JAPAN
New envoy to China dies
The newly appointed envoy to China died in a Tokyo hospital yesterday, officials said, ruling out any link to growing anti-Japan protests in Chinese cities over an escalating territorial row. Ambassador Shinichi Nishimiya, who was officially appointed on Tuesday, was taken to hospital after falling ill on a street near his home in the capital’s fashionable Shibuya District on Thursday, according to reports. “Ambassador Shinichi Nishimiya died in a hospital,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. The death had “nothing to do with any accident or anti-Japanese demonstrations” in China, a foreign ministry official said. Nishimiya had planned to leave for Beijing next month.
JAPAN
Typhoon brings blackouts
A powerful typhoon passing over the southwest has left tens of thousands of homes without power and brought transportation to the region by sea and air to a standstill. The Meteorological Agency said Typhoon Sanba crossed over the Ryuku Islands yesterday and was headed toward the Korean Peninsula after dumping heavy rains and whipping Okinawa with powerful winds. It described the typhoon as large and very strong, with gusts of up to 250kph. The agency warned residents to stay indoors. The storm caused flight and ferry cancellations. More than 60,000 homes were without power, according to media reports. NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster, showed scenes of flooded houses and roads in Okinawa’s main city, but there were no immediate reports of deaths or significant injuries.
IRELAND
Tabloid runs Kate photos
A tabloid newspaper broke ranks with its British and Irish rivals to publish topless pictures of the wife of Prince William on Saturday, risking legal action from the royal family and prompting its British co-owner to cut ties with the title. The royal couple have already begun action against the French magazine Closer for publishing a dozen shots of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge — the former Kate Middleton — taken as she slipped off her bikini top while sunbathing at a secluded French country house. The pictures have reignited a debate over privacy and freedom of the press, especially in Britain, where media could face new regulations after a series of publishing scandals. All British papers have refrained from publishing the photographs, including the Sun, the only British title to run pictures of William’s brother Harry cavorting naked in a Las Vegas hotel last month. The Irish Daily Star paper published a two-page spread of 10 photographs of the duchess from Closer magazine under the headline “Angry Kate to sue mag over snaps.” A spokeswoman for Prince William condemned the publication.
UKRAINE
Poll risks failing test: US
The US warned the country on Saturday the prosecution of opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko was damaging its ties with the West, but an official responded by asking for US help to mount another criminal probe against her. The case of Tymoshenko, a former prime minister jailed for seven years for alleged abuse of office, dominated a two-day international gathering ahead of a parliamentary election next month that the country hopes will enhance its democratic credentials. Just a day after President Viktor Yanukovych told the conference he expected the Oct. 28 poll to help the country seal a long-sought association agreement with the EU, a senior US State Department official said it was falling short of democratic standards.
MEXICO
Deputy-elect shot to death
Law enforcement officials say assassins have shot to death a deputy-elect in Sonora two days before he was scheduled to take office. State prosecutors say Eduardo Castro Luque was shot nine times in Hermosillo on Friday, including once in the head. He was killed in his car outside his home, and two assassins fled the scene on a motorcycle. He was elected to Sonora’s state legislature, representing the Institutional Revolutionary Party. The 48-year-old owned a publicity agency and had never held elected office before. He was also the operating manager of the Yaquis professional baseball team in the city of Ciudad Obregon. Last month, the mayor-elect of the town of Matehuala in San Luis Potosi state was also shot to death. He also belonged to the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
UNITED STATES
Air Force training overhauled
The Air Force has chosen a woman to lead its basic training unit where dozens of female recruits have alleged they were sexually assaulted or harassed by male instructors in the past year. The Air Force announced on Saturday that Colonel Deborah Liddick would take command of the 737th Training Group at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, this week. Her appointment comes amid a sex scandal that has rocked one of the nation’s busiest military training centers and caught the attention of Congress. Six male instructors have been charged with crimes ranging from rape to adultery. Liddick is already stationed in San Antonio, where she serves as chief of the maintenance division at the former Randolph Air Force Base. She is scheduled to take command on Friday.
VENEZUELA
US criticism raises hackles
Caracas on Saturday rejected as unsubstantiated a new US report that accused President Hugo Chavez’s government of failing to fight the drugs trade. Chavez, a socialist seeking re-election next month, is a ferocious critic of Washington, and his nearly 14-year rule has been characterized by frequent bilateral spats and incidents. Narcotics has been a thorny issue in between the oil-producing country and the US, its main client. In 2005, Chavez kicked US drug enforcement agents out of the country, accusing them of spying on his “Bolivarian Revolution.” The country remains “one of the preferred trafficking routes out of South America,” thanks to its “porous western border with Colombia,” a top cocaine producer, according to US President Barack Obama’s annual drugs memorandum to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, published on Friday.
UNITED STATES
MacDonald tried again
Jeffrey MacDonald, a clean-cut Green Beret and doctor convicted of killing his pregnant wife and their two daughters, is getting another chance at trying to prove his innocence — more than four decades after the slayings terrified a nation gripped by his tales of Charles Manson-like hippies doped up on acid slaughtering his family in their own home. The case now hinges on something that was not available when he was first put on trial: DNA evidence. A federal judge will convene a hearing in Raleigh, North Carolina, today to consider new DNA evidence and witness testimony that MacDonald and his supporters say will finally clear him of a crime that became the basis of Joe McGinniss’ best-selling book Fatal Vision and a made-for-TV drama. MacDonald, now 68 and not eligible for parole until 2020, has never wavered in maintaining his innocence.
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
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
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
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