■ South Korea
Video link allows reunions
Hundreds of people wept in front of TV sets yesterday as they glimpsed long-lost relatives for the first time in more than 50 years via a video link between divided North and South Korea. They were among 575 people participating in this week's virtual reunions -- set for yesterday and today. Each family is given two hours to see and talk to their relatives from the other side of the border via the fiber-optic video cable laid last year between the two Koreas. Separately from the video reunions, North Korea and South Korea have held 12 face-to-face reunions since June 2000, when leaders of the North and South held their first-ever summit.
■ India
PM to outline US nuke deal
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was to address parliament yesterday on his government's stand on a landmark nuclear deal expected to be inked when US President George W. Bush visits India this week. Singh was to clarify to parliament's lower house his administration's position on the deal, which promises to open the doors for India to critical Western nuclear technology, officials said. The Hindu newspaper yesterday quoted unnamed officials as saying Singh was likely to allay fears in his parliamentary address that New Delhi will offer to cap its nuclear program to win the approval of the US Congress, which must endorse the deal.
■ Malaysia
Police tail killer for 10 days
Malaysian police kept track of Singapore's most wanted killer for 10 days before raiding his Kuala Lumpur hotel room over the weekend and arresting him, a report said yesterday. Tan Chor Jin, 39, was wanted for the Feb. 15 execution-style murder of businessman Lim Hock Soon, 41, in his Singapore home, according to the New Straits Times. Tan was under police surveillance as he traveled through Malaysia, meeting up with a with a fellow Singaporean from the underworld in Johor, with Malaysian gang members in Malacca and then staying in Negeri Sembilan before going to Kuala Lumpur and checking into a hotel, the report said. Police made their move in the early hours of Saturday and arrested the men while they were sleeping.
■ Japan
Organ transplants probed
Japan is probing human organ transplants in China, a government official said yesterday, after a report that at least seven Japanese died after treatment in the neighboring country. China has an increasingly lucrative transplant industry, but it is tainted by allegations that the organs of executed prisoners are harvested and sold to hospitals. The Japanese health ministry is seeking more details about the patients who headed to China due to a dearth of organs at home, said Masae Yano at the ministry's Office of Organ Transplantation.
■ China
Church killings trial to start
Xu Shuangfu and 16 other leaders of the Three Grades of Servants church will be tried over the deaths of 20 leaders from another church called Eastern Lightning, the China Aid Association, a US-based religious rights monitoring group, said in a statement on Sunday, citing a court document. The statement said the document appeared to accuse Xu of directing other leaders to take part in the slayings after the Eastern Lightning's "penetration" of Xu's group. Rivalry and even violence between China's unofficial Christian churches have been reported in the past, along with alleged government persecution.
■ Germany
Berlin aided US on Iraq
Germany passed intelligence on former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's plan to defend Baghdad to US commanders a month before the US invaded, the New York Times reported yesterday. "Two German intelligence agents in Baghdad obtained a copy of Saddam Hussein's plan to defend the Iraqi capital, which a German official passed on to American commanders a month before the invasion," the Times reported citing "a classified study by the United States military." The Times reported that "in providing the Iraqi document, German intelligence officials offered more significant assistance to the US than their government has publicly acknowledged.
■ United Kingdom
Airplanes plagued by gas
Dramatic new evidence that pilots, cabin crew and passengers are being exposed to a potentially toxic gas in aircraft has been uncovered. An analysis of confidential testimony taken from pilots plus official records by the airline regulator, the British Civil Aviation Authority, has revealed that in the past three years there have been reports of more than 100 incidents where fumes have contaminated the air inside aircraft. The gases are potentially damaging to health, with one new report from University College London suggesting that up to 197,000 passengers are exposed to the contaminated air every year.
■ Zimbabwe
Mugabe put `on notice'
A 40-year-old former student militant picked to lead a faction of Zimbabwe's main opposition party put 82-year-old President Robert Mugabe "on notice" on Sunday, saying his quarter-century of rule was over. "The time for Mugabe to grandstand ... as the grandmaster of anti-imperialism in Africa is now past. The game is up," Arthur Mutambara said at his first news conference since being named president by part of the Movement for Democratic Change. "We are putting Robert Mugabe and his government on notice. When we go to the next elections it will be impossible for him to rig," Mutambara said.
■ Netherlands
Genocide hearings start
The International Court of Justice started hearings yesterday in a landmark genocide case brought by Bosnia against Serbia-Montenegro, the first ever state-level genocide case to be heard past the preliminary stages by the UN's highest court. Bosnia, through its mainly Muslim wartime presidency, filed the case 13 years ago accusing Belgrade of committing genocide against the non-Serb population of Bosnia during the bloody war that was raging there and demanding compensation. The Bosnian war, which lasted from 1992 to 1995, claimed up to 200,000 lives.
■ Ivory Coast
Political players meet
The main players in Ivory Coast politics, seeking to end the crisis in the west African nation, were to meet yesterday for the first time on Ivorian soil since the country was torn apart by civil war. The former French colony has been split down the middle since the conflict erupted in September 2002, with troops loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo controlling the south while the north is in rebel hands. A peace deal signed in January 2003 in France has yet to be implemented and several subsequent accords have not advanced the peace process in the world's top cocoa producer.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
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