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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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