JAPAN
Typhoon to hit Tokyo
The nation yesterday braced for heavy rains and high winds as a strong typhoon was forecast to make landfall near Tokyo overnight. Typhoon Shanshan was a category 2 typhoon, but was expected to weaken slightly as it moves closer to the eastern part of the main island of Honshu, drawing near to Tokyo in the early hours of today and possibly snarling the morning rush hour. Tokyo and surrounding areas could get as much as 350mm of rain in the 24 hours to noon today, with winds gusting as high as 180kph, the Meteorological Agency said. Shanshan is expected to move extremely slowly, perhaps as slow as 15kph, meaning intense rain might fall in one area for an extended period. The storm is expected to rake the northeastern part of Honshu before weakening to a tropical storm and heading out into the Pacific. The nation’s west, the site of deadly floods last month, is forecast to be spared.
ROMANIA
Ancient fortress found
Local and German archeologists have discovered a prehistoric fortress dating back as far as 3,400 years in the nation’s west. The find represented “one of the biggest prehistoric fortresses in Europe in the Bronze Age,” archeologist Florin Golgatan told reporters. The team used specialized archeological magnetic equipment to take underground measurements, said Golgatan, a researcher at the Archeology Institute in Cluj. Last week, they completed a dig uncovering 55 hectares of the 80 hectare site, built between 1,400BC and 1,200BC, near the town of Santana, and plan to continue next year. Local archeologists first began to excavate the site in 2009.
UNITED STATES
NASA to launch solar probe
NASA is poised to launch a US$1.5 billion spacecraft on a brutally hot journey toward the Sun, offering scientists the closest-ever view of the star. After the Parker Solar Probe blasts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, tomorrow, it would become the first spacecraft ever to fly through the Sun’s scorching atmosphere, known as the corona. Understanding how the corona works would help scientists anticipate dangerous space weather storms, which can disrupt the power grid on Earth. “It’s of fundamental importance for us to be able to predict space weather much the way we predict weather on Earth,” NASA solar scientist Alex Young said.
CHINA
Airbnb axes Wall sleepover
Home rental Web site Airbnb has scrapped a contest offering a chance to spend the night at a section of the Great Wall after an online backlash from people worried it could damage the site. News of the “Night At The Great Wall” contest lit up Chinese social media, with critics calling it a publicity stunt that lacked respect for the monument. “No matter how they dress it up, this doesn’t hide the fact that this contest is by a private company that will undeniably cause damage to an ancient artifact,” one person wrote on Sina Weibo. Officials from Yanqing District — home to the section that was to host the sleepover — said in a statement that it had not been notified about the event and that no approval was given. Launched last week, the contest invited users to write about breaking down cultural barriers and building new connections. Four winners would get the chance to spent the night in a customized bedroom built in an ancient watchtower of the wall, which Airbnb said was done in consultation with conservation experts so that “not a single nail” would need to be moved.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
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