JAPAN
Tough China policy outlined
Five candidates vying to lead the country’s top opposition party, and possibly become the next prime minister, are calling for Japan to get tough with China in an escalating territorial dispute. The candidates — including former prime minister Shinzo Abe and former defense minister Shigeru Ishiba — slammed China in a debate yesterday ahead of the Liberal Democratic Party’s presidential election, scheduled for Sept. 26. They called for Japan to bolster its control of disputed East China Sea islands, saying they are Japan’s inviolable sovereign territory. They also discussed the sagging economy and its plan to phase out nuclear power.
JAPAN
Reactors defy atomic plans
The country said yesterday it would go ahead with planned work to complete three new nuclear power reactors, despite saying a day earlier it would phase out atomic power generation by 2040. The construction of the reactors at three different plants was suspended after a massive earthquake and tsunami sparked the Fukushima nuclear crisis on March 11 last year — the worst such accident in a generation. “We don’t intend to withdraw the permission that has already been given by the ministry,” the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yukio Edano, said as he met local administrators in Aomori, northern Japan, according to reports. Two of the reactors are located at plants in Aomori while the third is in the western district of Shimane. Edano added, however, that the start-up of the reactors would be subject to approval by a newly created government commission to regulate nuclear power. On Friday, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s government adopted a new energy policy, including the nuclear phase-out, in what was widely seen as bowing to public pressure after the Fukushima disaster. Nuclear energy has become a hot issue in Japan. Protests have attracted tens of thousands of people calling for atomic power to be ditched.
THAILAND
Four killed in restive south
Three paramilitary soldiers and a woman were shot dead by militants who then torched their bodies in an early-morning ambush in the country’s restive south, police said yesterday. The victims were attacked as they drove to a market in Yala, one of the hotbeds of the eight-year insurgency which has claimed around 5,300 lives in Muslim-majority border provinces. “I think that they had already died before the gunmen set fire to their pick-up truck,” said Lieutenant Colonel Charas Chinapong, of Muang district police, adding that the bodies were found inside the truck. Hundreds of bullet cases were found at the scene, he said. A lattice of militant groups who want greater autonomy carry out near-daily attacks in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat provinces. In response to an uptick in the violence over the summer authorities have said they are stepping up efforts to talk with militant leaders.
UNITED STATES
‘Door stop’ Ming vase sold
A rare Ming Dynasty vase that had been used as a doorstop in a New York home has sold for US$1.3 million at auction. The blue and white moon flask was auctioned on Wednesday at Sotheby’s sale of Chinese works of art. Its presale estimate was US$600,000 to US$900,000. The piece had been in the same family collection for decades. The auction house said the family decided to sell it after seeing a similar piece in a Sotheby’s advertisement. They had the vase on a wooden stand that was used as a doorstop in their Long Island home.
UNITED STATES
Armstrong laid to rest at sea
The cremated remains of US astronaut Neil Armstrong were scattered at sea on Friday, in a ceremony aboard a US aircraft carrier paying final tribute to the first man to set foot on the moon, NASA said. US Navy personnel carried Armstrong’s remains to the Atlantic Ocean one day after a somber memorial ceremony at the Washington National Cathedral for the Apollo 11 commander, who died on Aug. 25 at the age of 82. Armstrong’s widow Carol was presented a US flag at the ceremony aboard the USS Philippine Sea that included a bugler and rifle salute.
CANADA
Refuge given to gay Iranians
The government has helped “a large number” of gays and lesbians immigrate from Iran, which renounces them for their homosexuality, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said on Friday. Minister of Immigration Jason Kenney “is working with groups that are active in this regard and helped a large number of people come to Canada,” he said in response to a question after a speech on Canadian values. His speech at the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations touted the government’s efforts to promote the rights of women, as well as those of gays and lesbians abroad. “Too many countries have regressive and punitive laws that criminalize homosexuality,” he said.
BRAZIL
Police officer killed in slum
A police officer was slain while on foot patrol in the nation’s largest slum, military police said on Friday. Diego Bruno Barbosa Henriques was shot and killed overnight on Thursday as he and three fellow officers patroled Rio de Janeiro’s sprawling Rocinha slum. Police and soldiers took over Rocinha in November as part of a large-scale program to restore the rule of law in Rio slums. The government’s reasserted control over the shantytown is seen as strategic as Rio prepares to host the 2014 soccer World Cup and 2016 Olympics because Rocinha is on the road that links the main Olympic village with other event sites.
COLOMBIA
Two men ingest US$40,000
Police said on Friday they have arrested two men who had each ingested about US$40,000 before trying to enter the country, in what may be a novel form of money laundering. The men were detained during the past week at the international airport in Colombia’s second city of Medellin. The two suspects, a Colombian and a Venezuelan, were described as heavy-set men whose capacious stomachs apparently did not have much difficulty accommodating the money. The Colombian man drew the attention of authorities when he seemed nervous while going through airport security. He was asked to pass through a scanner again, when the X-ray revealed numerous items in the abdominal area that turned out to be about 40 capsules each containing US$1,000, officials said.
UNITED STATES
Mom jailed for kids in car
An Alaska woman accused of leaving her two young children in a car when it was at nearly minus-35?C has been given three months in jail after pleading guilty to misdemeanor reckless endangerment. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports 26-year-old Kristin Smith was sentenced on Wednesda. Alaska State Troopers say it was minus-28?C when Smith left her two children — aged 3 and 4 — in a car in January after the vehicle got stuck in a ditch. Smith told troopers she left the kids in the car and walked to her husband’s house, where she took a prescription pill and fell asleep.
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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