Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is to blame for the death of a hostage at the hands of the Islamic State group, an op-ed in Chinese state-run media said yesterday.
The Islamic State group said on Sunday it had executed Haruna Yukawa, one of two Japanese hostages it was holding, in an apparent beheading that has been slammed by leaders around the world.
However, China’s Global Times, which is affiliated with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) mouthpiece the People’s Daily, ran an op-ed that said Abe’s support for the US had drawn Tokyo into the conflict, even though “east Asian countries are not supposed to be key targets” of the Islamic State or global terrorism.
“The killing of the Japanese hostage is more or less the price that Japan has paid for its support to Washington,” the newspaper said in a personalized op-ed that was headlined: “Abe strategy clearer after hostage crisis” and referred to the Japanese prime minister by name five times.
Abe could seek to use the hostage crisis to repeal Japan’s pacifist constitution, first imposed by the US in the wake of World War II, the op-ed suggested.
Beijing and Tokyo have been in conflict over a territorial dispute in the East China Sea, and while the world’s second and third-largest economies have close business ties, their political relationship is colored by history.
Abe branded Yukawa’s murder “outrageous and unforgivable” and called for the immediate release of the other Japanese captive, Kenji Goto.
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
A passerby could hear the cacophony from miles away in the Argentine capital, the unmistakable sound of 2,397 dogs barking — and breaking the unofficial world record for the largest-ever gathering of golden retrievers. Excitement pulsed through Bosques de Palermo, a sprawling park in Buenos Aires, as golden retriever-owners from all over Argentina transformed the park’s grassy expanse into a sea of bright yellow fur. Dog owners of all ages, their clothes covered in dog hair and stained with slobber, plopped down on picnic blankets with their beloved goldens to take in the surreal sight of so many other, exceptionally similar-looking ones.
‘UNWAVERING ALLIANCE’: The US Department of State said that China’s actions during military drills with Russia were not conducive to regional peace and stability The US on Tuesday criticized China over alleged radar deployments against Japanese military aircraft during a training exercise last week, while Tokyo and Seoul yesterday scrambled jets after Chinese and Russian military aircraft conducted joint patrols near the two countries. The incidents came after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi triggered a dispute with Beijing last month with her remarks on how Tokyo might react to a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan. “China’s actions are not conducive to regional peace and stability,” a US Department of State spokesperson said late on Tuesday, referring to the radar incident. “The US-Japan alliance is stronger and more
RSS