JAPAN
Okinawa sets US base vote
Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki yesterday said that the region is to hold a referendum on Feb. 24 over an unpopular project to move a US airbase. The symbolic, non-binding vote might draw renewed attention to the plight of Okinawans, who have fought against the Japanese-US joint plan to close the US Marines’ Futenma Air Station in an urban area and move it to a sparsely populated part of the island region. It comes also after years of local protests against heavy US military presence have fallen on deaf ears in Tokyo and Washington. Tamaki, elected in September after campaigning against the relocation plans, said the referendum would be an opportunity for local residents to voice their views publicly.
HONG KONG
Painting sold for US$60m
A nearly 1,000-year-old ink painting by one of China’s greatest literati masters, Su Shi (蘇軾), fetched US$59.5 million at auction, Christie’s said in Monday. The auction house has described the Song Dynasty work of art as “one of the world’s rarest Chinese paintings.” Entitled Wood and Rock, the ink-on-paper handscroll depicts a dragon-like old tree with withered branches and a sharp rock resting at its root. The painting was the most expensive item ever sold in Christie’s Asia, it said. Su Shi, also known as Su Dongpo (蘇東坡), was an esteemed scholar, poet, prose-writer, painter, calligrapher and statesman. The 185.5cm-long scroll is inscribed with calligraphy and the poems of four important literati of 11th-century China, as well as the seals of 41 collectors. “The number of the works securely attributed to him are very few, probably only two or three. They are extremely rare,” Jonathan Stone, deputy chairman for Christie’s Asian art department, said in an earlier preview.
UNITED STATES
Bush to get Lincoln award
Former president George W. Bush is to receive a prestigious leadership prize from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation. The foundation on Monday said that Bush is to receive the 2019 Lincoln Leadership Prize during a ceremony on April 1 in Chicago. The annual award recognizes people for a lifetime of service in the spirit of Abraham Lincoln, the nation’s 16th president. Ray McCaskey, chairman of the foundation’s board of directors, said that much of Lincoln’s legacy was defined by his leadership during the Civil War. McCaskey said Bush also faced great challenges and demonstrated “resolute leadership” after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In a statement, Bush said Lincoln was one of the nation’s greatest presidents and that he’s proud to accept the award bearing his name.
UNITED STATES
Car plows into pedestrians
A 70-year-old driver trying to parallel park on a New York City street on Monday lost control of his minivan and struck several pedestrians standing next to a fruit stand, killing one person and injuring six others, police said. “The car just suddenly appeared and banged into the wall backward. I was just so shocked,” said witness Jin Lin, 32, who saw several pedestrians trapped between the vehicle and the wall. It happened shortly before 7pm in Chinatown. Police said four people were hospitalized. Two were in critical condition and the other two were in serious condition. The unidentified driver, who remained at the scene, was arrested on charges of failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to exercise due care.
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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