JAPAN
Cabinet resigns for reshuffle
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda sacked five members of his Cabinet yesterday, bowing to opposition demands for ministerial scalps as he sought cross-party support for a crucial tax hike. Noda called on the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to back a bill that would double sales tax to try to tackle Japan’s debt mountain, currently twice its GDP. Defense minister Naoki Tanaka and transport minister Takeshi Maeda lost their jobs and Noda named Takushoku University professor Satoshi Morimoto as the new defense minister, while the new transport minister will be his party’s chief of upper house affairs, Yuichiro Hata. Noda also sacked agriculture, forestry and fisheries minister Michihiko Kano, whose involvement in a spy scandal with a Chinese diplomat has proved an embarrassment. Justice minister Toshio Ogawa and postal services minister Shozaburo Jimi were also removed.
PAKISTAN
Wedding bus crashes
At least 23 wedding guests, including six children, were killed and 60 injured when a bus plunged into a ravine near Islamabad, police said yesterday. The driver lost control of the vehicle late on Sunday at a sharp bend near Narr village, around 25km east of Islamabad. The bus was carrying 97 people to Chakwal District, 100km south of the capital, after a wedding. The bus was accompanying the bride and groom, who were traveling in a separate vehicle.
MONGOLIA
Former PM’s trial delayed
A court agreed yesterday to delay former president Nambaryn Enkhbayar’s corruption trial after he sought more time to study the case against him. Prosecutors have gathered about 5,000 pages of documents against Enkhbayar, his son Batshugar said in a phone interview from Ulan Bator. Enkhbayar, who was prime minister from 2000 to 2004 and president from 2005 to 2009, argues that the corruption accusations against him are meant to derail his bid to run in parliamentary elections later this month. The charges include privatizing a hotel for his own benefit and misappropriating television equipment donated to a Buddhist monastery. The case was delayed until June 12, Batshugar Enkhbayar said. Mongolia’s electoral commission ruled yesterday that Enkhbayar may not run for parliament, saying that he didn’t have enough education or experience to be a member, according to Batshugar Enkhbayar. His Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party planned to file an appeal today, his son said.
VIETNAM
War sites opened to US
The government yesterday agreed to open three new sites for excavation by the US to search for troop remains from the Vietnam War, the minister of defense told US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta during a meeting. The announcement came as Panetta and Vietnamese Defense Minister Phuong Quang Thanh exchanged artifacts collected during the war — letters written by a US soldier who was killed that had been kept and used as propaganda and a diary belonging to a Vietnamese soldier. US officials said this is the first time an exchange of war artifacts has occurred. The two defense leaders agreed to return the papers to the families of the deceased soldiers. Vietnamese officials said they would open the three previously restricted sites that the Pentagon believes are critical to locating troops missing in action.
UNITED STATES
‘Truman’ delusions studied
Two psychiatrists in the US have just published a paper called The Truman Show Delusions, in which brothers Joel and Ian Gold describe the cases of five psychiatric patients with experiences similar to the 1998 film, in which Jim Carrey’s character Truman Burbank is the unwitting star of a carefully controlled reality show. Three of the patients referenced the film directly. This is more common than you would think, says Peter Byrne, director of public education at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, who has treated people with such experiences. “Psychosis is a mixture of delusions — beliefs that are false, which arrive without any evidence or logic — but often also hallucinations, usually voices. It is true that some young people, because their experience includes reality TV, which is everywhere, and [CCTV] cameras, which are also everywhere, thanks to [former British prime minister] Tony Blair and co, then hear a commentary about themselves and assume it’s some kind of reality TV show.”
UNITED STATES
Obama signs sick note
When 11-year-old Tyler Sullivan went back to school yesterday, he had the ultimate excuse note for missing class one day last week — written and signed by President Barack Obama. Sullivan played hooky on Friday to see Obama in action during a visit to a Honeywell factory in Golden Valley, Minnesota. When the president finished his speech, the schoolboy took advantage of a chance to meet him. “I was sitting in the front row,” Sullivan told local TV station KARE. “I was pretty excited.” “I had a chance to shake his hand,” the boy said, adding that the president asked him about missing class. Obama then took out an official presidential notepad and jotted down the following, sealed with his signature: “Mr Ackerman — Please excuse Tyler ... He was with me! Barack Obama.” Sullivan said he hoped the note would hold up — and that it would impress his friends.
CANADA
Tuition protests continue
Hundreds of people took to the streets late on Sunday to protest planned university tuition hikes that have riled up residents. Between 200 and 500 demonstrators marched in downtown Montreal in the 41st nightly street protest, banging pots and pans and demanding cancellation of the increases. As before, police have declared the march illegal because no itinerary has been provided, but they watched the event calmly, without making any arrests.
UNITED STATES
Parker plans Obama dinner
Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker is borrowing a tactic from the George Clooney fundraising book, planning a campaign dinner for President Barack Obama and offering a chance to win two tickets with US$3 online donations. Parker, who is married to actor Matthew Broderick, sent an e-mail to supporters and appeared in an advertisement on Sunday’s MTV Movie Awards telling people of the online donations and tickets to the affair at her New York home. “I’m hosting this event on June 14th because there is so much at stake this year and I want to keep doing what I can,” she wrote in the e-mail. “I hope you’ll help me welcome President Obama and the First Lady to New York.” Clooney hosted a dinner last month at his home, where about 150 people paid US$40,000 a ticket to see the president. The event raised nearly US$15 million, with more than half coming from small-amount donors who entered an online ticket raffle by pledging donations of US$3 or more.
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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