JAPAN
Abe to skip Beijing parade
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will not attend a military parade in China next week to commemorate the end of World War II, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters yesterday. Suga said the decision was made after considering Abe’s parliamentary activities and political schedule. However, he added Abe told parliament recently that he hoped the theme of China’s commemorative event “would not be anti-Japanese.”
JAPAN
Abe criticizes visit
Abe yesterday criticized his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, for a weekend visit to the disputed Kuril island chain. The visit “conflicts with Japan’s position and hurts the feelings of the Japanese people. It is extremely regrettable,” Abe told a parliamentary panel when asked about the trip. Medvedev on Saturday visited Iturup, one of four Kuril islands controlled by Russia.
JAPAN
Two fires near Tokyo
An explosion yesterday rocked a warehouse at the US Army’s Sagami General Depot in Sagamihara, about 40km from Tokyo, while a blaze broke out at a steel plant near Haneda International Airport. No injuries were reported from either fire. Dramatic video footage showed large sparks shooting out like fireworks from the fire on the depot’s roof. Local and US base firefighters delayed battling the fire while the contents of the building were assessed and the fire died out on its own about six hours after it started, shortly before 1am. US forces said the building held canisters of compressed gases such as nitrogen and oxygen. The Kawasaki city fire department said the blaze at the plant, owned by a unit of Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal, may have been caused by workers who were using gas burners to dismantle the site. The fire was put out shortly after 1:30pm.
PAKISTAN
Kidnapped Chinese freed
A Chinese tourist who was kidnapped by the Taliban more than a year ago has been freed, Minister of the Interior Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said on Sunday. The man was abducted in May last near the western city of Dera Ismail Khan while on a cycling trip. Khan gave few details about the tourist’s recovery other than saying it was the result of an intelligence operation and the culmination of more than a year of effort by the government.
BURUNDI
Amnesty reports on torture
Security forces used iron bars and acid to force confessions and crush opposition during President Pierre Nkurunziza’s successful bid for a third term in office, Amnesty International said yesterday. Testimonies recorded by Amnesty in the report accuse both the police and National Intelligence Service (SNR) of carrying out “torture and other ill-treatment” since April against people suspected of participating in protests against Nkurunziza’s controversial re-election bid. Police beat people with electric cables and batons, while the SNR used iron bars, as well as “forcing detainees’ heads under dirty water,” said the report read, titled Just tell me what to confess to.
EGYPT
Bus bombing kills two
A bomb yesterday struck a bus carrying policemen, killing two and wounding 24, officials said. The attack occurred in the Nile Delta province of Baheira, 260km north of Cairo, while the policemen were travelling to work in a civilian bus.
GUATEMALA
President not resigning
President Otto Perez said on Sunday that he would not resign and rejected allegations that he was one of the ringleaders of a corruption scandal shaking the country. Prosecutors and officials from a UN investigative commission said on Friday they had uncovered extensive evidence implicating Perez and ex-vice president Roxana Baldetti in a massive, highly organized scheme to reduce importers’ customs duties in exchange for bribes. With two weeks to go to general elections, Perez made a statement to the nation in which he pledged to abide by legal processes, but said he would not quit.
MEXICO
Kidnap victims rescued
Officials say federal police have arrested a cell of the Gulf Cartel in the border state of Tamaulipas and freed 11 kidnap victims showing signs of severe malnutrition and torture. A statement from Tamaulipas security officials says the victims were kidnapped while traveling on roads in the state that borders Texas and the Gulf state of Veracruz, and were being held for ransom. Ten people were detained, including the cell leader. Police also found human remains in a septic tank of the house where victims were held in Pueblo Viejo, Veracruz, near the Tamaulipas border.
UNITED STATES
Crowds wish Carter well
Larger-than-usual crowds of well-wishers meant former president Jimmy Carter had to teach an extra Bible class at his rural Georgia church and a local schoolhouse on Sunday, after he announced on Thursday cancer had spread to his brain. Carter, 90, a lifelong Baptist and church deacon, has taught Sunday school for decades, and the Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, is used to a throng. The church’s Web site asks people to line up before 9am and attend an orientation before the 10am class. Carter taught a second Bible class to another crowd at a local school before returning to the church sanctuary to pose for photos with people for more than a half an hour. The first person lined up at midnight and some followers drove hours to attend, local television reported.
UNITED STATES
Two held on gun charges
Two Iowa men suspected of making violent social media threats to people attending the Pokemon World Championships in Boston have been arrested on gun charges. Boston police said on Sunday that convention security reported the threats on Thursday and the suspects were stopped as they were about to enter the event hours later. They said a search of their car on Friday found a 12-gauge shotgun, an AR-15 rifle, several hundred rounds of ammunition and a hunting knife. Police said 18-year-old Kevin Norton, of Ames, and 27-year-old James Stumbo, of Boone, were being arraigned on firearms charges yesterday.
SPAIN
Woman forced to fly plane
A woman was seriously injured on Sunday in an ultralight aircraft crash after she was forced to fly the plane — despite having no flight experience — when the pilot lost consciousness, officials said. The woman suffered burns and multiple contusions, while the pilot died, though it was unclear if that happened before or after the plane crashed near Seville Airport, an emergency services spokesman said. “The woman kept flying, she did not how to fly, so they guided her from the control tower to see if she could control the plane until landing it at the airport,” he added.
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
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
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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