JAPAN
Quick Ebola test developed
A research team yesterday said it had developed a field test for Ebola that gives results in just over 11 minutes — down from the 90-minute test used now. The breakthrough by Nagasaki University’s Institute of Tropical Medicine will allow medics to move much more quickly in treating people with the hemorrhagic fever, professor Jiro Yasuda said. The trial was conducted in Guinea last month on 100 samples, of which 47 proved positive. The Guinean government has asked the institute and its collaboration partner, Toshiba, to supply equipment to roll out the test, he said.
THAILAND
Israeli girl dies in boat fire
A search team yesterday found the body of a 12-year-old Israeli girl, the only fatality from a tourist boat that caught fire in the Andaman Sea, officials said. The rest of about 110 passengers, mostly foreign tourists, and crew were rescued on Wednesday after the boat sank in flames off the coast of Krabi Province. The girl’s body was recovered by a team of up to 50 navy, marine police and national park officers, who were searching for her since the sinking, Krabi Deputy Governor Narong Woonchew said. The girl was vacationing with her parents and was believed to be in the restroom when the fire broke out, police said.
AUSTRALIA
Banana disease spreads
A second case of a destructive disease affecting banana plants has been confirmed, dashing hopes that a recently confirmed outbreak would be isolated and threatening the country’s A$550 million (US$423 million) sector. The so-called Tropical Race 4 strain of Panama disease was found at a farm in Mareeba in the far north of Queensland, the local government said yesterday. It comes a month after the discovery of the first case in Queensland at a farm in Tully. State biosecurity officials quarantined that farm.
JAPAN
Prolific sex tourist arrested
A former school principal who allegedly paid for sex with 12,000 women while in the Philippines has been arrested in his home country, over claims at least one of them was as young as 13, media reported on Wednesday. Yuhei Takashima had meticulously catalogued nearly 150,000 photographs of his exploits over a 27-year period in about 400 separate albums because he wanted “to keep the memories,” Jiji Press and other media said. Takashima, 64, told police he started paying for sex when he was dispatched to a Japanese school in Manila in 1988, Jiji said. Thereafter, the former middle-school principal had been on three sex tours a year to the country, for a total of 65 visits, reports said. He had sex with more than 12,000 women aged 14 to 70, broadcaster NTV reported.
CAMBODIA
New poll body appointed
Lawmakers yesterday overwhelmingly approved a vote to remake the country’s electoral body, part of a political deal to help ensure fairness in the next national vote in 2018. Opposition leader Sam Rainsy praised the move, calling it a “historic milestone for Cambodia.” Rainsy’s Cambodia National Rescue Party had accused the previous electoral commission of being biased and disputed results of the 2013 ballot, triggering a political crisis and mass demonstrations that eased amid negotiations with the government last year. The new commission will include four members from Rainsy’s party, four from Prime Minister Hun Sen’s party and one neutral slot that will go to the head of an independent electoral watchdog group.
UNITED KINGDOM
Torys make sub fleet vow
Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party yesterday promised to renew the country’s aging nuclear submarine fleet if it wins a May 7 national election, hoping to put pressure on its main rival Labour to match the commitment. Replacing the vessels carrying the Trident missiles — four Vanguard-class submarines — is expected to cost ￡20 billion (US$29.71 billion) with a final decision on the renewal due to be made next year. Opponents say replacing Trident could cost as much as ￡100 billion and the government should consider cheaper alternatives. The Conservatives have long supported renewing Trident, and yesterday’s pledge is designed as a challenge to Labour, which has mooted the idea that three submarines could fulfil the same role.
UNITED STATES
Reporter Schieffer to retire
Bob Schieffer, host of the weekly politics show Face the Nation and CBS’s top correspondent in Washington, is retiring after 46 years at the network. Schieffer, 78, announced his retirement during a symposium at Texas Christian University, his alma mater, in Fort Worth on Wednesday. He will step down in the summer, according to CBS Corp. “Great talking journalism @TCU tonight,” Schieffer wrote in a Twitter posting. “Also happy to be in my hometown, where it started, to announce my retirement.” Schieffer interviewed every US president since Richard Nixon, and reported on the Pentagon, Department of State, Congress and the White House during his tenure at the network. He has hosted Face the Nation since 1991 and won eight Emmy Awards.
MEXICO
Gold mine robbed
A robbery of US$8.5 million in gold from a mine refinery in western Sinaloa State was likely an inside job, authorities said on Wednesday. Sinaloa Interior Minister Gerard Vargas Landeros told reporters that the caper at the facility of Canada-based McEwen Mining had to have been pulled off by either employees or ex-employees. “It was premeditated, well planned and organized,” Vargas said. “It had to have been done by someone who knows the inside movements ... we believe we can solve this very quickly.” The theft occurred on Tuesday at the El Gallo 1 mine and involved 900kg of gold-bearing concentrate containing approximately 7,000 ounces of gold.
PANAMA
Cubans jeer dissidents
About 100 Cuban government supporters jeered dissidents as they arrived at a Latin American civil society forum in Panama City on Wednesday. The group shouted “sell outs” and “imperialists” at the government opponents, getting louder when prominent dissident Manuel Cuesta Morua arrived. The government supporters later left the forum in disgust. “There are criminals and terrorists at this forum who want to speak in the name of Cuban civil society,” Cuban Writers and Artists Union vice president Luis Morlote Rivas said.
UNITED STATES
N Korea deports aid worker
An aid worker deported by North Korea on charges of using her humanitarian status as a cover to gather and produce propaganda against Pyongyang arrived in Beijing yesterday, the US embassy said. The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said Sandra Suh had been a frequent visitor over the past 20 years “under the pretence of humanitarianism.” She had “engaged in plot-breeding” and secretly taken photographs and produced videos that had then been used as “propaganda abroad,” the agency said.
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
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