JAPAN
Quakes rattle Japan
A pair of moderate earthquakes rattled northern and southern Japan yesterday, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage, and there was no danger of a tsunami. The Meteorological Agency said the first quake was a magnitude 5.5 and occurred just off the southern coast of Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost main island, at 2:13pm. It said that the quake had a depth of 20km, and that there was no danger of a tsunami. A few minutes later, a magnitude 5.7 quake struck just off the coast of the southern island of Okinawa, at a depth of 40km. There was no threat of a tsunami from that one either.
PHILIPPINES
Smoke forces flight to land
Smoke from an air vent forced a Philippine Airlines flight to Japan to turn back just minutes after taking off yesterday, aviation officials said. “Apparently there was information that the pilot detected smoke in the cabin. So as part of safety measures, the pilot had to return to the ground,” civil aviation authority spokesman Eric Apolonio said. The Airbus A340-300 plane, carrying 222 passengers and 13 crew to Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, was forced to return to Manila 20 minutes after taking off, an airline statement said. The cause of the incident is still being investigated, the airline said.
AUSTRALIA
Delegation to visit Iran
The trade minister is to lead the country’s first business delegation to visit Iran in 14 years after sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear program were eased. Steven Ciobo said he would leave today for the visit that is to include reopening an Australian trade office that closed in 2010. Ciobo said he would be accompanied by 20 representatives of Australian companies, with expertise in health, water management, agribusiness, mining, education and training. Two-way trade between Australia and Iran fluctuated between A$350 million and A$600 million (US$266 million to US$457) a year while Australian sanctions were in place, he said.
CANADA
New accord with China inked
An agreement signed between the Canadian border agency and China is to result in the faster deportation of Chinese citizens deemed inadmissible by Canadian authorities, a government spokesman said on Sunday. The deal will allow Chinese officials to travel to Canada to interview Chinese citizens considered inadmissible, with the aim of verifying their identities and documents, said Scott Bardsley, press secretary to Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale. According to the Department of Immigration, those deemed inadmissible include people with criminal records, serious health or financial issues or who have lied on their visa applications.
THAILAND
Ousted leader fires back
Former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra called for fairness and said the junta should treat her the same way the generals treat their allies accused of wrongdoing, after a state-appointed committee recommended she pay a 35 billion baht (US$1 billion) fine. Yingluck, whose government was ousted in a military coup in 2014, has been accused of negligence in overseeing her government’s signature policy of purchasing rice from farmers at above-market rates. The proposed penalty amounts to about 20 percent of the 178 billion baht that the programs cost the country in 2012 and 2013, Comptroller General’s Department Director General Manas Jamveha told reporters on Saturday.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
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