■ Japan
Weapons to be ditched
Japan and China have agreed to jointly establish an organization to speed up recovery and disposal of chemical weapons abandoned by Japan's Imperial Army at the end of World War II and will likely sign an agreement by late December, a government official said yesterday. After a series of talks, the two sides roughly agreed to set up the body which would oversee the functions of a chemical weapons disposal factory to be built in Jilin Province in northeastern China, said Hisashi Michigami, a Cabinet official in charge of the project. "It would be a positive development for the relations between the two countries," he said.
■ Japan
Nuclear carrier coming
The US Navy announced on Friday that the USS George Washington will become the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to be stationed in Japan, replacing the diesel-powered USS Kitty Hawk in 2008. Although US troops have been based in Japan continuously since the end of World War II, the Japanese had long opposed a US nuclear presence because of concerns about possible radiation leaks and the memory of US nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that brought the war to an end 60 years ago. Washington and Tokyo had reached an agreement to allow the stationing of a nuclear-powered carrier to replace the Kitty Hawk in October.
■ Vietnam
New bird flu outbreaks
Fresh bird flu outbreaks have killed more chickens and ducks in two northern provinces and birds were dying in a third area, the Agriculture Ministry said. Six outbreaks killed 317 ducks and 37 chickens in Haiphong and Thanh Hoa province on Thursday, prompting workers to slaughter more than 20,400 birds, the Animal Health Department said in a report yesterday. In Quang Ninh province 78 ducks and chickens were found dead of unknown reasons on Thursday, the deparment's Web site reported. Bird flu has killed or resulted in the slaughter of 1.94 million poultry since the virus returned in early October and has now spread to 17 of Vietnam's 64 provinces.
■ Singapore
No death penalty in drama
The government's Media Development Authority (MDA) has ordered a theater director to remove all references to the death penalty in a play scheduled to be staged yesterday, a day after the city-state executed an Australian drug smuggler, a newspaper said. The MDA demanded that Human Lefts, a play about the hanging of Singaporean drug courier Shanmugam Murugesu in May, make no mention of the death penalty and no reference to any political leader, the play's director said. "The plot is still the same, about a son and father, but it's so general I've applied a different story to it," Benny Lim, artistic director of The Fun Stage, said yesterday.
■ Singapore
Girls fall from roller coaster
Two sisters were in critical condition at a hospital yesterday after falling from a roller coaster at the Escape Theme Park, officials said. Chong Siying, 11, and Sili, 9, fell 3m from the ride on Friday night onto a concrete floor. Ringo Leung, the park's general manager, told the Straits Times, proper safety precautions were in place. Each car has a safety bar to secure passengers when the ride is in motion. The ride has been suspended until police finish their investigation, Leung said. The park's eight other rides continue to operate.
■ Canada
Man impounded with car
An 85-year-old man spent hours inside his impounded car in freezing temperatures after his vehicle was ticketed for illegal parking and then towed to a compound. Police in Edmonton said frost obscured the car's windows and a tow-truck driver, unaware of the elderly man sitting in the driver's seat, took the car to the police compound. The security officer at that site, along with the tow-truck driver, noticed some movement in the car, and sure enough there was an elderly man inside. He was disoriented but he was not unconscious.
■ Canada
`Sexsomnia' case reviewed
Ontario plans to review a court decision that acquitted a man of sexual assault charges because he suffers from "sexsomnia" and was asleep at the time of the incident. The Office of the Attorney General said on Thursday it needs to research its options for an appeal because of the strange circumstances of the case. Jan Luedecke, 33, was acquitted of sexual assault charges on Tuesday because he said he was asleep during the attack. A sleep expert testified that Luedecke suffers from a disorder that causes sexsomnia -- involuntary sexual behavior during sleep -- which he had experienced before.
■ Gaza strip
Two Palestinians killed
Israeli troops killed two Palestinians overnight yesterday in separate incidents in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian security sources said Israeli naval forces fired a shell from a naval gunship at a Palestinian fishing boat sailing along the Gaza shores early yesterday, killing at least one Gaza fisherman and sinking the vessel. The boat, which appeared to be coming from Egypt, refused to stop when it encountered an Israeli navy ship in a prohibited maritime region, Israeli military sources said.
■ Germany
Igloo village under way
A temporary igloo village is being constructed this winter high up Germany's loftiest mountain, the Zugspitze, for paying guests willing to enjoy the big chill. Construction of the 50-bed holiday village began on Friday, as high winds buffeted the 2,962m Alpine peak, and was to be completed by Dec. 25. Honeymoon suites are available for couples, and include a bar, catering and a "garden" of ice sculptures. The structures are expected to hold until the April thaw. Some 3,000 tonnes of snow will be needed. A room sized balloon will be put on the mountainside as a form and covered with snow by a snow-blower. The balloon will then be deflated, leaving the snow walls and roof standing.
■ Bahrain
Claim of abuse denied
The minister of the interior denied claims that security forces sexually abused an activist, reports that sparked three days of clashes between police and angry rioters. But Interior Minister Sheikh Rashed bin Abdullah al-Khalifa said that an investigation had been launched into the charges and urged Bahrainis to be patient and exercise self-restraint. On Friday police had arrested 15 youths after days of clashes over the alleged abuse of a 24-year-old man who claims he was beaten and sexually abused by masked men while in custody. The man, part of a group called "The Unemployed Committee," said in a statement that his attackers warned him to stop organizing protests, which had been peaceful, earlier in the week over unemployment in the Gulf Arab state.
■ United States
Rights group to sue CIA
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced in Washington on Friday that it would sue the CIA over its "practice of abducting foreign nationals for detention and interrogation in secret overseas prisons." The ACLU said it would make public its lawsuit Tuesday. It will be filed on behalf of a man who was allegedly a victim of this so-called practice of "extraordinary rendition." The lawsuit will accuse top US officials of authorizing that an innocent man be abducted, drugged and shipped to a secret prison in Afghanistan.
■ United States
Two bodies found
Authorities are investigating whether bodies found by a dog walker in the Midwestern town of Hudson, Ohio, are the remains of two children who have been missing since 2003, news reports said on Friday. Sarah Gehring, 14, and her brother, Philip, 11, were last seen in the East Coast state of New Hampshire on July 4, 2003. Their father, Manuel Gehring, later admitted to shooting them and burying them somewhere along a highway in the Midwest, CBS 4 Boston reported on its Web site. New Hampshire investigators are planning to use dental records to identify the bodies that were wrapped in garbage bags, reported the Union Leader newspaper.
■ United States
Toddler found with cocaine
A two-year-old boy was removed from his family in Philadelphia and his mother could face charges after the child handed his daycare teacher two packets of crack cocaine, and a search of his jacket pocket turned up nine more, police said. The boy's mother was taken in for questioning when she came to pick him up at the end of the day on Friday. Police said she could be charged with endangering the welfare of children. The toddler talked about the drugs, but it wasn't clear how much he understood. According to police, he said he took the packets off a table at home.
■ United States
Woman bites attacker
A 96-year-old woman says she stopped a man trying to choke her to death by biting him hard on the hand. Her assailant is facing an attempted murder charge. Clara Hurt took the witness stand in Chippewa County Circuit Court on Friday to tell of the incident involving John McCabe, 42, a former middle school teacher who lives in the same apartment building as her. She said she was in the community room last Sunday reading her church bulletin when McCabe came in and the two exchanged small talk. Then, the conversation took a strange turn. "He asked me if I knew Jesus Christ. I said yes," Hurt said. "He then asked me if I know God. I said yes. He then said `Would you like to die right now?'" she said, adding that McCabe then tried to strangle her.
■ Uruguay
Skull found at army base
Forensic experts unearthed a blackened skull at an army base on Friday after an anonymous hand-drawn map was sent to the president's top aide amid a widening hunt for victims of the past dictatorship. Guido Berro, director of Uruguay's Forensic Institute, said the skull was unearthed at the army's 13th Battalion installation on the outskirts of Montevideo. It was the second find this week. Experts on Tuesday discovered a man's skeleton at a farm north of the capital that authorities believe could belong to a communist party militant who disappeared during the 1973-1985 military era. The team has been working for months to find victims under a push by new leftist President Tabare Vazquez.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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