several hours, threatening the staff and demanding that its editor Zaffar Abbas be hanged. A simultaneous protest took place in Karachi, where the protesters gathered at the Press Club, demanding that Abbas and Dawn publisher Hameed Haroon be hanged. The demonstrators were angered that the English-language paper had reported that the assailant in the London Bridge attack on Friday last week was of “Pakistani origin.”
COLOMBIA
Frenchman ‘assassinated’
An engineer working for French aerospace and defense company Thales has been shot dead in Bogota in an apparent targeted assassination, officials said on Tuesday. The 45-year-old victim was shot late on Monday as he left a restaurant with a French colleague in the upscale northern district of Chapinero, the police and Thales said. “We reject the hypothesis of a robbery. According to the evidence we have, this is an assassination perpetrated by a hitman,” police Major Robert Mendez told reporters. The killer had approached from behind after the men left the restaurant and targeted only the victim before fleeing, a police source said. The French embassy said the victim, whose identity has not been made public, had been on a work assignment. The city is currently hosting the Expodefensa defense and security trade fair.
UNITED STATES
Kushner in talks with China
President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has added another role to his long list of White House duties — trade negotiator — as Washington and Beijing try to reach an initial agreement to avoid new US tariffs on Dec. 15. People familiar with the talks said that Kushner has increased his involvement in the negotiations with China over the past two weeks. A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed Kushner’s involvement, but declined to provide details on the influence he has had on the negotiations.
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
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
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