JAPAN
Eight claim to be N Koreans
Eight men found on the nation’s northwestern coast on Thursday night claim to be North Koreans whose boat ran adrift during a fishing trip, the government’s top spokesman told reporters yesterday. The men were found in Akita Prefecture late on Thursday near a 20m-long wooden boat and have been taken into custody. The government will deal “appropriately” with the men, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said, adding that the men, whose nationalities could not be confirmed, were healthy. The government earlier this month rescued and returned to North Korea a group of three fishermen whose boat had capsized in the Sea of Japan. Wooden boats containing what appear to be the corpses of North Koreans sometimes drift ashore on the coast, but it is unusual for them to make it to the nation alive.
UNITED STATES
Navy ends search for sailors
The navy said it has called off a search for three sailors missing since Wednesday, when a transport plane crashed in the Philippine Sea south of Japan en route to the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan. “During the course of two days, eight US Navy and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ships, three helicopter squadrons and maritime patrol aircraft covered nearly 1,000 square nautical miles [3,430km2],” the Seventh Fleet said in a media release. Eight other people on the C-2 Greyhound were rescued shortly after the aircraft crashed and were transferred to the Reagan. The propeller-powered C-2 was conducting a routine flight carrying passengers and cargo from Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan to the carrier. The mainstay transport aircraft for the navy’s carrier fleet has been in operation for more than five decades and is due to be replaced by a long-range version of the tilt-rotor V-22 Osprey. The navy said it is investigating the cause of the crash.
UNITED STATES
Woman helps homeless man
A fund set up to raise money for a homeless man who helped a woman when her car ran out of gas in Philadelphia has collected more than US$280,000. The GoFundMe campaign was started by Bordentown, New Jersey, resident Kate McClure earlier this month after she was stuck along Interstate 95 and Johnny Bobbitt Jr bought her some gas with his last US$20. McClure said she did not have money to pay him back, but she returned to his spot several times in the following days to give him cash, clothes and food. She said she then started the fundraiser hoping to collect US$10,000 to cover housing and other expenses for him. McClure said she wishes she “could do more for this selfless man.” Donations had poured in from about 10,000 people by Thursday.
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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